I don’t know about you but I’m very sceptical of religion, the afterlife and stuff. If I haven’t seen it with my own eyes or experienced it. I keep an open mind but I can’t say I truly believe it.
Anyway.

Lynn and I have just returned from a week on the back lake at DDI. I fish DDI all the time but Lynn comes over maybe twice a year, but we always have a week in May, sometimes on the main lake but more recently, due to the fact that there is a luxurious new lodge on it, the back lake.

The back lake is stuffed full of fish and I was fairly confident that we would have fish. The stamp of fish to be caught now is starting to get interesting. Up to a couple of years ago you would have loads of doubles and a few 20’s and maybe if you were really lucky, a 30. Nowadays most of the doubles are 20’s and the 20’s have grown into 30’s and the occasional 40. We ended the week with 16 doubles, 18 20’s and 5 30’s. 35lb being the biggest but it was what happened on Saturday 26 th May that will stay with me for the rest of my days.

We had arrived at DDI on the Thursday so by the Saturday we needed provisions. So Lynn decided to go into Ham, the local town, to the hypermarket, leaving me with the rods. I’ve had many large fish in my time including some very nice braces, but had never so far had 3 fish on the bank at the same time!

The swim in front of the lodge is a spit which you can fish on the left or right, but right in front of it lies a huge bed of lilies. They’re so thick its pointless fishing in them. 9 times out of 10 if a fish got in they don’t come out. We were fishing the margins on the island to the left and the margins/channels to our right. Just as Lyn pulled away in the car my middle rod roared off straight into the pads. As I lifted the rod the fish popped up and I slowly guided it over the rest of the pads. Once in the open water it fought like stink but I now had it under control. Lucky to get it out of those pads I thought. Just as the scales went around to 32lbs my left hand rod was away. With the first fish lying in the weigh sling on my unhooking mat I hit the fish and let it run on the bait runner while I put the first fish into the landing net. As I played the second fish Bernard pulled up with some croissants.

Due to the number of fish on the back lake I always use two landing nets, just in case, and as I slipped the fish over the second net I joked with Bernard that a good angler is always prepared. The second fish went 31lbs and I said to Bernard have you your camera as you can have a new picture of the lodge with 2 30 plus mirrors in front of it.

Just as he jumped into his car the third rod was away. Here I am with both landing nets having a 30+ fish in with a third fish on and nothing to net it with. Mind you I still had to play it first and this fish had done exactly what the first one had done and had gone straight into the pads. This one I thought I wasn’t going to land. But as the first fish had under pressure it popped onto the surface and I slowly coxed it through again into open water. This one wasn’t going to be so easy though as between me and the nets with fish in was a small tree. I had to give the fish line while I lifted the rod over the tree hoping the hook would still hold. It did.

I couldn’t believe my luck. A hundred things could have gone wrong with any one of these fish but each one came in as if they had a spell over them. Mind you, I still had the problem of netting the third fish. Just as it was ready for the net Bernard returned with Paul, another angler on the complex. We decided to net the fish with one of the other two but it had to be done right. I guided the fish over the net, like a dog on a lead and it went in first time.

On the scales it went 29lbs. Three fish in five minutes. Two 30+ mirrors and one 29lb common. Never before had I done it. Never likely to again, especially the way it happened. Do you know what (after what I said at the beginning) that Saturday 26 th May 2007 was the anniversary of my dad’s death. 1 year to the day.

Thanks Dad.  

Dads Treble
By Paul Wheeler

Back to Article Index.