How Sean Leverett caught one of his most memorable catches

The capture

Sean's capture of the amazing 'Snubby' from Roach Pit in Hampshire

It is hard to single out one fish to be my most memorable. Each and every fish means a lot to me and to pick one would be very difficult. But I suppose one that really comes to mind, especially from a tactical basis, would be ‘Atlas’ or ‘Snubby’ as some call it from Roach Pit. I had been on the lake since the end of July 2012 and had been catching well. As the summer was in full swing, I wanted to pick an area of the lake where I could get something going, and so chose the swim known as ‘The Rat Hole’, which had not really been fished for a couple of years.

It was massively overgrown, so I firstly had to spend a bit of time clearing it, and eventually after hours of hard work, there was enough room to fit both my brolly and the rods. With the swim looking very cosy, I had a lead around to see what I could find and it took a while to find anything fishable - with pretty much every cast and each pull back with the rod retrieving weed. Eventually, I received a firm drop at around 65 yards, I suppose it was nothing bigger than a food tray - just enough for one rod.

Nervous times – clearing weed from the line when somewhere below lies a target carp

Knowing that the fish liked this area, but were not used to receiving any pressure in it, I didn’t worry too much about dispatching a heavy bed of bait to the spot; around 30kilos of mixed particles, pellets, Krill boilies and powder, as well as the Krill liquid - hoping to get the fish ‘on it’ in the area. This worked a treat and a few sessions in, I had already caught a number of fish, including one of the lake’s biggest – a carp known as Orange Spot. I would also see the odd show over the spot and one fish that looked distinctly like ‘Snubby’.

After turning up one Monday morning, I made my way back to the swim and began by spodding out another good hit of bait as I had a good inclination ‘Snubby’, a carp known as a ‘bait fish’, was now regularly feeding on the spot. By now my going spot was considerably bigger as well, big enough for two of my rods. The following morning I watched her showing over the spot, as she went back down, sheets of bubbles appeared directly above the rods, followed by a series of bleeps. I knew I was getting done I had to be? She was so up for it and I was yet to put a hook in her!

Convinced of being ‘done’ by ‘Snubby’ Sean takes a gamble and makes some changes to his presentation

Reluctantly, I knew I needed to change things rig-wise. It’s not an easy thing to change something that was working so well. So I eventually decided on using a KD Rig on one rod – keeping the hookbait the same, a snowman set-up with a 16mm Krill bottom bait balanced with a 12mm Pineapple pop-up. I left the other rod fishing on the bottom bait Multi Rig that I had been using.

The next morning I had quite an odd take, the bobbin lifting-up ever so slowly - but I knew there was one on! I picked-up the rod and had that horrible grating sensation transmitted up the line to indicate that the fish was locked up in weed. In a bid to get above the fish, which in turn would help free it from the weed, with lifejacket on, I jumped in the boat. Once above the fish I could feel it moving around on the bottom, but couldn’t lift her up. Then, as it was charging about beneath a huge raft of weed, it somehow managed to wipe out my other line. Two guys stood by my rods at the time thought I had another fish on and were shouting at me, trying to explain this; eventually understanding the situation as I shouted back to them to just take the bail alarm off and leave it be.

Rested, calm, now for the photos…

By this point Marcus Howarth steering the boat had seen which fish it was, but kept things very quiet. All I could see was a weed covered fish twisting and turning in the depths, wrapping itself up in the other line. It was becoming a bit of nightmare by now and for the sake of the carp and my own sanity, I just wanted her in the net!

It was carnage, weed and line everywhere with a huge carp a few yards below the surface still unhappy about the situation! I couldn’t lift anymore with the rod, so had to take to hand lining the fish in. As I gingerly teased the line up, I grabbed the leadcore and in one smooth motion, Marcus scooped-up a huge raft of carp containing weed, instantly announcing to me that it was indeed ‘Snubby’ and she looked big!

A few of the lads were on hand to help me with the fish

I was absolutely elated, but took a few deep breaths to calm down from the situation. The fish had been on for a good half an hour and everything that could have gone wrong had done - much to my annoyance. The two guys on the bank then proceeded to ask what it was, time after time, while I was trying to untangle all the line. It was everywhere and I was beginning to lose my patience with the two fellas shouting at me.

Once we got back to the bank, I gave Marcus the net to allow the fish to recover in the water and I needed a couple of minutes myself - to calm down and compose myself. This fish had really got under my skin, but I had finally managed to catch her! Although she is not the cleanest looking carp, she is an old fish that is full of character and one of Roach Pit’s finest. Weighing a healthy 45lb 10oz and looking in great condition, it meant so much to me, as I felt as though I had really earned it. ‘Snubby’, one of my target fish had been regularly visiting the spot, but was getting away with it - by making a few small changes to the rig, I had managed to trick her!

How it all came together

Five key reasons that Sean feels led to his capture of 'Snubby'

1. Hair length and hook pattern

When I was using the bottom bait Multi Rig, I found that with a long Hair you would get much better hook holds. However, with the KD Rig, I don’t think the hookbait sits correctly with this length of Hair, which can result in losses. So I tied-up the KD Rig with a much shorter Hair than I’d been using - a gamble that certainly paid off. To allow the hookbait to ‘kick out’ at an angle, which is something that you need to achieve with the KD Rig I also changed hook pattern, moving from the Stiff-Riggers I was using for my Multi-Rig to a curve shaped hook. Which goes to show sometimes the smallest of changes like this, can have a massive result!

2. Hooklink length

Convinced that the feeding style of ‘Snubby’ was enabling her to get away it, I not only wanted to change my rig, but also a few of the mechanical elements. Shortening the hook length down to around three and a half inches was one of them as sometimes fish feed high, up off the bottom, while others may suck in objects being very close to it.

To me ‘Snubby’ was clearly feeding very low to the bottom and consequently, getting away with it each time. By shortening the rig, I was hoping that it would feel the full impact of the lead once the bait was picked-up – it worked!

3. Heavy leads

As with point two, I wanted to increase the resistance from the lead and so changed from a two and a half ounce lead to one of four and a half ounces. With the shorter hooklink I wanted the fish to feel the full weight of a heavy lead as soon as it picked-up the hookbait, straightening the rig. The large lump of putty near the hook seems to do this for you with the Multi Rig. However, the KD does not have this and needed something like a large lead to help set the hook home. Boy did this work well! The hook-hold itself was unbelievable, exactly what I needed to land a powerful carp from so much weed!

4. The spot

A lot of my fishing is based on what kind of a ‘drop’ I get with the lead hitting the bottom. With the ‘Rat Hole’ swim, I was leading around for a couple of hours, looking for something relatively clean. If I cast out, feel the lead down and receive a firm donk,

I am happy with it. This spot in particular was just that, really hard and in amongst plenty of weed. For me, this is the ideal spot to present a bait. The harder the spot is to find, the more likely it is that it has been created naturally, as opposed to other angler’s baits being cleaned away. So a good spot to pick that would allow me to invest in a bit of a baiting campaign.

5. Bait

Bait-wise, I had been using a seed mix for a while and it was working really well. Mainly standard particles mixed in with a bit of Krill liquid and powder with some Bloodworm Pellets. I was putting this mix into the lake in quite large quantities at times and would often add a good amount of boilies too. On one occasion I can remember recasting a rod after it had been dived on by a coot and less than ten minutes later I had a carp on. Regardless of how much bait you have at your disposal, as long as you keep to a flavour, in my case ‘The Krill’ and feed regularly you will get the carp ‘on it’.