A 12ft-long zig rig in 16ft of water accounted for this new personal-best common for Kai Richards.

Fishing the New Forest Water Park syndicate, the Sparsholt College student caught the 40lb 8oz beauty on the final morning of a 48-hour stay.

After a quiet first night, Kai visited a friend on the opposite side of the lake and began to form a plan.

He said: “He had managed to catch one at first light on a zig and told me the last few fish all came out on zigs and were all at night.

“I took this information back over to my swim and whacked out two maggot zig rigs on top of fish that were showing themselves.

“I knew that the spot I was fishing was roughly around 16ft deep so I tied up a couple of 12ft zigs for the night.”

Having Spombed out a mix of maggots and crumbed boilies over the spot, Kai sat back and waited.

“Early the next morning, around 5am, my middle rod started beeping away.

“I quickly got my shoes on and hit into the rod. It charged around stripping line so I just let it tire itself out.

The New Forest Park is producing lots of big fish like this

“As it came into the margins trying to snag me up and take my other rod out I got the net ready and a few moment later she was in mine.

“She went 40lb 8oz, a new pb common and on a 12ft zig! I couldn’t believe my eyes, buzzing was by far an understatement.”

RIG AND BAIT

• 12ft zig rig
• Hookbait: Whittled-down white 14mm CC Moore Pacific Tuna pop-up topped with maggots
• Loosefeed: 500g of crushed CC Moore Live System boilies, maggots, CC Moore Ultra Amino liquid and liver powder
• Hooklink: 12lb Gardner Zig Link
• Hook: Size 10

A glorious shot of Kai’s new pb common