Weight - 44lb 8oz
Catch - 13 Carp, 11 F1, 7 Roach, 1 Tench
Weather - Warm & sunny!
Match - Todber series rd 2 - 16th out of 24, 4th out of 6 section
My plans
for the weekend were to spend it with Sue, watch the Malaysian Grand Prix and
generally chill out after what has been a stressful week at work. However Mark
Poppleton needed a replacement for his Todber series, where my 6 peg section
would be between pegs 22 & 29. I fancied 23 or 25 on the corner, but ended
up on 28, which wasn’t great, although I did come 6th from the peg
back in November last year.
For company
I had Chris Cassell on p26 and Steve Musitano on p29. The fishery staff had
obviously been doing some tiding up cutting back the sedges and brambles along
the island, but unfortunately had only got as far as Steve’s peg, which meant I
still had the sedges to deal with.
With a warm
& sunny day forecast the prospects for a good day looked high, however it
turned into a rather frustrating day instead, where the fish where reluctant to
feed. My plan of attack was to start across fishing on top of the far shelf
with pellet, catch shallow if they wanted it that way, then plunder the 5m meat
line and margins.
Chris on
p26 had already landed a carp on the method, by the time I finished feeding
meat/hemp at 5m, down the margin and across to my right by the island. Starting
to my left just toss potting some 4s & 6s with expander on the hook I soon
had an F1, followed by another 2 and a couple of roach. But then I couldn’t get
a bite for 20mins from either of my island swims.
A switch to
feeding caster, with double caster on the hook produced a run of fish before
that died as well. During the first hour I managed 10 fish, but only put
another 2 fish in the net, during the second hour and as yet no carp. I tried
caster shallow, but that proved a waste of time as well.
Whilst the
lake wasn’t fishing well I was already falling behind Chris & Ashley
Tomkins on p25 who were catching carp, so decided to be positive to get back
into the match and started catapulting pellet to the far bank in the hope of
drawing some fish into the swims. Steve on the other hand decided to go the
other way and started fishing negatively toss potting micros with maggot on the
hook, fishing tight to the bare bank.
In the
meantime I tried my meat line and margins early without response. In fact my
margin line was really difficult to fish due the tree and I didn’t spend too
much time fishing it.
The pinging
of pellet was having the desired effect with a few fish now showing themselves
and I had some F1s on 8mm pellet by continually lifting and dropping.
Eventually I my first carp after 3hrs, but after the initial run of fish they
became very cagey.
Steve in
the meantime had a really good run of carp & F1s from his far line, before
they backed off, but the damage was already done and any section pay out was
looking very distant. I really needed my short meat line to work. Which it did,
catching mostly carp, but I had to wait for bites. I still kept pinging pellet
across, but could only catch 1 fish at a time, before they back off again,
although I did mug my best fish of the day which had been swimming down the
middle of the lake.
Overall a
disappointing day, where the first 3hrs cost me. Once I started catching carp I
was keeping pace with those around me, but they turned up too late. Well done
to Steve who also had a few fish down his margin on worm over dead maggot and
won the section, just piping Ashley by 12oz who struggled to catch in the last
couple of hours.
Back at the
car pack most were saying they overfed. The warm sunny conditions luring us
into a false sense of security, but the cold overnight conditions had obviously
put the fish down.
1st
154-14 – Frank Donachie – p14
2nd
83-14 – Mark Brennan – p16
3rd
81- 8 – Mark Poppleton – p31
4th
72-12 – Steve Musitano – p29
5th
72- 0 – Ashley Tomkins – p25
6th
67- 0 – Fred Roberts – p34
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