Thirty from the Fens sends Ash speechless

Is that you..? Is that you fishing further down..? Might be... Why..? I'm standing here looking at the biggest pike I've ever seen, that's why. It's a thirty. Can you get up here and get some pictures..?

After driving around looking at rivers and drains, I head off somewhere else and drop some baits in.

Spying a familiar car in the distance, I wonder what Ashley's doing on here and text him to announce my arrival on the scene, expecting the usual banter by way of reply.

I thought you said it was crap here, I said. So what you doing on here :) ...?

Five minutes later, my mobile goes. Ashley's voice is an octave higher than normal as he gives me a garbled sit-rep. I reel the rods in, throw the lot in the car and floor it.

Ash looks like he's seen a ghost when I eventually find him what seems like ages later.

"I, um, it's huge, it's awesome, it's bust my net," he says, hauling his prize out of the water. I throw my £250 tweed coat on the ground without a second thought to lay it on as he tees it up for a picture.

That's just, that's just - that's just enormous, that is. That's all I can think to say, as I stand there nearly dumbstruck, looking at what might well be the biggest fish that's come off this part of the system all season through the camera.

"Go on then," Ash says as it swims away with a flick of its tail. "Take the piss out of my little lure rod."

Even I'm lost for words as I show him the pictures on the camera. "It's still sinking in, to be honest," he says. "They way it took, I thought it was a jack to start with."

I disappear to leave him to his thoughts, worried I'm intruding on the magic of the moment. I get the rods back out of the car and make a half-hearted go at it. But I can't stop myself looking at the pictures, wondering how I'd feel now if I'd been on the other end of the rod.

It's nearly an hour before Ash reappears. "I just sat there mate," he says. "I just sat there blown away by it."

Ash is going to report the fish because it's a lifetime's best at 31:08. In recent seasons, he's kept himself to himself and done his own thing, fishing far-flung spots with just a net and a lure rod.

The big fish took a tiny rubber lure, flicked out on what most people would regard as a light set-up when it comes to finding yourself attached to a fish like this. But it beat her all the same, after a scrap he'll probably never forget.

We shoot the breeze for a while, as snow flurries drift in on the Lazy Wind. Ash still looks blown away as we say our goodbyes. Well done mate, I say, in the absence of anything more profound to crown the moment. What a fish.

+++Talking of which, was it this pike Ash ironically photographed for me 18 months earlier..? Click here to see that one...

My first 30lbs pike from the Fens - well, sort of

I've never caught a thirty. While I've caught a couple of pike others went on to catch at over 30lbs, this fish remains the only thirty I've ever seen weighed and witnessed, in the flesh as it were.

+++It was, at the time - until I photographed Ash's thirty in March 2013 *linky*.

Leafing back through some of the pictures on an old lappy, I thought the story worth an airing - partly because I don't think it's ever had one before. Seeing a pike in another league to anything you've ever caught spurs you on so much when it happens - it sparks a hunger that gnaws away, a craving you just can't kick.

Turn the clock back a few seasons and I got a phone call, out of the blue, from someone who had some gravel pits in the Fens which friends and I had shared the odd day here and there on.

One or two of us had caught fish to low-twenties from them. But the owner reckoned there was a much bigger pike in one of his waters and he wondered if we fancied having a day on there, to see if we could catch it. A few phone calls later, we had a firm together and off we went, like you do.

I wasn't in the biggest hurry to get set up. While I was having a mardle with a couple of mates and getting a brew on for all and sundry, my mobile went. It was the owner.

"Hey, Chris - got your cameras on you..? Well bring 'em round to the corner, because XXX's caught it."

Off we trekked, at the double, leaving the tea to its own devices. When we got to the corner there was the captor, looking totally blown away. One look in the tube in the margins told you why. As he hauled this thing out onto the mat, one or two of us were lost for words.

There were pats on the back and the obligatory few digs, as the scales went round to 32lbs. The owner wanted it hushed, so mum was the word for a few years afterwards.

Looking back at the pictures, I've long forgotten the finer details regarding who was there and what else we caught. But I remember the feeling I got, as I framed the picture with one of my old Nikons and worked out how much fill-in flash to give it, with people telling me to blur the background.

It was the same feeling I had more than 30 years ago, when I saw my first twenty as a teenager. I'd seen the guy catch it and drank in every detail, wishing I'd been the one who caught it. It inspired me so much, yet it took me years to catch a pike to rival it.

I was like a kid again, when I photographed this pike. I just so wanted to catch one like it. And I still do, every time I go fishing. Every time the float goes or the alarm sounds, I still wonder - is this going to be the one, as I pick the rod up and wonder if it's the day my dream comes true.