06/10/13 - Fishponds

Weight - 115lb 6oz
Catch - 19 Carp, 2 Roach
Weather - Warm & sunny. Cooling breeze in the afternoon
Match - Club - 2nd out of 11

This match was originally scheduled for Walters Lake at Ridgeway fishery, but due to a lack of numbers was switched to our water, which I wasn’t too disappointed about. Transpired a few members were fishing the first round of the Sedges series.

Firstly an apology to Andy Bradley. During my blog about last month’s trip to the river, I described his car as a Range Rover, rather than a Land Rover Discovery. Obviously didn’t appreciate the upgrade!

11 of us were spread around the lake and I found myself on p22, which is one of my favourites. Nothing complicated today, so 4 rigs set up:-
- HB dweezil 0.3g > .17 > 16 B960 (hair rigged 8mm pellet)
- HB AK47 0.2g > .19 > 14 carp feeder (hair rig pellet/corn – margin)
- HB redneck 0.2g > 19 > 12 carp feeder (paste – margin)
- HB shady shallow > .17 > 16 B960 (shallow pellet)

Because I wasn’t too sure how the lake would fish, I set up 2 lines, left & right at 11m at the bottom of the shelf. The left hand swim was fed with mostly 8s and a few 6s, whilst the right hand swim was fed with more 6s and corn. Due to the overhanging reeds, I could only fish the right hand margin towards the p23 platform, which was fed with pellet.

During the first hour I had 8 carp from the left hand swim, although they were only averaging 4-5lb instead of the normal 7lb, but at least I was catching. By rotating left & right I was up to 17 carp just after 3hrs.

Unfortunately the wind picked up and my rig was struggling to cope in the 6ft deep swim. In hindsight I should have set up a heavier rig, however I decided to try paste and I expected the margin to produce. The paste only produced a couple knocks, whilst in the margin I hooked 4 carp, 2 of which bust me under the platform, the hook pulled out of a 3^rd and the one fish I did land was 8-9lb.

Corn in the deep water produced 2 roach, so that wasn’t tried again and I stuck with 8mm pellet. Fortunately, everyone except for Joe opposite were struggling, although I was aware Andy Bradley had caught a few, as had Tim. In the last 15mins the wind dropped and I caught 2 more carp on the deep water pellet rig, including my biggest of the day at 12-1. Must admit I was kicking myself for not setting up a heavier pellet rig.

Come the weigh in Tim was admitting to 22 carp, whilst Andy also had 19, so the weigh in was going to be interesting. As expected Tim won, Andy weighed 114-12 and I honestly didn’t think I had that, because I thought I had too many small fish. Fortunately my biggest fish just about swung it beating Andy by 10oz. Not much was said at the weigh-in about that!

1^st 130- 7 – Tim Allen – p6
2^nd 115- 6 – Ken Rayner – p22
3^rd 114-12 – Andy Bradley – p17
4^th 88-14 – Joe Thompson – p4
5^th 75-14 – Nick Pople – p14
6^th 58-11 – Don Smith – p1