Catch - 35 F1s, 6 Carp, 6 Skimmers, 3 Roach
Weather - Mostly cloudy with showers & windy
Match - Glenfall V Abbotswood - 3rd out of 16
A completely new venue for me, in this head to head match between my
club Glenfall and Abbotswood. Originally I wasn’t booked in to fish, but the
week before realized there wasn’t any match being run, due to the Viaduct
silvers league. Fortunately someone dropped out so I was in.
I had already seen some reports on the venue, which is 5mins off the
motorway tucked away in the Cotswold near Gloucester and some research revealed
it was full of F1s, small carp up to 3lb and skimmers, although I found out on
the day there was also roach, chub, perch and gudgeon. The last time I fished Harescombe
was 6 years ago, when I visited one of the other 3 lakes and the match lake
hadn’t even been dug. The lake is a purpose built 30 peg match venue, with a
single thin island running its full length 13m from the bank, in an attempt to
create a fishery without features to make it as fair as possible. Unfortunately
6 of the pegs have been lost to a landslide, but speaking to the fishery
manager, they identified 3 natural springs further up the hill, which have now
been re-directed, which should stop any further movement. The plan is to re-claim
the 6 pegs. 
With the southerly wind blowing up the lake, I fancied a draw towards
that end and was happy enough with peg 11, which was a very short walk from the
car. The issue today would be the wind, which was forecast to gust up to 30mph,
although at times the lake just went flat calm, before the next gust of wind
came through. Plumbing up revealed a narrow 2.5ft deep shelf by the island and
5ft down the middle.
Rigs for the day:-
-
HB chump 0.3g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet (fish
on top of far shelf)
- Polar Ice (wire stem) 4x18 > .12 > 18 silverfish
pellet (down the track)
- HB ratcatcher 2 > .12 > 18 B911 (lasso 6mm
pellet shallow)
I also set up a feeder rod just in case but never used it. There aren’t
many rules, but one I thought a bit odd was groundbait can only be introduced
via a feeder, so no cupping or throwing groundbait. Oh well balling it was out
of the question then. Instead I cupped in micros, 4s and a bit of corn on top
the far shelf and at the bottom of the far shelf. I also started throwing 4s
& corn short for later.
Not sure what to expect I started by the island with double dead maggot
and soon had a 1oz roach. Next put in the maggot was replaced with a 4mm
expander and I soon had an F1, followed by another 6 by the end of the first
hour. However the wind was proving to be a pain and I was missing bites due to
fishing over depth in an attempt to get some sort of presentation.
By the end of that hour the fish seemed to have drifted away, although
catching the far bank shrubbery a couple of times didn’t help, smashing 2
floats in quick succession. I did mention it to the fishery manager, who had
already raised the problem with the owner.
I had hoped that catching down the track would be my banker line, but it
was a struggle. I could see Barry on p14 catching well using worm over caster
and Craig opposite him was also catching well, whilst all I could muster were small skimmers, roach and the odd small
F1. I stuck at it thinking the swim would build, but it just didn’t feel right,
so started pinging 6s towards the island in the hope of catching shallow.
The shallow rig was only set up as an after thought, because the winner
a week or so ago had a huge weight on the method, but with the recent rain I
wasn’t sure it would work. Fortunately it did.
This venue is a fish race and there were a number of people of catching
and any chance of a pick up was looking remote. The first 30-45mins shallow
proved difficult, as I again caught the island vegetation, above and below the
water line! Also I tried using the lasso as a hair rig for the first time, I definitely
see the advantages, but need a little practice to speed up the process as it’s
a little fiddly. Eventually I got it sorted catching F1s up to 1.5lb and 6 carp
up to 2.5lb. The fish would drift in and out of the peg, but by continually
lifting/dropping and slowly dragging the rig around I kept the fish coming.
Occasionally I had to rest the swim, either fishing my 5m line, which
only yielded a couple of small skimmers or the margin fed with dead maggot
& micros only produced a small F1. During the last hour the fish seemed to
have disappeared a together, so I started to employ a tactic I rarely use,
which was slapping the water and bugger me if the elastic get ripped out of the
pole. But again the fish just kept drifting. With 10mins to go another quick
look down the margin produced nothing, but the rest did the far line some good
as 2 decent F1s and a 2lb carp went into the net in the last 5mins to nick 3rd
place.
In hindsight I probably overfed my swims down the track and I should
have switched shallow a little sooner, but in all fairness I doubt I would have
caught up Barry & Craig, who both got off to a good starts.
It’s a perfect match venue and I would definitely go back. As you can see
the weights were quite close and normally the weights are better, but the wind
made presentation difficult today.
1st 89-12 - Barry Summers – p14 (Abbotswood)
2nd 77-11 - Craig Davidge – p17 (Glenfall)
3rd 47-14 - Ken Rayner – p11 (Glenfall)
4th 46- 9 - Tom Moyle – p20 (Abbotswood)
5th 45- 0 - Andy Lord – p8 (Glenfall)
6th 43- 3 – Nick Jodrell – p15 (Glenfall)
Glenfall won with a combined
(top 6) weight of 286- 5 to 253- 2.
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