25/03/12 - Greenridge Farm - Canal 1

Weight – 62lb 4oz
Catch – 20 Carp, 2 Tench
Weather – Cold start, but warm and sunny with a slight breeze.
Water Temp – 11.0c – 11.9c
Match – Match Fishing Scene – 12^th out of 18 overall (2^nd out of 6 section)

New venues and long journeys seem to be the ways of things recently, however I do enjoy trying new places and reports of Greenridge Farm http://greenridgefarmfishing.com  were very good, Loads of carp, although very few silvers.

I traveled down with Mark and talk on the website, was initially that maggot was catching most of the fish, however following the recent rise in temperatures, Saturdays match was won with 196lb, with several ton weights, mostly on meat. Fortunately I already had meat on the bait table, together with pellet of various sizes and a handful of maggot. My intention was to concentrate on pellet and it appeared I was the only one going to down that road.

Arriving at the venue revealed 4 well maintained 10 peg canal lakes that backed onto each other. We had the first 3 lakes with 6 anglers per lake and the payout would be top 2 on each, which as it turned out was a sensible idea.

Drawing peg 4 meant I would be on canal 1 and a quick chat with the locals revealed I had drawn rubbish. Match organizer Pete Newman said it was the 1 peg he didn’t want, since it was at the wrong of the lake and only 50lb came from it yesterday. Must admit I was quite philosophical about it, having done quite well recently, so just tried to focus on catching a few fish.

Mark drew peg 3, which was the end peg today. He did say not to mention it in this blog, in case I came across all bitter & twisted! So yes end peg with 2 spare pegs to his left, which meant he had loads of room. Bitter & twisted me – not at all. The next peg to my right was p6, however I couldn’t fish down the margin due to tree being in the way.

The way the lakes are pegged, meant I had my back to canal 2, however sensibly you can easily access the far bank, which was handy for a bit of gardening and I cleared some straggly brambles and floating debris. Plumbing around revealed about 2½ foot of water on the far side and about 4ft down the middle. I settled on fishing 2 areas on the far bank, the first in front of me and the second was to my right by a small bush, feeding 4mm’s by catapult. Due to the depth of the far bank which was 14m away, I decided to feed before shipping out to let the fish settle over the feed, because apparently foul hooking can be a problem, however Mark & I only foul hooked 3 fish all match.

Rig wise I used a HB billybob 0.1g, .14 bottom and 16 B911 and first put in I hooked and lost a foul hooker, then nothing for 15mins. I kept feeding the 4mms and eventually had a carp. For the next couple of hours, I would get the odd carp mostly on meat, but if I put on an expander it would be nailed by hordes of motherless minnows. I had been feeding pellet down the middle at 14m to my right at the bottom of the far shelf, but only more motherless minnows nibbling at the bait, so decided to ditch this swim and starting feeding meat by hand to my right.

In the meantime I concentrated on the far side, however I was starting to struggle for bites, whilst Mark started making his end peg work for him, by pinging meat to his far bank. With 2 hours left Mark had overtaken me and was on his way to winning the lake with 108lb. I probably had an hour when I couldn’t catch. I tried feeding more regularly with pellet, fishing shallow, but nothing. In the end fed a pot of meat & pellet, which seemed to work with a few more fish in the net, but the last 30mins I couldn’t catch again. Disappointingly my short meat line failed to produce a bite, which was a surprise.

During the weigh-in it became obvious the other 2 canals were the place to be with 200lb & 166lb weighing each lake. In total there was 8 ton weighs, so overall the venue fished very well. Whilst Mark & I were at the wrong end, we both worked hard to catch what we did and fortunate none of the locals were on our lake. That’s now 6 straight pickups, 7 out of the last 8. Excluding club matches I think this is my best run, however another new venue on Tuesday, the Paddock Lake at Acorns.

1st 204-14 - Colin Horn - p29 canal 3
2nd 166-13 - Gareth Boycott - p12 canal 2
3rd 158-12 - Pete Bailey - p26 canal 3
4th 139- 3 - Ben Bentley - p20 canal 2
5th 136- 6 - Martin F - p15 canal 2
6th 133-10 - Pete Newman - p28 canal 3
7th 108- 5 - Mark Poppleton - p3 canal 1