Monday 29 August 2011

28/08/11 - Viaduct - Campbell

Weight – 66lb 4oz
Catch – 13 Carp, 1 Bream.
Weather – Sunshine & showers. Windy.
Match – Tony’s Float Only

The post script for many of my matches this summer seems to be must try harder and today was unfortunately no different, although on the positive side at least I’m learning and on the whole understanding my mistakes.

Today I reluctantly guested for Tony’s league. Not fishing Viaduct regularly immediately puts me at disadvantage against those who do fish and its 1 of those venues I haven’t really got to grips with.

I found myself on Campbell p115, which meant nothing to me, although I was told it was in a good area. So after some advice, decided to fish paste at 6m, pellet/meat on the deck at 14m and pellet waggler at 25m.

The 1st half of the match was disaster with only 3 carp at 14m and 1 on the pellet waggler. I had been feeding mostly 6mm over the pole line, but I couldn’t work out how to feed, since the food drew the fish in but getting them to take the bait was challenging. I thought I sussed it by feeding ½ a cup instead of catapulting or toss potting, but the fish just didn’t settle.

My 6m line was also proving frustrating, because I couldn’t hit the bites, which I assume were silvers.

To be honest, I was being too stubborn about fishing on the deck. Initially with the forecast wind and the cool overnight temperatures I didn’t fancy it for shallow fishing, but I got that very wrong with most anglers around me catching shallow.

The 2nd half of the match was much better. I decided to concentrate at 14m fishing with a long line dibber. Strangely I caught better when the wind dropped. I did eventually catch 1 carp on the paste 5 mins from the end.

Disappointed with the result, but pleased to have sussed (well partially) it. Had I caught as much in the 1st 3hrs, as I did in the 2nd 3hrs I would have posted a very competitive weight. Also in hindsight feeding 8mm, instead on 6mm’s would have been better and would have probably made it easier to catch on the deck.

Sunday 21 August 2011

20/08/11 - Glebe - Mallory Park

Weight – 8lb 2oz
Catch – 13 Perch, 5 Roach, 1 Skimmer, 1 Gudgeon
Weather – Windy, sunny start, drizzle later, before the sun returned
Match – Angling Trust Masters

Writing this blog the day after the match and I have just received a text from Mark making sure I haven’t topped myself! In all seriousness though I had a nightmare of a match.

I’ve been looking forward to today for a while, confident with our plan of attack and just needed a draw. There were 16 teams of 6, including Drennan Team England, Guru, Shakespeare, Bag ‘Em, spread across the whole of the Glebe complex, including Foundation Lake and Mallory Parks Big Lake.

Mark & I travelled up the night before so we can be fresh for the morning, staying overnight at a Premier Inn, unfortunately Marks snoring made sure I didn’t get much sleep and I needed a couple of red bulls!

At the draw, the 1 lake no-one wanted was Mallory Park’s Big Lake, since it is in the middle of the race track and there was going to be a motorcycle track day, which meant it was going to be noisy. The other issue was the Big Lake isn’t fished that often, even by the Glebe club members, so getting up to date information was difficult.

Unfortunately I found myself on the Big Lake and I couldn’t work out the pegging. I was 6th in a line of 8 pegs, before there was a gap of 3 before the next 3, which left every other peg in on the far side and loads of space. From what little information I gleaned the stocking density was similar to pool 1, i.e. loads of carp, that can be caught short as well as on the feeder (although speaking to Roy Marlow he said everything worked – so not very helpful), plus a match last week the lowest weight was 74lb.

Mark & I had discussed on the drive up that if we drew the Big Lake that we would still fish caster, initially starting on the deck and go from there, aiming to catch shallow. However, when I arrived at my peg there was a strong south westerly breeze blowing at me left to right, which meant fishing caster shallow wasn’t practical, plus fishing longer than 11m was difficult.

The only issue I had was I lost my bag of feeders, although I found some method feeders (which are banned) and 1 cage feeder, however I decided against using the feeder, settling to fish the margins, 11m with caster and pellet waggler/lead at 30m (I couldn’t feed any longer due to the wind).

Since as the word states, this is a big open lake and with the wind i needed a 0.8g float in the 4ft deep swim to hold bottom in the tow. On the all in I dumped a full cup of caster, with a pinch of hemp and corn. I was soon into fish, but they were mainly perch and I kept potting bait every 10mins or so in an effort to pull in the carp that were supposed to come short. By the half way stage was I falling behind those around me, simply because I couldn’t get a carp on any method.

I had been feeding 8mm continually, but a look on the pellet waggler (set at 2 different depths) and the lead proven fruitless. From what I could see I was the only 1 without a carp. I could have stuck with fishing at 11m but catching silvers wasn’t going to do me any favours. I kept feeding the 11mm line heavily, as well feeding the 30m line hoping the carp would turn up. I also started feeding my margins again heavily with caster, hemp & corn.

By the end of the match, I had feed 10pts of caster, 9pts of 8mm, 2pts of hemp and 2 large tins of corn, but those carp simply didn’t come in. With all the 8mm I had fed at 30m I would have expected some carp to have turned up late, but other than 2 carp that I pulled out of one of which was at the net, very little showed. The anglers either side had 20 & 25lb, whilst the winner Paul Yates (Team England) from the end peg with 90lb and 2nd was Phil Ringer (Guru) from the far side.

A good indication that there were no carp in the area was a Grebe than stayed in an around my swim all day, popping up with roach in its mouth most times it surfaced.

As a team we finished a creditable 6th with Mark winning his section, finishing 2nd overall with 159lb from pool 4, fishing caster shallow, Nick Merry won his section from pool 7, fishing caster shallow, whilst Tim Shuttle was 3rd from pool 2.

I’m gutted to have done so badly. In hindsight today caster wasn’t the right approach for this lake due to the high number of silvers and I would have been better off fishing the feeder. Having said that I had hoped to pull in some carp with the amount of food that I fed and as for catching short, no one did.

Can’t wait for the next match to get this 1 out of my system.

Monday 15 August 2011

14/08/11 - Fishponds

Weight – 213lb 8oz
Catch – 29 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny, with variable wind.
Match – Club – 1st out of 15

With 15 booked in today, it usually means the fishing is likely to be a bit hard. I found myself on peg 1 again (where I was a couple of weeks ago) and intended to attack it in the same way, i.e. catch mostly on the paste and maybe a few fish on the pellet waggler.

The match didn’t quite go according to plan. After 1hr 45min I was still fishless, which was a real surprise, since the wind was blowing down the arm. I had been concentrating on the paste, but expect for 1 lost fish and a few iffy bites the carp simply didn’t turn up.

Throughout I had been firing 8mm’s to the far side and already given the pellet waggler 10mins an hour ago without success, however now I started to see swirls and dark shapes milling around the feed.

For the next 3hrs, it was virtually a fish every cast, with either a hair rigged 10mm white boilie or 8mm pellet. I only had to a break when the main line snapped above the float but the fish were properly having it.

With hour to go things slowed down, partly due to the wind dropping, but also our club chairman let go of his pole whilst attached to a carp. Said carp and 8m of pole came the full length of the lake down towards me and I had to go around the other side to help retrieve the pole. It took 10mins to get the fish back again, but with 20mins left it went completely flat calm and the fish became very finicky. A quick look on the pole/paste still failed to produce.

In the end the win was very convincing. Had I stuck with the pole/paste I would probably struggled to frame, but the fish wanted to be up in the water. This is my biggest weight on the pellet waggler and it made a nice change from catching on the paste. It is also my 4th pick up in the last 5 matches, so a definite swing from the struggles a few months ago.

1st 213- 8 – Ken
2nd 83- 0 – Andy
3rd 81- 0 - Chris

13/08/11 - Lands End - Match Lake

Weight – 51lb 2oz (12lb 6oz – silvers)
Catch – 28 Perch, 8 Carp, 6 Bream, 4 Roach
Weather – Mostly cloudy & muggy
Match – Open – 5th out of 14 (2nd – silvers)

I decided to fish today instead of Thursdays Evening Open at Rood Ashton, which just as well since only 3 turned up at Rood Ashton, so I won’t be going there again this summer.

Today I found myself on peg 7, not 1 of my favourites, since it flatters to deceive. There is always loads of fish moving around, but as soon as you throw in your keepnet, they tend to bugger off. Perhaps it because it’s the shallowest & narrowest part of the lake.

Anyway, when I arrived there was plenty (as per usual) of carp moving around. Decided to focus on the far bank towards the point of the island at 16m, fishing hair rigged 6 & 8mm pellet. I also deposited some 3mm’s at 8m to my left and started firing 6mm’s to my right at the bottom of the shelf.

On the all in I went straight over towards the point of the island and soon hooked a carp, but it broke me at the knot on my hooklength – doh angler error! I quickly attached a new one, when I noticed a carp cruising just in front of me, which gratefully accepted the hair rigged pellet and at 8lb it made up for the lost one. Another 2 carp followed from the point of the island, before it got very difficult. Talk around the lake was it was fishing hard and with just over an hour gone my 3 carp was leading the way, but I couldn’t get another and since everyone seemed to be struggled, decided to switch to fishing caster & worm on top of the shelf in front, whilst stilled pinging pellet towards the point of the island.

Over the next couple of hours I caught plenty of perch up 12oz mostly on worm, although I was disappointed not to catch some better fish, but at least I was catching.

I had been feeding the 8m line to my left with 3mms, but this only produced a few small fish and not the expected skimmers. I had periodically tried the point of the island and eventually caught 3 on the bounce, thinking I had it sussed, before they disappeared again, although I did have a couple more later on.

The problem was I wasn’t catching enough and going anywhere. I felt I was getting the most out of the peg, but the fish definitely seemed to be on the other side of the lake. Time to try 14m to my right where I had been continually feeding 6mms. Fishing a hair rigged 8mm pellet I was expecting a carp when the float went under, but it was a 2lb skimmer. In fact another 3 skimmers soon followed on 6mm pellet, before losing a foul hooked carp.

Come the weigh in I had the best weight from our side of the lake, but the top 4 weights including the best silvers came from the other side. My “accidental” silvers beat Dave Wescott by 6oz to claim 2nd spot in the silvers & £25. So those perch were worth going after and it was nice to have a change of luck.

1st 101- 2 - Lewis Jones – p17
2nd 80- 1 – Martin Pettifer – p24 (tried to catch silvers, but there was too many carp!)
3rd 74- 6 – Mark Poppleton – P21
4th 66- 7 – Rod Wootton – p18
5th 51- 2 – Ken Rayner – p7
6th 44- 4 – Dave Wescott – p1

Silvers
1st 14-12 – Andy Hembrow – p15
2nd 12- 6 – Ken Rayner – p7

Sunday 7 August 2011

06/08/11 - Lands End - Match Lake

Weight – 38lb 8oz (16lb 8oz – silvers)
Catch – 14 Perch, 5 Carp, 3 Ide, 3 Roach, 2 F1, 2 Bream, 2 Rudd
Weather – Mostly sunny, breezy later
Match – Open – 8th out of 15 (1st – silvers)

A bit of a gap from my last blog. I did have a couple of pleasure sessions, including 241lb in 4.25hrs from my club water trying a new paste and Thursdays Rood Ashton match was cancelled.

Arriving at the venue I was surprised to find a nearly full car park, with a club match on speci lake and pleasure anglers on lakes 3 & 4. For today’s match we had 15, all on match lake, which meant pegs 18 to 22 were all in and to be honest I didn’t fancy drawing in the 20s due to the lack of space, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I drew p21. Ray Bass was on 22 and the carp slayer that is Rod Wootton on 20 (I know he will be reading this – so I was delighted to be pegged next to him – not!).

It was also no surprise to find the fish waving at Rod as we were setting up, so no doubt he will be having a few. Normally I would have been happy with my draw had I at least 1 spare peg, but knew today was likely to be difficult in bright flat conditions.

At the start a small amount 3mm’s & a few 6’s were deposited at 6m. I went straight over on the paste fishing the far shelf, feeding a pouch of 6mm’s over the top. After 30mins and 2 lost foul hookers meant I was off to bad start, with both Rod & Trigger on 24 catching.

Only 1 skimmer came from my 6m line and no bites on pellet on the far shelf, meant after an hour I was going nowhere fast, seriously falling behind those around me. I was thinking about changing to caster when Ray caught a 9lber on caster off the far shelf which made up my mind.

I had to set up a new rig and first put in on double caster resulted in a carp – great sussed it! Not quite. The carp didn’t seem to settle and I had to keep lifting and dropping to get a bite, but at least I was now catching, including some decent F1’s and Ide up to 2½lb.

As the match progressed, I was feeding a pouch of 6mm’s to pull in the carp, plus a toss pot of caster. Hook bait was double caster, although I had some better fish on worm. By half way I knew framing was unlikely, so decided to stick with caster to keep the silvers coming hoping to pick up the silvers pool instead.

I only had 1 more skimmer from the 6m line, despite regularly feeding small amounts of pellet. They just didn’t want to play today and I suspect the bright, flat conditions didn’t help. In fact very few skimmers were caught today.

With about an hour to go, I felt my far line was fading, because it was becoming more difficult to catch and I felt the carp just were settling properly, because I lost a few foulhookers as they swam though the line. So decided to deposit ¾ big pot of caster with a few 6mm’s, feeding ½ pots every 15mins. This produced another carp, plus 2 more big ide.

By the end the match, I was confident of at least 15lb of silvers and thought I might be close to 20lb, but those Ide are hollow and don’t weigh as much as you think. Anyway I had enough to comfortably beat Dave “Beany” who had 10lb also caught on caster and worm. In hindsight I think I made the right tactical decision to swictch to caster and enjoyed my days fishing. However, I should have started on the pellet, instead of paste. Mike West struggled on p19 fishing paste, so they obviously didn’t want it.

1st 107- 5 – Lewis – peg 15
2nd 96- 3 – Rod – peg 20
3rd 92-14 – Trigger – peg 24
4th 48- 7 – Andy – peg 3

Silvers
1st 16- 8 – Ken – p21
2nd 10- 0 – Dave – p5