Hot on the heels of his superb grayling brace, Dan Bouskila has caught another massive fish, this time a 1lb 1oz dace.
Despite all the planning in the world, fishing often has a way of surprising anglers when they least expect it. With a couple of spare hours, Dan decided to target a local stream and its population of dace. While it had never produced any huge fish in the past, it's a great spot for a few hours of fishing. On this particular occasion, it provided a capture Dan will never forget.
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"I found myself with a couple of hours to spare, and with the family out doing other things, a spontaneous float fishing session was on the cards," Dan told us.
"There's a lovely little stream nearby that's packed full of dace. Nothing big, or so I thought, but they provide some great sport, and it's a place I enjoy fishing."
"I started feeding a few old maggots, so old, in fact, that there were a few casters among them, but the floating baits really seemed to get the dace competing," he added.
Dan kept feeding the swim for a few minutes while he tackled up and could see the shoal of dace intercepting his loose offerings. He did notice one fish that was much larger than the others but thought it might be a rogue chublet.
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"I had three or four runs through the swim, each time retrieving a lovely plump dace around the 6oz mark, which is very typical for the river," he said.
"The bigger fish I had seen was still in the swim but seemed much higher up in the water and was taking the odd floating caster."
"I decided to switch to a double caster hookbait, choosing the darkest baits in my box in the hope of fooling the larger fish."
"As luck would have it, on the next trot down, I hooked the fish, and at such close quarters, it didn't take me long to realize it was a huge dace twisting and turning in the current."
"I don't remember much other than reeling in as quickly as I could, hoping the fish wouldn't fall off. When I got it in the net, I was overwhelmed. It was colossal for what is essentially such a small fish compared to other species."
"I got the carrier bag ready andweighed the dace, and to my amazement, the scales read 1lb 1oz... I couldn't believe it."
"I've been lucky enough to catch a 1lb dace before, and I honestly thought that PB would stand forever. It's funny how fishing has the ability to constantly surprise us, no matter how much we think we know," he explained.
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