Weight - 161lb 7oz
Catch - 62 Carp
Weather - Cloudy, breezy and light showers. Brighter later.
Match - Open (11 fished) - 2nd overall
Back to Harescombe on Doughnut lake. I drew p13, which normally
I would be distraught about, however with the low water levels and the wind
blowing up this end, there had been a few fish in the area.
Once I got my platform in place the far bank was only 14.5m
away. It still plumbed up awfully, however I managed to find a spot that was
3ft deep, before it sharply shallowed to 6-9 inches deep.
I started fishing paste, feeding a few 4s and micros. It was
slow going with only a couple of fish, however there were a lot of fish showing
themselves in the shallow water.
So, I tried the paste in the shallow water only expecting to
catch a couple of fish and ended up staying on this line for the next couple of
hours. I only needed to feed a few micros with the paste to keep the fish
coming. I think it helped it was cloudy and windy.
Eventually the far line went a bit iffy. I had primed a short
line at 2+2 but I struggled to get a clean bite and felt the fish didn’t want
to settle in just over 5ft of water.
Resting the far line proved beneficial as I had another run
of run of fish, whilst I primed both margins.
Switching to the margins, produced a really good response
initially, before I had to wait for bites, but generally the fish were a better
stamp.
Overall, an excellent day’s fishing and I thought I might
have broken the lake record, which was 137lb (although the evening record is
170lb). So, when I dumped 161lb on the scales I thought that was the win. However,
Ronaldo on p20 weighed 164lb, so a massive well done.
Also pleased for Gary and Cathryn who have worked really
hard to improve the whole of the fishery and it’s great to see the fruits of their
labour coming to fruition, as the lake fished really well.
2.
161- 7 –
Ken Rayner – p13
3.
126-13 – Jason Crump – p26
4.
117-11 – Nick Hancock – p1