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
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