Catch - 60 Carp, 4 Roach
Weather - Sunshine & showers, becoming increasingly windy
Match - Open - 1st out of 15
Today’s match was organised by Fred Roberts and I enjoy fishing Park Lake because you always get a few bites. Unfortunately we didn’t have the whole lake, since pegs 1-11 were left out for pleasure anglers (that never turned up) and with 15 anglers at the draw, we all wanted p38, which I duly drew. Happy days! At least I would get a few bites, well I had proper red letter day, when most things went to plan.
A path has recently been laid, which made walking around the
lake a lot easier and there was 1 or 2 jealous looks as I made my way to my
peg.
The weather forecast was for sunshine and showers, with an
increasingly strong wind blowing up the lake. As such decided to target the
island initially toss potting meat and a little hemp whilst the wind was still
light. This would also allow me to build up the right hand margin, which was fed
with 4mm pellet and corn. I also set up a 6m line fed with meat.
Whilst I set up 4 rigs I only ended up catching on 2:-
-
4x8 > .16 > 16 B911, later changed to .14 > 18
B911
-
Ackoo carrat 0.3g > .16 > 16 B911 – 6m line
As I was setting up there was plenty of fish moving on the
island, so didn’t see any point feeding a big pot of bait. Using a toss pot, I
had a carp almost immediately. I found it best to fish as tight as possible to
the far bank and after an hour had 11 carp. I had planned to only fish the far
bank for an hour, but because I was still catching, decided to keep going and a
further 12 carp came out over the next hour.
By now the wind was beginning to increase in strength and
the far swim was starting to fade, which meant it was time to switch to the
right hand margin. I had been feeding at the bottom of the shelf, expecting the
bigger fish to prefer the deeper water, but it soon became apparent that wasn’t
going to work and ended up fishing tight to the bank, toss potting 6s and corn,
with corn being better than pellet on the hook.
The third hour proved difficult as I tried to work how best
to catch with only 7 carp and 3 roach, although I didn’t think I was helped by
someone feeding caster and quite a floaters ended up in my swim and there was 1
or 2 slurpers on the surface. The fourth hour was much better with 9 carp &
1 roach, including a couple of those surface feeding fish. However I did have
to change rigs, as I lost the lot when the Garbolino 12-14 hollow elastic
snapped just above the connector and I won’t be buying that brand of elastic
again. I actually like how the elastic performs, however it simply doesn’t last
as long as other hollows I’ve used. A new duplicate rig was set up, but this
time with a lighter .14 bottom and 18 b911.
I was conscience that most of my fish were on the small side
(2lbers) with only a few bigger fish up to 5lb. I could see Paul Homewood
landing some better fish and I really needed my 6m meat line to work, which I
kept regularly topped up. Moving into the fifth hour I had a further 5 carp
from the right hand margin, plus 4 from the 6m line, where the fish were
slightly bigger, although not coming regularly enough.
The final hour proved to be my best with a further 12 carp,
2 from the margin and 10 at 6m. I knew I had beaten the guys I could see and
thought I had between 120-150lb, because I didn’t have any of the bigger fish.
The weigh in started at the other end. Chris Perry put 117-8
on the scales and I was confident of beating that, although I wasn't so
confident of beating James Knights 135-11. The remainder of the weights were
very close with a number of 90s and fortunately I had a little more than
expected.
1st 157-12 – Ken Rayner – p38
2nd 135-11 – James Knight – p21
3rd 117- 8 – Chris Perry – p12
4th 104- 7 – Paul Homewood – p35
5th 99- 5 – Nick Merry – p25
6th 96- 8 – Mark Poppleton – p18
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