Gary Bradshaw's news of a new record only filtered through this week as he still marvels over his success. Witnessed by Matt Higgins, Michael Ayliffe and Tom Basset the fish was weighed using two different set of scales to confirm its weight. Gary was fishing off the point (track side) towards the island when around 3.00pm on Sunday 11th February 2006 he knew something had taken his bait. On the business end was a small lead with a safety rig attached to a size 8 barbless hook. For bait Gary used a frozen boilie with a few free offerings presented in a pva bag. In Gary's report he mentions that the run was not subtle and the carp stayed on the lake floor for most of the fight, but he knew it felt a good size. It took Gary around 25 minutes to land the fish and new it was good fish as it laid on the landing mat. With assistance from Matt Higgins both Gary and Matt checked the condition of the fish and took several photos. They then proceeded to carefully return the fish using Gary's weigh sling to enable this record fish to get it breath. As Gary opened the sling the fish gentle swam away.

The other bit of good news for Gary is that the Chairman offered the first person to catch a 30lb carp from the club lake, would receive a bottle of Champagne.

Many congratulation Gary.

Gary has asked if we would mention the importance of several key features when carp fishing. To be fair seeing as we have some fine specimens carp it would be good to remind all anglers of good house keeping practices.

1.If carp fishing always use safety rigs in case your line snaps. In this event the lead will simply come free ensuring the fish does not get snagged and damage itself.

2.Always us a wetted landing mat. Any fish of a reasonable size should not touch the bank side.

3. A large landing net is another essential item - big fish require big landing nets.