Blast from the Past

I was back at my favourite local water on Tuesday night, I'd been the previous week and pulled the hook on a decent fish late on during an evening session. For the last few seasons I've been playing fish on the clutch with the anti-reverse engaged but after last week I decided to go back to backwinding with a fish on.
Last night I returned and fished a rod down each margin and keeping the line slack, runs develop into screaming takes with no prior warning but with no snags to worry about and fishing reasonably close the lack of indication didn't concern me.
A small stock fish around 5lb kicked the session off before a big mirror picked up the bait and led my on a strong surging fight. I quickly disengaged the anti-reverse and felt like I'd gone back to my younger days. I eventually slipped the net under a 17lb 8oz mirror with a tail like a paddle which on further investigation I discovered I'd landed 18 months ago at pretty much the same weight.

17lb 8oz