Lee 'Mozza' Morris's Year In Review

I can’t believe we are getting ready to say goodbye to 2017, but time flies when you are having fun, as they say. It has been a special year for me in more ways than one: My first-ever angling show talk, a mental two weeks on the Island Swim at Rainbow and joining DNA Baits as their dedicated videographer, which has kept me mega busy!

I spent much of the first part of the year working on Simmo’s fish farm

Part 1: First Part Of The Year

The year actually began with me working alongside ‘Mr. Larger Than Life’ himself, Mark Simmonds, on his fish farm. I studied Fishery Management at Sparsholt College back in the day, so my love of and interest in carp goes much deeper than just catching them. We spent the first couple of months of the year harvesting Simmo’s three main ponds. Well, I say ponds, but they are something like 12- to 15-acres in size. As part of the harvest, fish were then taken to the holding farms, ready to be distributed around the country to Simmo’s many customers.

Probably the most special moment of the whole winter for me was being given the opportunity to handpick six of the very nicest fish to be stocked into a famous and very exclusive Essex syndicate water. I occasionally get to fish this water, and little more than a month later, straight after the Carpin’ On Show at Five Lakes, I ventured down for a few nights and actually caught one of the fish I stocked, a beautiful 20lb fully! It was so strange to think I was only holding the fish a month earlier when I put it into the lake, but it was lovely to see it was doing so well.

I spent much of the first part of the year working on Simmo’s fish farm

That trip to the Essex syndicate was actually my first proper session of the year. I was so busy with the carp farming that I didn’t really have the chance to get the rods out. As well as getting stuck in with the harvest, I also did some filming for Simmo and put together a little video for him about his carp farming, documenting what happens over what is a crazy winter period. It was nice to help Simmo out, because I know he rubs people up the wrong way sometimes, but he really does have a heart of gold and will do anything for anyone, so long as you don’t cross him – but that’s another story!

Prior to the Carpin’ On Show, I accepted the offer from DNA Baits to be their videographer, which has shaped a large part of my year. My first professional duty as such was to meet up with the lovable Chris ‘Bones’ Holmes on the banks of Linear Fisheries to get some footage for the first instalment of DNA Digital. A couple of weeks later I went up to Lincolnshire to catch up with the legend that is Mark Holmes at a very windy Deepings in Lincolnshire and picked his brains about, well, everything. I love listening to Holmesy and got a great segment from the trip.

Part 2: Springing Into Spring

Then at Carpin’ On in March, I actually did my first-ever on-stage talk, which seemed to go really well. It must have done, because on the back of that I then got offers to do a talk at the Northern Angling Show, The Big One and a military show. I covered all sorts of subjects across the shows, from my general fishing and extreme angling to a recap of my angling life and my adventures at Rainbow. It was good fun and an honour to be asked in the first place.

I also turned my attentions to Pit 4 at Frimley in March, having messed around on Pit 3 towards the back end of 2016. It can be a very moody lake and hadn’t done a fish in nearly six-months! I obviously knew I would be up against it, but much to my delight, I managed to fluke one out in the form of a lovely 33lb mirror, which was also a new lake record mirror, so I was doubly pleased. I got some footage of the capture and used it in the intro of DNA Digital 1, which went live in April. If you’ve not seen DNA Digital, check it out on YouTube. It’s a magazine-style series featuring details of the latest goings-on at DNA, on-the-bank clips with DNA consultants, match highlights, all sorts of stuff… I’ve been all over the country filming for it this year and loved every minute.

I did my first-ever show talk on the Main Stage at Carpin’ On in March

In April, I had my second fish of the year from Pit 4, which was mental because it came while we were filming a Facebook Live segment one evening with Harry Charrington for Fox! It was a mirror known as the Kinky Back Fully, which I had caught before, but the timing was just incredible. I was answering questions from viewers and one of them was something like, ‘Do you get any evening bites on there?’ I’d never had an evening bite on Pit 4 and was just saying, ‘No, mate; I’ve never had an evening bite on here. You don’t really get any evening bites on here,’ when one of my rods melted off! I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, Harry filmed the whole lot and we got good old Kinky Back on camera, weighing in at 26lb. To get two mirrors in a row is almost unheard of on Pit 4, not least getting one in an evening. Crazy stuff!

Knowing I had two weeks coming up on the island at Rainbow at the end of April, the rest of the month was spent preparing for that. There is just so much to consider when you go to Rainbow, as it’s not like fishing any normal venue. Lead allowance is a big thing, because if you overload the vehicle with too much weight, you aren’t even going to make it there! If I say I might take 300-400 12oz leads and 300-400 6oz leads, and Paul will take the same, you get some sort of idea how much extra weight is involved. Then there’s probably 400kg of bait between the two of us. It’s an absolute minefield, to be honest, and is impossible to get on top of; you just have to do the best you can. The Island is the best swim in the world, though, and every day of preparation just made me all the more excited for what was to come.

The drive from my house to Rainbow is exactly 701 miles and if you could bottle the emotions you experience on that drive you’d be a millionaire! It is such a buzz. Even on the way back you still get the same feeling; it does something to you that lake. The best way to sum it up is, when you go on holiday somewhere and have an epic time, it’s never as good the next time you go. Well, Rainbow is the complete opposite! It is always better and better every time you go, which is why me and so many other people keep going back.

The trip turned out to be as awesome as I’d dreamed about. We landed 93 fish between us and didn’t lose a single one, which is unheard of when you consider what Rainbow is like. I was only fishing with one rod for the first four days, because the action was so frenetic there was no point even getting the others out!

The infamous Bollocks Rig loaded up

It was actually the first time I had taken DNA’s SLK boilies to Rainbow. I use SLK for the majority of my UK fishing and knew it would come up goods with the bigger fish, as to me, it’s a big fish bait. While I was out at Rainbow, I was shown the ‘Bollocks Rig’ by Kev Garrett, which is essentially two bottom baits fished side by side rather than lengthways. I opted to combine the Bollocks Rig with the SLK and didn’t have a fish below 50lb, with the biggest being a 64-pounder. The rod that was doing the most of the bites, however, was fished on the Switch. I’d had my dream fish, Thousand Scale, at 71lb the year before on the Switch, so used that on one rod and that rod just kept going every few hours for the whole trip! The average size wasn’t as big, but the action never relented.
It was just an epic trip from start to finish and was made all the more special by the fact a couple of Italian anglers who did a fortnight on the Island before us only had seven fish. We’d had that number in the first four hours! I can only put that down to the fact we were using far superior bait.

The only problem with it being such a good session was the filming suffered as a consequence. I’ve documented my past few trips for YouTube and will be doing the same for this one, whenever I ever get around to piecing it all together, but I didn’t quite get some of the shots I wanted due to the fact a lot of the time was spent landing fish. We had some awesome carp and I’ll try to get as many as possible on the video to show everyone what a mega place Rainbow is.

Part 3: The Midway Point

What a lot of people can’t believe is that when I get back from two weeks at Rainbow, all I want to do is go fishing! Because the sort of fishing you do at Rainbow is so far removed from normal fishing, I just can’t wait to cast a rod again. So, within a week of getting home from Rainbow, I went to Pit 4, which hadn’t done a fish in a few weeks, and guess what, I only went and bagged one! What was funny about it was, because I had been looking at forties, fifties and sixties for the past couple of weeks, I thought it was a mid-double. I unhooked it in the water and was about to slip it back without a picture, when I remembered I needed to get a little bit of footage for DNA. I got the fish out and slipped it on the scales, just out of interest, and was absolutely gobsmacked to see it was 28lb! I just laughed to myself, as I couldn’t believe I’d nearly put it straight back. That’s what two weeks on Rainbow does to you!

I never thought I’d fish a match again, but Carp Wars was something I couldn’t turn down

I started to get my life in order after that and began focusing on everything DNA. We’ve had some awesome products out this year, such as the Half Tones hookbaits, the Hydro Spod Syrups and the Tuna Oil, so I concentrated on getting some videos done on them and got to work on DNA Digital 2. My fishing suffered as a result, but I was still getting the buzz from being out on the bank with some of DNA’s top boys. Let’s face it, the best office in the world is being by the side of a lake.

Then around July time I got a call from Fishing TV inviting me to take part in the second series of Carp Wars 2 after Ian Chillcott was forced to pull out when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. (I hope you are on the mend, Chilly.) The first series of Carp Wars aired on Sky Sports last year and turned out to be a big success; even Chris Evans became a fan and talked about it regularly on his Radio 2 Breakfast Show! I had given match fishing a try in the past and even did a BCAC qualifier with Mark Bartlett when I was 17, but it wasn’t for me; there was too much bitchiness involved for my liking. However, Carp Wars is a different kettle of fish and fishing against the likes of Dave Lane, Dave Levy, Iain Macmillan and Ian Russell was too good an opportunity to turn down. The concept of it is brilliant too, with two anglers going head-to-head over 24hrs, earning two points for the largest combined weight and one point for the largest fish. Each angler also gets three lifelines (an extra hour; an extra rod; double the weight of the next fish) to use over the round-robin matches, which adds a really interesting element, as tactics and mind games also come into it.

The Carp Wars crew were a very professional bunch

Now, I can’t go into too many details about the series, as it doesn’t air until the end of the year, but it has been absolutely epic! It has ruined me, don’t get me wrong, as each match is 24hrs of torture on both body and mind, but I’ve absolutely loved it. Hopefully the viewers will feel the same when it airs.

In between filming Carp Wars, in late July, I filmed the DNA pairing of Kev Grout and Luke Church in the BCAC semi-final on Brasenose 1. The lads absolutely fished their socks off and finished second in the match, landing 29 fish in 48hrs for 560lb 5oz. The coverage of the match is featured in DNA Digital 2 and has had a really positive reaction. Whether you’re into match fishing or not, you can’t help but be impressed with the ability of some of these lads.

A month later I was on the bank again filming Kev and Luke in the final of the BCAC at the mighty Wraysbury 1 North Lake for DNA Digital 3. This place has changed a hell of a lot since I fished it at the turn of the century, but it always seems to produce a brilliant match. The lads got off to an awesome start when Kev banked a 35lb 15oz common in the first few hours, which they followed up with a 21-pounder shortly after. Unfortunately, it was a tale of lost fish after that. They did pick up three more fish and took a very respectable third place overall, but they would have won it if it wasn’t for the lost fish. The emotions of it all are there to be seen in DNA Digital 3. I was gutted for them, but they’ll come again, for certain, and are too good not to win it one year.

Towards the backend of the summer, I managed to get back on Pit 4 for a few sessions to do a bit of my own fishing again

Part 4: The Autumn Time

After the summer, I managed to get back on Pit 4 for a few sessions to do a bit of my own fishing again. Sadly, I lost what a thought was a really good fish on my second trip back. It gave me a bite and a fight typical of a big fish, until the hook pulled with the fish heading for the island. To say I was gutted would be an immense understatement. You don’t get many bites as it is on Pit 4!

On a more positive note, a few days later I got a phone call from one of the DNA lads, Jase Walker, telling me he had the Twin in the sling on Dinton Pastures’ White Swan Lake. As it happens, I was on my way up to Oxfordshire to meet up with Karl Palmer that day, so I stopped off in Berkshire to get some footage of this immense fish, all 46lb 6oz of it! Well done, Jase!

Then in October I headed off to Norfolk to begin filming the third season of the DNA Winter Series with Kev and Luke. We are doing one a month until February and are expecting some challenging conditions along the way, but that’s what winter fishing is all about, and as we showed in the previous Winter Series two years ago, you catch carp in any conditions and that’s what we want to demonstrate once again.

A 360ş Rig with an SLK pop-up is what I use for the majority of my English fishing

Part 5: The Winter Series

At the time of writing, I’m about to film the second episode of the Winter Series with Perry Alabaster at Elphicks Fisheries. I love being out on the bank in the winter, even despite the long, cold nights. The fish are looking their best and every capture feels like an achievement in itself. If cold-weather carping isn’t for you, look out for the Winter Series when it goes live on YouTube and you might think again. In the meantime, have a fantastic Christmas and a prosperous New Year!