12/05/12 - Fishponds

Catch – 14 Carp, 1 Bream

Weather – Sunny, with a slight breeze.

Water Temp – 19.1c – 19.7c

Match – Club – Feeder Only – 3^rd out of 12

With more revision to do (well it wold help if I passed the exam first time!), I could only go once this weekend and the intention was to fish Lands End. However, I strained my lower back earlier in the week and really didn’t fancy long pole fishing, so a 5hr feeder only match seemed like a more sensible idea.

As previously mentioned feeder fishing isn’t exactly my favourite style and I much prefer to watch a float go under, but I saw today an opportunity to sort out some problem areas, particularly the mix I put around the method. I do have a method mould but I can’t seem to get the perfect mould. Last week at Gold Valley the problem was my mix was too sticky and today I had the same issue, so the 1^st couple of moulds ended up being done my hand and there would still be pellet stuck to the feeder, which isn’t right. By adding a small amount of groundbait I managed to reduce the stickiness and started to produce perfect moulds, which also meant the feeder was coming back clean.

Being a feeder match meant setting up was easy and I found myself on peg 4, which is at the mouth the arm of the lake. Decided to concentrate on 2 areas, the far bank and 10m to my right where I hand fed 8s. The method itself was moulded with 2s.

After the first 2 hours I had 8 carp and a bream, all on 10mm white boilie, caught about 3m shy of the far bank reeds. My gut feeling was the fish wanted to be in the shallow water, because the temperature had increased and there was few cruisers.

Marcus next me on p3 had roughly the same on worm, but felt my fish were slightly bigger, particularly one that weighted 12-15. We both started to struggle after the 2^nd hour, so the fish appeared to have moved away from the far bank and neither of us could catch close in, although I am positive I would have caught if I could have fished the pole.

As I had slowed down, Glenn on p21, who has taken some big weights on the feeder started to catch, as was Kev behind me on peg 6, who was dropping his feeder into the shallow water by some nearside reeds – it is a noted hotspot.

From almost the start I had been firing 8s into the far bank but with an hour to go decided to deposit 1½pt of pellet by catapult. Whilst I was feeding that line I managed to catch a couple of carp from the near side swim, however they were only 4lbs, compared to the average 7lbers. If I was to catch Glenn and Marcus I needed a few better fish and fortunately the extra pellet to the far bank seemed to work with a further 3 average sized carp coming to 8mm pellet.

Come the weigh in those last 3 fish was enough to overtake Marcus, but I was 1 fish shy of Glenn. Fortunately there is only 1 feeder only match a year, so back to proper methods next month.

1^st 167lb – Kev

2^nd 108lb – Glenn

3^rd 102lb – Ken

4^th 91lb - Marcus