15/11/09 - Fishponds

Weight - 27lb 4oz
Catch - 3 Carp, 3 Roach, 2 Rudd, 1 Bream
Weather - Mostly sunny, 1 heavy shower
Water Temp - 10.5c > 10.0c
Match - Club Match - 4th overall

16 turned up today’s club match, which was higher than expected and we were all relieved that the weather had improved from yesterdays storms. However a sudden change in the weather doesn’t usually bode well for the fishing and with the volume of rain that fell yesterday I was expecting a hard match.

I found myself on peg 12 which has a nick name of “dead mans corner” and it rarely frames, so I had my work cut out. The peg looks very fishy, with plenty of reeds in the left hand corner, but in a match the peg is cut off by pegs 11 & 13 and with the wind blowing on the other side of the lake a difficult day was likely.

Decided on 3 areas, 12m into the left hand corner, 14m at 1o’clock (wanted to give myself some extra room from peg 11) and the bottom of the right hand marginal shelf. Green Swim Stim, micro pellet with a pinch of 4mm and corn went in at 14m, I was hoping to pull in a few bream as well as create some activity from small silvers. 4mm & corn went into the margins.

Tried the RH margin straight away, but never had a bite. In fact despite trying I never had a bite from this swim all match, not sure why, but I think Chris was feeding the margin from peg 13 may have had an effect.

A small roach on maggot from my 14m line was my 1st fish after 30mins and the fishing generally around the lake was very slow. Pellet and corn failed to produce on the 14m line, so another ball of groundbait went in and I decide to fish over it straight away on maggot to gauge the response. 15mins later I connected with a large carp, which was safely landed. At 12lb 7oz it put me in contention and a 3lb bream, 20mins later was very useful, but unfortunately other than a few small silvers and a lost foul hooked carp this line didn’t much more.

At the half way stage it was time to try the corner. 1st put in on double hair rigged corn the float buried and a near 6lb carp was landed. 2nd put in the float buried again, but missed it. With no more bites another rotation of swims was required, as well as setting up 2 more swims, 8m in the LH margin and 14.5m in front.

I had 1 more carp from the corner with an hour to go, but when the heavy rain shower cleared the wind dropped completely and the sun shone. Even those that had been catching struggled during the last hour.

Ian won the match from peg 21 with 57-6, 2nd was Beevor from peg 17 with 37-5 and Dave was 3rd from peg 20 with 35-1. Finishing 4th was a good result, particularly since the pegs either side didn’t weigh, in fact there was only 1 other carp caught in my area of the lake.

On a slightly different note, I hear anglers complaining about breaking their poles and how certain makes are crap. I have an N47, which isn’t the strongest pole around, but I have never broken a section whilst playing a fish, only though my own stupidity. I do also have a J27, which is much stronger (and heavier) for margin fishing. Most pole breakages, regardless of make are down to human error, however there are some who just can’t be told. There are a couple in our club, who once they hook a carp, insist on trying to lift the carp to the surface with 13m of pole! One in particular did this a couple of times, on what I suspect was heavy elastic and he was surprised when the carp pulled free. The bigger surprise for me was how his pole didn’t break! Probably made by Carlsberg who probably make the strongest poles in the world.