THE QUEEN OF THE PARK LAKE

  • Posted: 7th September 2022
  • Author: Team DNA
Leon Kerslake from Nottingham got his hands on arguably the greatest prize in his local park lake, a mirror known as Talula at her biggest-ever weight!
“I arrived at the park lake on 1pm on the Friday, setting up in a swim where I had been prebaiting ahead of the weekend,” said Leon.
“After getting the bivvy up and sorting myself out, I got the rods wrapped up and ready to go. The spots I had found previously in the week were only small holes in the weed and the casts had to be perfect with no room for error. After a few casts, the rods were on the spots. Thinking it wouldn’t happen until later on, I sat back and relaxed, hoping I would start to get some action just into darkness. However, to my surprise, at 4.30pm I started to receive liners on my left-hand rod out in the open water. This got me on the edge of the bedchair, but nothing come of it. Then, just as I was about to put the stove on, at around 5pm the left-hander ripped off and I was off the mark with an epic scaly banger of 19lb, a fish I really wanted to tick off the list.
“Everything then went quiet until the final morning, when I was awoken by that beautiful sound of my alarm screaming, as the rod on the far margin ripped off. I knew before I even got a bite that if I got one on that spot there were several weedbeds I would have to navigate, and this fish knew all of them! After weeding me up solid for around 30 minutes, I couldn’t do anything but put the rod down on the rest and wait for her to kick out of the weed. Ten minutes later, the rod burst into action again! I kept the pressure on and didn’t let her get the better of me this time, as I slowly pumped her in along with a mass of weed. I shot over to the net, pulled out balls of weed, only to be met by the queen of the lake, a mirror known as Talula.
“After getting all the weed out of the net, she looked bigger than she has ever looked and when we got her on the mat, she had definitely been on the bait, as it was all over the mat! She come in at 26lb, the best weight she had ever done. I was over the moon. It was all down to the time and effort and a great bait that they love.”
Leon focused on his favoured SLK, fishing 18mm SLK Hard Hookers tipped with 12mm PB pop-ups over beds of SLK boilies glazed in SLK Liquid Food and dusted in SLK Stick Mix.