I love it when i am there to witness someone else's captures or i hear of someone i no catching. I have been lucky to be at my brother's personal best catches not once but twice. The first time was in France at a lake that he had been fishing for ten years. A lake that i had never fished due to either time or the money. This trip was back in about 2004 i saved up the money and took the the trip out there. I remember that it was the wettest week of the year it rained every day for hours on end even some of the nights was just non stop rain all night. By thursday we both had no dry clothes left because if it wasn't raining there was no sun to dry anything out. As per the previous day the rain was coming down in buckets i could only just see Andy threw the rain on the otherside of the lake i had the camcorder with me and was taking a shot of the rain and the lake when i scanned it round to see andy was into yet another fish i just sat inside the bivvy and started to laugh thinking thank god that's not me playing a fish in the rain.
Ten minutes went by when Andy gave my a call on the 2 way radio that we use when fishing away from each other said he had one mirror in the net but was too heavy for him to lift out the water! After reeling in and getting round to him in double quick time thanks to the use of a push bike that was on site. I told him it better be worth me coming round to help. We both grabbed the landing net and lifted the lump out the water on to the mat. It lay there as we both looked at each other it was the biggest carp that we both had ever seen. The laughter started as we new it was going to weigh heavy and we was right once in the sling and the scales was lifted the needle on the dial just went round and round till it settled on 55-01lb a new pb and a new lake record. It was unbelievable i never saw anything like it after we had done the photo's and slipped the big mirror back into the water we just sat and talked about the fish we just could not get over the sheer size of it. I don't no who was more over the moon my brother on catching the fish or me for just being there and witnessing it and being so happy that my brother had caught such a beast.
