Lower Derwent,fathers day

First outing of the coarse season this afternoon
down on  the lower derwent ,borrowash.
arrived just after lunchtime to be met with a rather
high feirce looking river.no other cars in car park
so i had the choice of the pegs.
got as far as the pipe with the realisation that their
was no perfect peg ,so decided to fish near pipe.
set up rods with  halibut pellet on both.
lovely afternoon to just watch the wildlife float by
firstly a family of meganzers ,nine in total .
then the black death(cormorant) working up and down
the river.loads of sedges on the river with the odd
fish rising up to gulp em down.
in the first three hours i only had two little chubby
type knocks.
then about 4 oclock my downstream rod roared off
bouncing up and down like you know what.
struck into a solid feeling fish ,which could not be a
chub,fought like a really fit fish pulling line off the reel
three times as i thought it was beat,it was hard to  slide
down the  bank to finally get it into the net.
rested it for a while before lifting it out to weigh and take
a picture of the lovely season opener of 12lb 8oz.
it had quite a few marks i beleave from spawning.
but what a great start.

the unhooking mat below measures 37 inches
just to give some scale