16/11/14 - Harescombe - Match Lake

Weight - 67lb 5oz
Catch - 44 F1s, 7 Carp, 7 Skimmer, 1 Gudgeon
Weather - Mostly cloudy, cool NW breeze
Match - Club - 1st out of 11

I was looking forward to this match, because I have enjoyed the last couple of visits although the weather could have been kinder. At least today light winds were forecast, even if they were coming from the NW.

On arrival I had a quick chat with Tim who regularly fishes here, advising pellet & corn was still working. I could fish maggot, but was likely to be pestered by small roach & skimmers, which meant the 2pts of Avon Angling maggots (my last ever – very sad) would remain unused for today at least.

The draw put me on p19 on the far bank and with only 11 on the lake I had plenty of space, which as we know isn’t always a good thing. The good news was the vegetation on the central island has been cut back, although there were still some weeds sticking out, but at least it was a lot tidier than my last visit.

My plan of attack was to start across by the island and feed a 2+2 swim. Only 3 rigs required for today.
- HB Frostie 0.2g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet (soft pellet/corn)
- SM Slim 0.2g > .12 > 18 B911 (hair rigged 6mm pellet)
- SM Chimp 0.4g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet (2+2 swim)

Due to the shorter days we would only be fishing 5.5hrs. On the all in I started across toss potting 4s and 2 bits of corn with 4mm expander on the hook and my first fish was a Gudgeon. I used love catching Gudgeon as a kid and used to catch some really big ones from my local river. Next put in I had an F1 and by the end of the 1^st hour I had 10 fish.

The 2^nd hour was a little harder with 9 fish mostly on corn, but at least the fish were a little bigger and the 3^rd I had 12 fish, but started catching more small skimmers as the F1s back off.

F1 fishing is really interesting and you have to continually work out how they want feeding. I had started off in 1 swim, then started left & right of this swim, moving further along the island. I struck with toss potting 4s & corn. I did try micros, but this just brought in those small skimmers, so I stopped that. Since I wasn’t catching anything bigger than 2lb I switched hooklength to .10 which seemed to improve my bite ratio.

Going into the 4^th hour I noticed a few fish moving along the island and decided to start pinging pellet to my right, adding a further 10 fish mainly from the left hand side which I was still toss potting pellet/corn.

The 5^th hour proved to be a golden hour with 15 fish, when I switched rigs to a hair rigged 6mm pellet (which according to Tim no one has done this winter) very tight to the island I had a run of fish, including more carp.

The last 30mins proved to be more difficult, but still landed a couple more fish. The short line proved to be a bust with only 1 more skimmer coming from it. Of the anglers I could see Andy on p24 who had been fishing maggot looked to be the busiest and he did catch more than me including a lot of small blade roach & skimmers, but sticking with pellet and corn won the day.

A really enjoyable day, with plenty of bites. Also this was my first weekend for a while where I have picked up both days. It’s probably no coincidence that I was offered a new job Thursday and feel more relaxed.

1^st 67- 5 – Ken Rayner – p19
2^nd 55- 5 – Andy Lord – p24
3^rd 34-11 – Andy Bradley – p29
4^th 24-10 – Craig Davidge – p30
5^th 22- 6 – Paul Lewis – p14
6^th 19- 3 – Nick Jodrell – p3