Burton Mere With The Cats - Fishing for big catfish

Well it was 11.55pm when all hell broke loose. The Delkins started screaming away and the rod bouncing on the pod as the first of the two catfish of the night took the home made stink bait (which is made up of a stinky mix of squid, octopus and mackerel] This first catfish took 25 mins of hard fighting and no letting up but at the end of it all it weighed in at a huge 25lb 4 oz.

All settled down, and after that fish I was still buzzing with excitement and thinking "well that's it for the night, I can sleep now" but as luck goes at 2.15am the alarms went off with the rod bouncing again with the second of the monster fish. It took 45 mins or so to get this beast in - I was testing my new rods out to see if they could take big fish. Well the Maver Larford Apocalypse 2.5 test with the Big Pits 8000 series lasted the distance with no probs whatsoever. The action was excellent and they both bent double. They handled the next cat at a massive weight of 43lbs 13oz with ease. Both the rods and I were put through our paces and we all came up good.

Brendan Lavery

Tackle Used

3 x Maver apocalypse

3 x Maver 8000 Big Pits

3 x Delkins Optonic

1 x Pod

Daiwa Sensor line 15lbs

all bought from my local tackle dealer Leigh Angling Centre (www.leighanglingcentre.co.uk) the weekend before.