Weight – 62lb 1oz
Catch – 10 Bream, 4 Carp, 1 Tench
Weather – Cool start, blustery and mostly sunny
Match – Pole Only Open – 17th (out of 53) – 1st in section
58 booked in to make the most of the extra day’s holiday due to the Royal Wedding, however the 5 no shows obviously thought watching TV was better than fishing.
To be honest I wasn’t that enthusiastic about fishing today, simply because Viaduct is a venue that I rarely fish, mainly to due to the hours drive and I haven’t really got to grips with the place. Everyone has gone meat crazy at the moment, including Viaduct and I felt obliged to bring a couple of tins, although I was hoping to catch on pellet and paste.
Most wanted to avoid Cary, because it was only won with 40lb yesterday, so not many feeding fish. I also wanted to avoid drawing the diagonal bank, due to the forecast NE wind which would cut across these pegs. So peg 101 was on the wrong lake and the wrong bank as far as I was concerned. Also a few enquiries about its potential were met with screwed up face, suggesting a tough day was on the cards.
My section ran from 98-109, which included Alan Oram next to me on 100 and Tony Rixon on 105, Having Alan next to me was going to a real challenge and is 1 of those anglers I would prefer not to be drawn next to, because he always seems to get those carp with a simple, yet very effective approach. Matt Tomes obviously sensed blood and thought a £1 side bet would be a good idea.
With the likelihood that the wind was going to increase in strength later in the day, decided that 13m would be my main swim. This would also allow me to fish further out later in the match should the fish back off. 5m would be my other line in case some of those big carp moved in, but to be honest I wasn’t expecting much from here and the margins was a non-starter with Nigel Bartlett on the other side of me.
Rigs were a dura 6 4x14 (shotted shirt button style) with a 16 B960 to .17 and a 0.5g float with a 18 B911 to .14, in case I needed a lighter rig. Both were hair rigged. I also had a paste rig, but only had 1 bite on it at 5m.
On the all in a cup of mostly 6mm, with a few 4s, meat & corn went in at 13m, plus a handful of 8mm & meat at 5m. Started on the dura 6 rig, with an 8mm pellet. 10mins later I had a 9lb carp. That was a really useful start. The next 45mins I was getting loads of dips on the float as the silvers tried to whittle the pellet down, but no carp. A switch to the 0.5g rig and 6mm pellet saw a run of bream up to 3½lb, feeding a pouch of 6mm every 5mins.
By the ½ way point I was up 20-25lb all on pellet and I was thinking who needs meat! Alan had 2 carp and with the size of fish in Cary wasn’t far behind. Unfortunately, I was beginning to struggle for bites, which also coincided with the strengthening wind. I did set up a 0.75g rig, but only had 1 skimmer on that.
Since my 5m line was a waste of time I really needed my long line to work. Throughout I had been firing a few 8mm at 16m for later and in the final 2 hours concentrated on the dura 6 rig, but with the increased wind, fished a 10mm piece of meat, to mainly use it as anchor. I kept the 6mm going in at 13m, but was actually fishing at 14-15m when the wind allowed, dropping back to 13m when the wind was particularly strong.
Alan was catching me up and with 30mins left now had 6 carp to my 4 (which included 2 doubles). Although I had a good net of skimmers, I felt I was now behind and thinking he’s (Alan) done it again. Fortunately I had another skimmer and a tench to beat Alan by 3-10 and to win the section. Tony weighed 43-4 to finish 3rd in section with everyone else not weighing, including Matt Tomes who chucked back 3lb. It was a pleasure to take your pound –lol.
Cary was a tough nut to crack today, due to the time of year. 105lb won our lake from 85, whilst my weight was 4th. Campbell however was the place to be with 6 ton weights.
So I won my section which I was really pleased about and I nearly picked up in silvers. My 21-1 was 5th on the day, only 13oz away from 3rd.
1st 147-14 – Matt Parsons P132
2nd 137-9 – S Kiefer P113
3rd 133-10 – Nicky Collier P94
4th 124-6 – Mike Nicholls P111
5th 123-4 – Andy Power P116
6th 114-13 – Will Bohne P121
Silvers
1st 25-1 – Phil Harding P71
2nd 23-7 – Alan Healey P121
3rd 21-14 – Matt Parsons P132
Saturday 30 April 2011
Tuesday 26 April 2011
25/04/11 - K&A Canal - Foxhangers
Weight - 2lb 3oz
Catch - 4 Skimmers, 2 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Bright & sunny
As we all know Mr Rixon likes a good wind up and having read his blog from Todber yesterday he was at it again at my expense. However I have had the last laugh. Having collected his winnings for finishing 3rd, he proceeded to deposit his "empty" envelope into the back of my car. Image my delight when emptying the car I found the scrunched envelope complete with a tenner still inside - lol
Anyway back to today. Mark and I fancied an evening session after the tench and skimmers on the canal. Foxhangers is at the bottom of the Caen Hill locks and apparently there were loads of bream showing. Hippy and Craig also turned up so we were expecting a few fish.
I was a bit late arriving and the only place for my to set up was at the end of the pound. The 3 of them were fishing pellet and corn in anticipation of the bagging session, which never happened.
I caught my skimmers on the feeder & double dead maggot. I did briefly hook a carp on the pole, but it shot off and broke me. Hippy finished with about 4lb, Mark & Craig, both had less than 2lb, so not a very good session. No doubt the bream had other things on their minds.
Never mind, I've booked myself in as pools fodder for Viaducts pole only on Friday. Anything to get away from the hype of the royal wedding.
Catch - 4 Skimmers, 2 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Bright & sunny
As we all know Mr Rixon likes a good wind up and having read his blog from Todber yesterday he was at it again at my expense. However I have had the last laugh. Having collected his winnings for finishing 3rd, he proceeded to deposit his "empty" envelope into the back of my car. Image my delight when emptying the car I found the scrunched envelope complete with a tenner still inside - lol
Anyway back to today. Mark and I fancied an evening session after the tench and skimmers on the canal. Foxhangers is at the bottom of the Caen Hill locks and apparently there were loads of bream showing. Hippy and Craig also turned up so we were expecting a few fish.
I was a bit late arriving and the only place for my to set up was at the end of the pound. The 3 of them were fishing pellet and corn in anticipation of the bagging session, which never happened.
I caught my skimmers on the feeder & double dead maggot. I did briefly hook a carp on the pole, but it shot off and broke me. Hippy finished with about 4lb, Mark & Craig, both had less than 2lb, so not a very good session. No doubt the bream had other things on their minds.
Never mind, I've booked myself in as pools fodder for Viaducts pole only on Friday. Anything to get away from the hype of the royal wedding.
Monday 25 April 2011
24/04/2011 - Todber Manor - Park Lake
Weight –114lb 4oz
Catch – 48 Carp, 5 F1, 2 Bream, 1 Crucian, 1 Roach
Weather – Warm &sunny. Northerly breeze
Match – Match Fishing Scene website – 5th (out of 23). 2nd section
This match was scheduled to be solely a MFS match, however due to a shortage of numbers, Mark & I got a few “ringers” involved to bolster the numbers. So we had 24 booked in, but a no show meant 23 would be fishing. I don’t know why people think it’s acceptable to do this.
Mark didn’t know which peg to leave out, so in the end he let fate decide. The hot draws were 7 & 38. Fabio drew 38 for Mark and the peg left in the bag was 7 which was opposite! I found myself on peg 5, which I wasn’t too disappointed with and was definitely in the right area.
Talk leading up to the match was that meat was the bait, with some people feeding up to 10 tins! With up to nearly £2 per tin that’s an expensive day and neither Mark nor I felt it was necessary. Also I very rarely fish with meat, so decided to stick with paste and pellet, mixing 2kg of paste the night before.
Arriving at my peg there was already loads of fish slurping on the far bank, eating the spawn. Settled on 3 swims, the far side at 14.5m, 6m and down the RH margin. On the all in a handful of 4 & 6mm went down the margin and 6mm’s at 6m. Since there were fish in the far side, I went straight over with paste and the float had hardly settled before I was attached to a carp.
I started to feed 4mm with paste and started to get loads of liners and not able to properly hook a fish. And after 30mins I only had 2 fish in the net! Decided to cut out feeding the pellet and just use the paste, which helped, but fishing tighter to the far bank really made a difference and I started motoring for the next hour or so catching most put in, before the F1 started to put in a appearance. A switch to hair rigged 8mm pellet resulted in an F1, so switched back to paste.
After 3hrs I was up to 40 fish, however the 2nd half of the match proved to be really frustrating. From the beginning I had kept feeding the 6m line and the RH margin, hoping for the bigger carp. Unfortunately, I was getting loads of liners and the fish just weren’t getting their heads down. The next hour I only added 2 fish and I knew I was falling behind Mark opposite who was catching a load of fish down his margin. Also Ben to my left was catching, although looking down my section there didn’t seem to be anyone running away with it.
After that difficult hour I started catching again, but had to continually rotate my swims and I did manage a couple of better carp, but not enough.
On the all out I was left frustrated by the number liners. The lake hadn’t fished as well as previous weeks and the fish seemed to be more interested in spawning. In hindsight, was I right to stick with paste? Or should have targeted the F1? At the end of the day I was 37lb off 3rd, so I needed carp and I only needed 1 more carp to win the section. I think where I really missed out was that 1st 30mins when I should have fished tighter to the far bank sooner.
As for the problem with liners and the fish not getting their heads down. I felt I needed to feed a handful of pellet, just so that it reached the deck, because if I just trickled pellet in I doubt any of it would have reached the bottom.
Needless to say an enjoyable, if not frustrating day, with 102lb average per man.
1st 177- 7 Mark Poppleton - peg 38
2nd 164- 6 Tim Ford – peg 25
3rd 151-5 Tony Rixon – peg 29
4th 115-13 Ben Bench – peg 3
5th 114-4 Ken Rayner – peg 5
6th 112- 7 Mark Blake – peg 14
Catch – 48 Carp, 5 F1, 2 Bream, 1 Crucian, 1 Roach
Weather – Warm &sunny. Northerly breeze
Match – Match Fishing Scene website – 5th (out of 23). 2nd section
This match was scheduled to be solely a MFS match, however due to a shortage of numbers, Mark & I got a few “ringers” involved to bolster the numbers. So we had 24 booked in, but a no show meant 23 would be fishing. I don’t know why people think it’s acceptable to do this.
Mark didn’t know which peg to leave out, so in the end he let fate decide. The hot draws were 7 & 38. Fabio drew 38 for Mark and the peg left in the bag was 7 which was opposite! I found myself on peg 5, which I wasn’t too disappointed with and was definitely in the right area.
Talk leading up to the match was that meat was the bait, with some people feeding up to 10 tins! With up to nearly £2 per tin that’s an expensive day and neither Mark nor I felt it was necessary. Also I very rarely fish with meat, so decided to stick with paste and pellet, mixing 2kg of paste the night before.
Arriving at my peg there was already loads of fish slurping on the far bank, eating the spawn. Settled on 3 swims, the far side at 14.5m, 6m and down the RH margin. On the all in a handful of 4 & 6mm went down the margin and 6mm’s at 6m. Since there were fish in the far side, I went straight over with paste and the float had hardly settled before I was attached to a carp.
I started to feed 4mm with paste and started to get loads of liners and not able to properly hook a fish. And after 30mins I only had 2 fish in the net! Decided to cut out feeding the pellet and just use the paste, which helped, but fishing tighter to the far bank really made a difference and I started motoring for the next hour or so catching most put in, before the F1 started to put in a appearance. A switch to hair rigged 8mm pellet resulted in an F1, so switched back to paste.
After 3hrs I was up to 40 fish, however the 2nd half of the match proved to be really frustrating. From the beginning I had kept feeding the 6m line and the RH margin, hoping for the bigger carp. Unfortunately, I was getting loads of liners and the fish just weren’t getting their heads down. The next hour I only added 2 fish and I knew I was falling behind Mark opposite who was catching a load of fish down his margin. Also Ben to my left was catching, although looking down my section there didn’t seem to be anyone running away with it.
After that difficult hour I started catching again, but had to continually rotate my swims and I did manage a couple of better carp, but not enough.
On the all out I was left frustrated by the number liners. The lake hadn’t fished as well as previous weeks and the fish seemed to be more interested in spawning. In hindsight, was I right to stick with paste? Or should have targeted the F1? At the end of the day I was 37lb off 3rd, so I needed carp and I only needed 1 more carp to win the section. I think where I really missed out was that 1st 30mins when I should have fished tighter to the far bank sooner.
As for the problem with liners and the fish not getting their heads down. I felt I needed to feed a handful of pellet, just so that it reached the deck, because if I just trickled pellet in I doubt any of it would have reached the bottom.
Needless to say an enjoyable, if not frustrating day, with 102lb average per man.
1st 177- 7 Mark Poppleton - peg 38
2nd 164- 6 Tim Ford – peg 25
3rd 151-5 Tony Rixon – peg 29
4th 115-13 Ben Bench – peg 3
5th 114-4 Ken Rayner – peg 5
6th 112- 7 Mark Blake – peg 14
Sunday 17 April 2011
16/04/11 - Lands End - Match Lake
Weight –40lb 12oz
Catch – 24 Perch, 7 Skimmers, 3 Carp, 2 Ide, 2 Rudd, 1 Tench, 1 F1, 1 Roach
Weather – Warm & mostly sunny
Match – Open – 9th (out of 10)
Thursday was my exam, which was computer based at the City of Bristol College in the centre of town. However, I started to get concerned, when 5 minutes before it was due to start, we still weren’t logged in to the system. An IT/student type turned up to say the servers are down! Needless to say no one was happy, which lead to one woman starting on this poor kid, demanding it be sorted. As we all know, if the problem is IT related, no amount of stamping your feet will change the situation. I rang the CII (Chartered Institute of Insurers) who confirmed they would re-arrange, which fortunately they did before Easter. However it still means more revision to keep the knowledge fresh.
I had hoped to fish on Sunday for Tony’s open, which would be spread over 3 lakes, however I left it too late to book in, so decided to fish today instead.
Its not often you catch nearly 41lb at Lands End and come close to last. I actually had an enjoyable day, even if it was a little frustrating in the last couple of hours.
Peg 7 isn’t my favourite peg, but apparently it had shown some recent form, with 35lb of silvers coming from it last week. At the start fed 4mm & some corn at 13m to my left at the bottom of the shelf and caster on top of the shelf in front of me. Whilst I let that settle, I went straight under the platform of peg 8 fishing paste hoping for a few early mug carp. 2nd put in I had a 3lb tench and then 3rd put in a near 3lb F1 was netted, but no carp.
I wanted to let the LH 13m line settle a bit longer, so switched to fishing the far side on caster where I caught all my perch, but it was noticeable throughout the day I couldn’t catch more than 4 or 5 fish before it went quiet, but whenever I went back to the swim I usually caught a bigger fish.
Having left the LH 13m swim to settle for an hour, which included a couple of top ups I caught skimmers over the next 90mins (whilst rotating with the far bank swim)on soft pellet or corn. At the half way stage, I only had 1 carp with most being caught on the other side of the lake, so I made the decision to stick with the silvers.
Having made that decision, I was now struggling to catch other than on caster from the far side. I couldn’t catch over my LH 13m line, it seemed the carp had invaded, but they weren’t feeding, just sitting over the top, which unsettled the skimmers. My problem was that I was too far behind in the carp race and I felt I was slipping behind Mike on peg 11 with the silvers. Mike was also struggling to catch carp, but was instead catching skimmers & tench on pellet.
I had been feeding 4mm pellet from the start at 14.5m to my right at the bottom of the shelf hoping to catch carp later in the match, but I never had a bite, which I really couldn’t understand.
The far bank swim was the most productive and I noticed a few carp moving long the shelf, but they weren’t taking the double caster, so switched to hair rigged 6mm, feeding pellet further towards the point of the island and my 1st fish was a big Ide and I still couldn’t hook a carp (other than foul hooking).
I could have set-up a 5m swim, but didn’t have enough caster to make that effective and I didn’t want to spread too much pellet all over the swim.
Those last couple of hours were frustrating, losing 4 fish on the bounce, including a couple of big perch and since I was struggling to catch anymore silvers and my 14.5m RH swim wasn’t working, I went back down under the p8 platform with paste and promptly had 2 carp in the last 15mins.
I had approached the peg initially looking for carp, but caught silvers. A further change to catch silvers resulted in a carp. Another switch to pellet, produced an Ide. It just seemed that today I would make a decision which would have the opposite expected result.
I finished with 22-12of silvers, but didn’t get close to Barry Fitchews 40lb which included a lot of small fish on caster.
1st – 130- 7 Rod Wootton - peg 15
2nd – 126-0 Tom Magnol – peg 21
3rd – 108-2 Leyton Palmer- peg 19
Top silvers
1st – 40- 0 Barry Fitchew – peg 1
2nd – 30-13 Mike West –peg 11
Catch – 24 Perch, 7 Skimmers, 3 Carp, 2 Ide, 2 Rudd, 1 Tench, 1 F1, 1 Roach
Weather – Warm & mostly sunny
Match – Open – 9th (out of 10)
Thursday was my exam, which was computer based at the City of Bristol College in the centre of town. However, I started to get concerned, when 5 minutes before it was due to start, we still weren’t logged in to the system. An IT/student type turned up to say the servers are down! Needless to say no one was happy, which lead to one woman starting on this poor kid, demanding it be sorted. As we all know, if the problem is IT related, no amount of stamping your feet will change the situation. I rang the CII (Chartered Institute of Insurers) who confirmed they would re-arrange, which fortunately they did before Easter. However it still means more revision to keep the knowledge fresh.
I had hoped to fish on Sunday for Tony’s open, which would be spread over 3 lakes, however I left it too late to book in, so decided to fish today instead.
Its not often you catch nearly 41lb at Lands End and come close to last. I actually had an enjoyable day, even if it was a little frustrating in the last couple of hours.
Peg 7 isn’t my favourite peg, but apparently it had shown some recent form, with 35lb of silvers coming from it last week. At the start fed 4mm & some corn at 13m to my left at the bottom of the shelf and caster on top of the shelf in front of me. Whilst I let that settle, I went straight under the platform of peg 8 fishing paste hoping for a few early mug carp. 2nd put in I had a 3lb tench and then 3rd put in a near 3lb F1 was netted, but no carp.
I wanted to let the LH 13m line settle a bit longer, so switched to fishing the far side on caster where I caught all my perch, but it was noticeable throughout the day I couldn’t catch more than 4 or 5 fish before it went quiet, but whenever I went back to the swim I usually caught a bigger fish.
Having left the LH 13m swim to settle for an hour, which included a couple of top ups I caught skimmers over the next 90mins (whilst rotating with the far bank swim)on soft pellet or corn. At the half way stage, I only had 1 carp with most being caught on the other side of the lake, so I made the decision to stick with the silvers.
Having made that decision, I was now struggling to catch other than on caster from the far side. I couldn’t catch over my LH 13m line, it seemed the carp had invaded, but they weren’t feeding, just sitting over the top, which unsettled the skimmers. My problem was that I was too far behind in the carp race and I felt I was slipping behind Mike on peg 11 with the silvers. Mike was also struggling to catch carp, but was instead catching skimmers & tench on pellet.
I had been feeding 4mm pellet from the start at 14.5m to my right at the bottom of the shelf hoping to catch carp later in the match, but I never had a bite, which I really couldn’t understand.
The far bank swim was the most productive and I noticed a few carp moving long the shelf, but they weren’t taking the double caster, so switched to hair rigged 6mm, feeding pellet further towards the point of the island and my 1st fish was a big Ide and I still couldn’t hook a carp (other than foul hooking).
I could have set-up a 5m swim, but didn’t have enough caster to make that effective and I didn’t want to spread too much pellet all over the swim.
Those last couple of hours were frustrating, losing 4 fish on the bounce, including a couple of big perch and since I was struggling to catch anymore silvers and my 14.5m RH swim wasn’t working, I went back down under the p8 platform with paste and promptly had 2 carp in the last 15mins.
I had approached the peg initially looking for carp, but caught silvers. A further change to catch silvers resulted in a carp. Another switch to pellet, produced an Ide. It just seemed that today I would make a decision which would have the opposite expected result.
I finished with 22-12of silvers, but didn’t get close to Barry Fitchews 40lb which included a lot of small fish on caster.
1st – 130- 7 Rod Wootton - peg 15
2nd – 126-0 Tom Magnol – peg 21
3rd – 108-2 Leyton Palmer- peg 19
Top silvers
1st – 40- 0 Barry Fitchew – peg 1
2nd – 30-13 Mike West –peg 11
Sunday 10 April 2011
09/04/11 - Peatmoor Lagoon
Weight –8lb 15oz
Catch – 13 Roach, 5 Perch, 2 Bream, 1 Gudgeon
Weather – Warm & sunny. Easterly wind.
Match – Match Fishing Scene – 8th (out of 16)
Following Monday’s practice session both Mark & I were confident of doing well, although we were concerned the weather forecast of sun and an easterly wind, was hardly classic bream weather.
The pegs we wanted to avoid were p1 because it was in the corner and between p4 & 10, because they were set back in a bay and the wind was blowing away from these pegs. With the wind, I felt the pegs in the 20s would be best with peg 27 being the end peg.
Today there were 16 fishing, with 2 sections. I found myself on 16, whilst Mark was on 8, which was exactly were he didn’t want to be. I wasn’t too disappointed with 16, although I felt that I was at the wrong end of section, which started on peg 15 to my right.
Decided on 4 swims, 5m with caster, 13m cupping in some groundbait, with chopped worm, micros and 4mm pellet, 11m at an angle to my left was chopped worm & caster, looking for the bigger roach and perch, and finally the feeder, which I was hoping I wont need to use.
I started at 5m to let my lines settle, but it was slow and bites weren’t coming quickly enough, I even tried fishing half depth, which produced 2 quick fish then nothing. After an hour, I only had 15 fish, but I wanted to give my other swims the best possible chance to settle. What was noticeable was the tow on the lake as the wind picked up, it was almost like trotting on the river.
Unfortunately I could only see 3 anglers, so didn’t know how everyone else was doing, but the grapevine suggested most were struggling with the end pegs of 25 & 27 catching. Throughout the match I kept the 13m line topped with a catapulted 4mm every 10mins and the same again on the feeder line with a small of groundbait.
Going into the 2nd hour the 11m line was topped up with some more CW&C and switched to 13m line. What I learned from Monday was the need to be patient for those the bream, but with nearly half of the match gone, I was beginning to question whether my tactic of regularly feeding pellet and whether I should have started on chopped worm. However a near 4lb bream on double maggot was very welcome and I hoped vindicated my decision to keep the pellet going in.
With no further bites I returned to my 5m line, but other than an 8oz perch I had nothing. I had hoped the short line would give me a few extra pounds whilst waiting for the bream to turn up, but the bright conditions was having a negative effect on the fishing.
Phil Powell on peg 13 had 4 skimmers, whilst Nicky the Bricky (NTB) had yet to catch and was spending more time on the feeder, and then out of the blue NTB had 2 bream in 2 casts. Bugger, I had to at least try the feeder now, but other than a couple of plucks from small fish, I had nothing. Neither did NTB, so I switched back to concentrating on my 11m and 13m line.
With just under 2hrs to go, I had another bream at 13m on worm, but again it seemed to be a loaner. With the match drawing to a close, I kept rotating the swims and with 30mins left another small pot of cw&c went in at 11m and with 7mins till the end, I hooked a bream, but as I shipped back the bream popped up to the surface and then the hooked pulled. At the time I thought it would cost me, however looking at the results, I would have come 6th and still out of the money, so I didn’t feel quite as bad.
I knew NTB had 2 decent bream and together with a single roach, beat me by 8oz. His biggest fish was about 6lb.
A tough match and on reflection felt I got my tactics right, it was just a shame about the weather. The 3 pegs to my left didn’t weigh and that included a blank. 1st and 3rd came from the 2 end pegs to my left in the wind, whilst 2nd place came from the other end of the match length from a noted skimmer peg.
As for Mark, he packed up early. It was obviously a difficult area, because Ian Didcote pegged next to him only had a few fish, which brought a smile to a few people faces, because he was very confident going into the match, but he didn’t seem so chipper at the end.
1st 38-7 Bevan Boy peg 27
2nd 31-13 Withybagger peg 2
3rd 21-13 Mattyg peg 25
Catch – 13 Roach, 5 Perch, 2 Bream, 1 Gudgeon
Weather – Warm & sunny. Easterly wind.
Match – Match Fishing Scene – 8th (out of 16)
Following Monday’s practice session both Mark & I were confident of doing well, although we were concerned the weather forecast of sun and an easterly wind, was hardly classic bream weather.
The pegs we wanted to avoid were p1 because it was in the corner and between p4 & 10, because they were set back in a bay and the wind was blowing away from these pegs. With the wind, I felt the pegs in the 20s would be best with peg 27 being the end peg.
Today there were 16 fishing, with 2 sections. I found myself on 16, whilst Mark was on 8, which was exactly were he didn’t want to be. I wasn’t too disappointed with 16, although I felt that I was at the wrong end of section, which started on peg 15 to my right.
Decided on 4 swims, 5m with caster, 13m cupping in some groundbait, with chopped worm, micros and 4mm pellet, 11m at an angle to my left was chopped worm & caster, looking for the bigger roach and perch, and finally the feeder, which I was hoping I wont need to use.
I started at 5m to let my lines settle, but it was slow and bites weren’t coming quickly enough, I even tried fishing half depth, which produced 2 quick fish then nothing. After an hour, I only had 15 fish, but I wanted to give my other swims the best possible chance to settle. What was noticeable was the tow on the lake as the wind picked up, it was almost like trotting on the river.
Unfortunately I could only see 3 anglers, so didn’t know how everyone else was doing, but the grapevine suggested most were struggling with the end pegs of 25 & 27 catching. Throughout the match I kept the 13m line topped with a catapulted 4mm every 10mins and the same again on the feeder line with a small of groundbait.
Going into the 2nd hour the 11m line was topped up with some more CW&C and switched to 13m line. What I learned from Monday was the need to be patient for those the bream, but with nearly half of the match gone, I was beginning to question whether my tactic of regularly feeding pellet and whether I should have started on chopped worm. However a near 4lb bream on double maggot was very welcome and I hoped vindicated my decision to keep the pellet going in.
With no further bites I returned to my 5m line, but other than an 8oz perch I had nothing. I had hoped the short line would give me a few extra pounds whilst waiting for the bream to turn up, but the bright conditions was having a negative effect on the fishing.
Phil Powell on peg 13 had 4 skimmers, whilst Nicky the Bricky (NTB) had yet to catch and was spending more time on the feeder, and then out of the blue NTB had 2 bream in 2 casts. Bugger, I had to at least try the feeder now, but other than a couple of plucks from small fish, I had nothing. Neither did NTB, so I switched back to concentrating on my 11m and 13m line.
With just under 2hrs to go, I had another bream at 13m on worm, but again it seemed to be a loaner. With the match drawing to a close, I kept rotating the swims and with 30mins left another small pot of cw&c went in at 11m and with 7mins till the end, I hooked a bream, but as I shipped back the bream popped up to the surface and then the hooked pulled. At the time I thought it would cost me, however looking at the results, I would have come 6th and still out of the money, so I didn’t feel quite as bad.
I knew NTB had 2 decent bream and together with a single roach, beat me by 8oz. His biggest fish was about 6lb.
A tough match and on reflection felt I got my tactics right, it was just a shame about the weather. The 3 pegs to my left didn’t weigh and that included a blank. 1st and 3rd came from the 2 end pegs to my left in the wind, whilst 2nd place came from the other end of the match length from a noted skimmer peg.
As for Mark, he packed up early. It was obviously a difficult area, because Ian Didcote pegged next to him only had a few fish, which brought a smile to a few people faces, because he was very confident going into the match, but he didn’t seem so chipper at the end.
1st 38-7 Bevan Boy peg 27
2nd 31-13 Withybagger peg 2
3rd 21-13 Mattyg peg 25
Tuesday 5 April 2011
04/04/11 - Peatmoor Lagoon
Weight –18lb 4oz
Catch – 52 Roach, 6 Bream, 3 Perch, 1 Rudd
Weather – Mild, mostly cloudy and windy
The penultimate weekend of revision, meant no fishing, however with a match at Peatmoor Lagoon, Mark & I decided we needed a practice session to at least get an idea of the venue, since neither of us had seen the place.
What little information we managed to glean, skimmers, roach and a few tench would be the target, the lake is on the west side of Swindon and controlled by Peatmoor AC.
Mark & I had arranged to meet at Cotswold Angling for 8.30, but my sat nav sent me down a dead end road, whilst Marks sat nav sent him to another area of town on the other side of the dead end. After much swearing, about crap sat navs and never wanted to come to Swindon again, Mark finally arrived at the tackle shop.
Having spoken to Cotswold Angling last week, Mark was told we could get tickets there. On arrival it transpired they only sold season tickets and Hinders sold the day tickets, because the controlling club only allow 5 day tickets a day to be sold. Great another trip around Swindon. Cotswold gave us the postcode, which resulted in another dead end! A call to Hinders got the correct postcode, which was ½ mile away. Fortunately getting to the lake happened without further incident.
Our match on Saturday would be between pegs 1 & 27, which would put us on the south bank of the lake. I settled on peg 19, whilst Mark was on peg 22. The one thing we did notice was how tight the pegs where, fortunately there are only 16 booked in for Saturday, so at least we would have some room. The lake itself offered plenty of water and was about 4-5ft deep.
Mark & I had traded many e-mails (mostly when we were supposed to be working!) about how to approach the venue. Mark was in favour of the pellet approach, whilst I was felt that worm & caster would be better, purely because at this time of year the fishing can be a bit iffy, as the fish prepare to spawn, so I just felt we needed to cover all options. The other thing that we wanted to establish was whether we could catch on the pole, since most recent weights had come on the feeder, which I would prefer not to use.
Groundbait, chopped worm, caster and micros were deposited at 13m. I also started to catapult small balls of groundbait over the “feeder line” and I started at 5m feeding caster. After 30mins I had 20 small roach, mostly caught on red maggot. Mark had caught a 1½lb skimmer on the feeder.
I had set up a big waggler to fish over the feeder line, although I caught a roach 1st cast, the wind was proving a bit troublesome, creating quite a bit of tow and since I hadn’t set up a feeder decided to concentrate on the pole.
After letting the 13m line settle for an hour, I started toss potting a caster, chopped worm & micro mix every put in, after a few roach, I decided to use a bigger toss pot every other put in. This definitely helped and I caught my first bream, at nearly 4lb on double red maggot. My rig was a jean François 0.4g, but with the increasing wind the tow was getting worse and my presentation was suffering.
At times like this I always remember a fishing lesson I got from Nicky Collins at Viaduct, fishing a cold winter league match on Lodge Lake. The first half of the match I was ahead with a few skimmers, but the wind got stronger, Nicky switched to a heavier rig and in the 2nd half of the match he doubled my weight, simply because I persisted with the same rig, which was now rendered useless by the wind.
So a new rig was soon set up with a polar ice 1g. The difference was very noticeable, the float sat better in the water and another big toss pot of food, resulted in another bream. For about 45mins I caught regularly, including a big perch. Worm was the best bait. When the swim died, I switched back to the inside line and caught more roach.
We were about 3hrs into our session and Mark was struggling. His pellet line hadn’t produced, the feeder only resulted in 1 skimmer and the only fish he could catch over his chopped worm were roach, although he had some quality specimens. Having seen my success with the heavier rig, he finally relented, after must moaning, about “this aint very good” and “not sure I want to fish on Saturday”. Anyway the next 2hrs on his heavy rig, he couldn’t stop catching over his pellet line, including quality bream and a 3-4lb tench. Funnily enough he was now interested!
My pole line had pretty much died, so decided on a pellet dump at 15m, before switching back to the inside line when I had a really good run of fish on caster. Back out on at 15m I did catch a big bream on pellet, but no other fish.
Mark finished with 38lb, so those last 2 hours were very productive and in many ways threw the ideas we were beginning to formulate out the window. All in all it was very useful practice and we have both came to the same conclusion in the way we plan to attack the match.
So we will see on Saturday whether we got it right.
Catch – 52 Roach, 6 Bream, 3 Perch, 1 Rudd
Weather – Mild, mostly cloudy and windy
The penultimate weekend of revision, meant no fishing, however with a match at Peatmoor Lagoon, Mark & I decided we needed a practice session to at least get an idea of the venue, since neither of us had seen the place.
What little information we managed to glean, skimmers, roach and a few tench would be the target, the lake is on the west side of Swindon and controlled by Peatmoor AC.
Mark & I had arranged to meet at Cotswold Angling for 8.30, but my sat nav sent me down a dead end road, whilst Marks sat nav sent him to another area of town on the other side of the dead end. After much swearing, about crap sat navs and never wanted to come to Swindon again, Mark finally arrived at the tackle shop.
Having spoken to Cotswold Angling last week, Mark was told we could get tickets there. On arrival it transpired they only sold season tickets and Hinders sold the day tickets, because the controlling club only allow 5 day tickets a day to be sold. Great another trip around Swindon. Cotswold gave us the postcode, which resulted in another dead end! A call to Hinders got the correct postcode, which was ½ mile away. Fortunately getting to the lake happened without further incident.
Our match on Saturday would be between pegs 1 & 27, which would put us on the south bank of the lake. I settled on peg 19, whilst Mark was on peg 22. The one thing we did notice was how tight the pegs where, fortunately there are only 16 booked in for Saturday, so at least we would have some room. The lake itself offered plenty of water and was about 4-5ft deep.
Mark & I had traded many e-mails (mostly when we were supposed to be working!) about how to approach the venue. Mark was in favour of the pellet approach, whilst I was felt that worm & caster would be better, purely because at this time of year the fishing can be a bit iffy, as the fish prepare to spawn, so I just felt we needed to cover all options. The other thing that we wanted to establish was whether we could catch on the pole, since most recent weights had come on the feeder, which I would prefer not to use.
Groundbait, chopped worm, caster and micros were deposited at 13m. I also started to catapult small balls of groundbait over the “feeder line” and I started at 5m feeding caster. After 30mins I had 20 small roach, mostly caught on red maggot. Mark had caught a 1½lb skimmer on the feeder.
I had set up a big waggler to fish over the feeder line, although I caught a roach 1st cast, the wind was proving a bit troublesome, creating quite a bit of tow and since I hadn’t set up a feeder decided to concentrate on the pole.
After letting the 13m line settle for an hour, I started toss potting a caster, chopped worm & micro mix every put in, after a few roach, I decided to use a bigger toss pot every other put in. This definitely helped and I caught my first bream, at nearly 4lb on double red maggot. My rig was a jean François 0.4g, but with the increasing wind the tow was getting worse and my presentation was suffering.
At times like this I always remember a fishing lesson I got from Nicky Collins at Viaduct, fishing a cold winter league match on Lodge Lake. The first half of the match I was ahead with a few skimmers, but the wind got stronger, Nicky switched to a heavier rig and in the 2nd half of the match he doubled my weight, simply because I persisted with the same rig, which was now rendered useless by the wind.
So a new rig was soon set up with a polar ice 1g. The difference was very noticeable, the float sat better in the water and another big toss pot of food, resulted in another bream. For about 45mins I caught regularly, including a big perch. Worm was the best bait. When the swim died, I switched back to the inside line and caught more roach.
We were about 3hrs into our session and Mark was struggling. His pellet line hadn’t produced, the feeder only resulted in 1 skimmer and the only fish he could catch over his chopped worm were roach, although he had some quality specimens. Having seen my success with the heavier rig, he finally relented, after must moaning, about “this aint very good” and “not sure I want to fish on Saturday”. Anyway the next 2hrs on his heavy rig, he couldn’t stop catching over his pellet line, including quality bream and a 3-4lb tench. Funnily enough he was now interested!
My pole line had pretty much died, so decided on a pellet dump at 15m, before switching back to the inside line when I had a really good run of fish on caster. Back out on at 15m I did catch a big bream on pellet, but no other fish.
Mark finished with 38lb, so those last 2 hours were very productive and in many ways threw the ideas we were beginning to formulate out the window. All in all it was very useful practice and we have both came to the same conclusion in the way we plan to attack the match.
So we will see on Saturday whether we got it right.
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