12/07/13 - Glebe - Pool 6

Weight - 74lb 12oz
Catch - 19 Carp, 2 Perch, 1 Roach
Weather - Very hot and sunny
Match - MFS website (day 1 of 2) - 23rd out of 36 (5th out of 8 - section)

Today was the first of a 2 dayer at the Glebe run under the MFS banner. The match itself was split over 3 lakes, Pool 1, 6 & 7, with 2 sections of 10 on Pool 1 and 2 sections of 8 on Pools 6 & 7. Pool 1 would be the favoured draw.

Mark & I had travelled down the night before staying at the Longshoot Hotel in Nuneaton with the intention of missing what can be problematic early morning traffic and hopefully avoid feeling tried due to the early start. Unfortunately, I was still suffering from the effects of a viral infection which I've had all week and consequently had a restless night. This wasn't aided by our hotel room resembling a sauna after the previous occupant left the towel rail on maximum heat. Opening the windows only marginally helped because there was no wind to expel the hot air.

Both days would be a random draw, which personally I wasn't too happy about because I would have liked to have had at least the opportunity to fish pool 1 and just hoped I wouldn't be on the same lake both days.

Today I drew p86 on Pool 6, which has the nickname of the "little girl’s pegs" because it’s a bit of flyer. Pool 6 is a 12 peg strip lake, about 40m wide at my end narrowing to about 25/30m at the other. Speaking to Rich Bedder (p87) & Gordon Parker (p89), both Glebe members my peg is a good feeder swim. The only problem here is I didn't bring a feeder rod, because the intention was to catch shallow on caster, regardless of where I drew.

The weather today, meant there was no ripple what so ever and there was plenty of fish cruising around. The question was would they feed in this heat?

Rigs for day
-       HB shady shallow > .17 > 16 B960 (hair rig 8mm pellet - shallow)
-       NB ratcatcher 2 > .17 > 16 B960 (maggot & caster - shallow)
-       Ackoo Carrat 0.2g > .16 > 16 B911 (margin)

I also set up a couple rigs to fish the 5m line, but never had a bite on these and finally I also set up a puddle chucker waggler to chase any fish out of pole range, which I had quite a bit of success using last year.

After feeding a big pot of hemp and corn at 13m down the left bank I started shallow feeding caster, using the pellet rig to try and mug a few fish. With no ripple on the water the first 2 hours was very difficult, which was compounded by the fact those that were fishing the feeder tight to the far bank were catching. By the end of the 2^nd hour I only had 4 carp and was already 6 or 7 carp behind Rich on p87.

Eventually, I started to catch shallow on the maggot/caster rig, but losing far too many. The fish seemed to be snatching at the bait and only lightly hooked which meant a few hook pulls at the net.

My left hand margin produced a few fish on corn, but they were generally a smaller stamp than the shallow fish so I didn’t waste too much time if I didn’t get a bite.

With 2hrs to go I had nearly caught up with Rich, but was aware that Gordon was catching on his favourite corn @5m line and Colin Mercer on p90 had also been catching. So after the slow start I was hoping to at least claim 3^rd in section and a brown envelope.

Despite the lack of wind, when the match started there was a lot of surface debris on the surface, but gradually as the day wore on all this drifted down the lake to the other end and I’m certain some of the feeding fish followed it, because with 2hrs to go there was certainly far fewer cruisers around. I still managed to keep the odd fish going into the net and actually thought I had caught Rich up. However, he had a few good last 30mins down his margin with 5 fish for 40/50lb and a lake win.

Ultimately I lost far too many today and couldn’t make up the early deficit on the feeder anglers, to finish 5^th in the section, when I know I should have at least come 3^rd with 89lb. Needless to say I was a bit grumpy when we got back to the hotel, although nothing could damped Marks sprits after winning the match with pellet shallow, because he couldn’t catch on caster! It appears some of the locals had got fed up of being beaten by visiting anglers using caster and have finally succumbed, so the fish are seeing a lot of the bait at the moment. Obviously Roy Marlow hasn’t been handing out as many Marukyu freebies recently and the members need to find cheaper alternatives.

1^st 172- 0 – Mark Poppleton – p24 (pool 1)
2^nd 122- 4 – Rob Dickinson - p2 (pool 1)
3^rd 121- 8 – Rich Bedder – p87 (pool 6)
4^th 111- 8 – Gordon Parker – p89 (pool 6)
4^th 111- 8 – Roscoe – p8 (pool 1)
6^th 111- 4 – Ian Simpson – p18 (pool 1)