Following my first trip to the Pump Pond I went again for a few hours, judging that the evening probably provided the best opportunities. I went with Mick, our neighbour's father, and we arrived just before 5 pm. I decided to go for the reed corner where I had lost a fish on my first visit. It was a very breezy evening and this caused a bit of difficulty with my free-lining technique.

I cast a piece of flake right to the far corner by the reeds and soon had a good run, which I hit, only quickly to lose the fish in the reeds. I had taken my 1¾lb test barbel road with 12lb line but the line broke as I tried to turn the fish from the reeds.

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The next few hours provided no more bites, either on bread or luncheon meat, and just after 8 pm I decided that I would have one more cast, and again dropped a large piece of flake in the far corner. It was starting to get dark and I got a pull on the line almost immediately and struck into a large fish. This time I put upward pressure on the fish, calculating that if I could get its head up this would be more likely to succeed than trying to turn it. This seemed to work and the fish thrashed for a while in the reed margin before going into open water. However, it made numerous further attempts to get into the reeds, and each time I applied upward pressure - successfully.

As I got the fish closer I realised it was big and tried not to bully it too much, After a number of close-in swirls and lunges I finally subdued it and was very pleased as it slipped into the net. It was a magnificently conditioned mirror carp and unlike some of the Fields End fish, showed no evidence of mouth damage from being repeatedly caught. It weighed in at just under 17lb.

Light was fading and the young lad who I had met on the previous trip appeared and took a photo. Not the best, I'm afraid, but it serves to record the event.

While not my biggest carp, it is the one I'm most proud of to date, because it was difficult to tempt and extremely hard to land. And it was in superb shape.