19/10/25 - Woodland View - Barley

Weight - 50lb 3oz

Catch - 11 Carp, 5 F1

Weather - Wet and windy

Match - Tackle Den (23 fished) - 10th overall, 4th in section

I’ve only been to Woodland View a couple of times, but had never fished Hay or Barley, which are 20m wide strip lakes. We had 12 anglers on Barley and 11 on Hay.

I managed to get advice from a couple of sources and was told to focus on the pole with maggot and pellet, targeting F1s and stockies. I was also told the winner would come from Hay and the middle of the lakes were best.

Well, I drew p5 on Barley, right next to the car park, so the wrong lake and the wrong end. I was then told I would probably lose the first hour due to car doors slamming etc.

As I was setting up, I realised I wouldn’t be fishing long on the pole due to the otter fence behind me which meant even fishing at 11m would mean breaking down twice.

On all-in I fed a few fishery 4s at 6m and started on a small method with fishery micros (groundbait is banned) with Coco Squid or Baninion Smog, cast into a rat hole on the far bank. Initially I tried a 6mm pellet but didn’t get a bite until I tried a 5mm yellow gofter.

After 40mins I had 2 carp for 5-6lb and was doing ok as the lake was fishing hard and it was now raining (and it never stopped). A switch to the short pellet line didn’t produce a bite which was a surprise.

A move out to 11m over micros and maggot, produced an F1 on maggot, but I wasn’t happy with the left to right wind which was starting to increase, causing the lake to tow. I set up a new rig (chimp 0.4g) which sat better in the tow, catching 3 F1s, before I started experiencing missed bites. I had thought about sorting out some shallow rigs, but couldn’t feed maggots accurately in the wind, plus heavy rain and maggots don’t make good bedfellows!

I tried coming shorter without success and began to wonder where my next fish was going to come from.

With 2 hrs remaining I decided to try the method again catching 4 or 5 carp tight to the far bank, which made me feel happier. In the meantime, I started cupping maggot at 5m and when the method line slowed, I tried the short line catching a couple of carp, but the  action was short lived.

My margins didn’t produce a bite, so back on the method to finish the match and I caught my best fish, an 8-9lb carp.

At the weigh in, as expected Hay Lake provided the top 5. The results on my lake were extremely tight as I finished 4^th with 50-3, but the lake winner weighed 52-14, so just the one fish. In hindsight, I think I spent too much time trying to make my pole line work.

1.    121-  4 – Andy Burns – p13 (Hay)

2.      92-  7 – Steve Venn – p4 (Hay)

3.      82-  3 – Kev Perry – p6 (Hay)

4.      79-13 – Matt Greaves – p11 (Hay)

5.      54-  7 – Bobby Moore – p8 (Hay)

6.      52-14 – Nicholas Wilson – p8 (Barley)