Weight - 129lb 4oz
Catch - 18 Carp
Weather - Cloudy start, becoming warm & sunny
Match - Club - 1st out of 20
Today was the first club match of the year and I was surprised to see so many cars in the car park. 20 anglers had booked in, which is a club record and it would be interesting to see how the lake would cope with the pressure. I personally thought that 100lb would be enough to win, if not frame.
The only place I didn't want to be was down the arm of the lake and was quite pleased with p10, which is one of the deepest on the lake. As such the margins tend to be the best area to catch, which are 5ft deep. Dave was on p11, which meant we would be sharing the same corner, although we were far enough away from each other to hopefully not to be an issue. But at least I had the left hand margin to target, which is where I expected to catch the bulk of my fish.
Originally I was only going to set up 2 rigs.
- HB Redneck 0.3g > .17 > 12 carp feeder for paste
- Ackoo Powertrap 0.3g > .17 > 16 B960 for hair rigged pellet.
Normally this peg isn't great for shallow fishing because its sheltered from the wind and consequently doesn't get much ripple, however I had brought a pellet waggler rod already set up and I also decided to set up a long line shallow pellet rig just in case.
On the all in a handful of 8s went in to the right hand margin and started in the left hand margin feeding a few 8s with the paste. 2nd drop in and the float just kept going under and I had my first fish which was a relief. After a couple of iffy bites on paste a switch to the pellet rig and I had 3 more carp by the end of the first hour.
Come the end of the second hour I had added a further 3 carp. From those I could see I was probably leading. Dave on p11 had 6 carp from the corner, but I couldn't catch from my side.
The third hour produced a further 3 carp, but it was slow going. I had been feeding pellet from the start at 13-14m. The wind switched around a little, which created a little bit of ripple. A look on the pellet waggler produced 1 carp, but the fish weren't really feeding. As the day got warmer there was a few fish showing themselves sunning themselves and my margin had completely died.
The rest of the match was a case of chopping and changing between rigs. If there was some ripple I would fish at 13m constantly swinging the shallow rig around, which produced a couple of fish. When the ripple disappeared I would swing the shallow rig in front of any fish I could see, which produced a few more fish.
By the end I was glad I had set up the shallow rigs, because it definitely made the difference. As expected the fishing was tough for many and the pegs with some extra space did best.
1st 129-4 - Ken - p10
2nd 81- 2 - Roger - p15
3rd 73-14 - Don - p17
4th 66-14 - Andy L - p26
5th 54- 9 - Graham - p23
6th 48- 6 - Craig - p14
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