With a week booked off in August I was all ready and prepared to once again chase, and hopefully catch the St Georges 40lb’er known as the Question Mark!

I’m certain we have met before, once a screaming take, a long slow strong fight followed by loosing it and reeling in a completely straightened hook!

So I left Petersfield in Hampshire and an hour later I was at St Georges in Shepperton, Surrey. The weather conditions were looking perfect for the week and to say I was confident would be an understatement! I had my aims set on a swim called “the croc” as you can see 99% of the lake and being only 9 acres and most likely have it all to my self during the week casting to showing fish would not be a problem. This fitted in nicely with my plan as I wanted to create feeding areas with big beds of bait and only move if I really had too.

So as I drove into the car park I could see my swim was available, but rather than just barrow everything round I decided to spend a couple of hours walking and climbing trees to convince my self I have made the right choice.

As I approached the very first swim on the lake I noticed an angler returning a rather large Carp, and with a group of anglers surrounding him I just knew which Carp it was. It was her, the Question Mark and I was almost in tears!

A week I had been looking forward to for so long just smashed into pieces. I then reluctantly barrowed my gear to “the croc” and set up. I kept to my original plans. I planned to find the spots, bait up heavily on each of them and not wet a line for 24 hours.

This is how I always start long sessions as I firmly believe that it makes a huge difference when the Carp can come and feed confidently on the baited spots without any lines in the water.

My very good angling friend Felix came down and spent the night fishing with me, company was certainly needed that night as I was beginning to wonder why I was there. 24 hours later the rods went in followed by a top up of 50 baits over each of them.

I started picking up Carp straight away to just under 30lb and the sport was good, I was enjoying my self because my plan was working but the 40lb’er was not for me!

On the Tuesday night Nick Helleur came down to do an article for Total Carp, after a chat and a cuppa with Nick I decided to reel in and have a walk around the lake with the floater gear. Immediately I was into one, at over 20lb it was one of the original Commons who do not come out what seems to be for years, I was chuffed.

As I returned the fish I turned around and found a nice shiny penny in the swim, I picked it up and said to my self “this means good luck, how about a miracle and let me have the Question Mark!”  I went to bed late that night, only because I was watching Nick on the opposite bank and I was hopeful to learn something……

But at 04:30 the following morning I was awoken by a screaming run on the right hand rod, immediately the new MK2 Venoms were working hard as I pulled the Carp into the net after a short scrap. As the Carp lay motionless in the net I looked down with the head torch on to inspect my prize, the first thing I said to my self was “you’re a mini Question Mark, you look just like it” then as I picked the collapsed net up to manoeuvre to the mat I was surprised at how heavy it was so I lowered the net back into the water to take a second look.

I could not believe my eyes, it was the Question Mark!!!!!! Right what to do? I punched the air and screamed with excitement!!!! I left the Carp in the net and secured the net down with a storm pole and  ran as fast as I could to the opposite bank and woke Spencer up.

The poor bloke has never met me before and has just recently had his house burgled, the poor sod was beside him self when he sees all 6.3ft of me shouting at him through his bivvy door! We ran back, retrieved the Carp from the water and weighed her, at 41.04lb she was my new personal best, and with the photos that Spencer had done for me in difficult night conditions I couldn’t be any happier!

It was hours later when I was speaking to Nick again that I remembered that I found that shiny penny and I just smiled to my self, and then started to laugh. So wishes and dreams really can come true! I caught the Carp I had been trying for so long to catch, and to only catch her 4 days after her last capture, the Carp Gods really were on my side this time!

As the saying goes “If you keep paying the lake, eventually the lake pays you back!”

I caught the Question Mark on 100% Nash Tackle and Bait, with the brand new Venom Rods, Bullet Mono, Core Plus, Diffusion Camo Lead Clips, The Missing Link hooklink and Fang X hooks finished of with a few kilos of my favourite, Scopex Squid Liver Plus!

This session has taught me to keep my chin up and fish on, as you never know what can happen next.

Happy Angling everyone!

Little M