Catch - 8 Carp, 1 F1, 1 Rudd
Weather - Sunny all day, but increasingly strong wind
Match - Pole Only rd 2 - 11th out of 30, 6th out of 10-section
At long last I have a new pole. After originally ordering a MAP 901 at the back end of last year, I ended up cancelling my order because the delivery date was put back, plus there were increasing concerns regarding spares, although at the time of ordering MAP assured me there won’t be a problem. Anyway following a recommendation from Mark and having a brief play with his pole, I ordered a Garbolino Super Legion, with a Power Legion expected this week - happy days!
Today was the 2nd round of the Acorns series and the weather was a big improvement from last week, with bright sunshine and light winds. My section today was the better pegs, i.e. 1,5,6,7,9,10,12,33,34 & 40. Ideally I fancied a bridge peg, because they seem to be the most consistent, plus the F1s have been hanging around them, which would be handy following my maximum points score for silvers last week.
Alas p12 found its way into my hand, but I wasn’t too disappointed because it can be a really good peg. As I was setting up the wind was very light, blowing out of the swim down the lake to my left and there was a few fish moving around.
The plan of attack was to start across catch a few early carp before they disappear, then catch a few silvers down the track, by which time the right hand margin would be solid! Best laid plans and all that!
On the all in micros & 4s were feed across by the island, on the 2nd shelf by the island and 13m to my right at the bottom of the shelf. The same again, with groundbait was deposited down the track at 8m in front and 12m to my right in open water.
Starting across with a 4x10 float > .12 > 16 B911 with
4mm expander I soon hooked my first fish, which fell off, as did the 2nd
& 4th – all foul hooked. The 3rd was hooked properly,
but I was having a mare. Previous recent experience has shown the fish backed
off too much feed so I was just toss potting micros & 4s, but getting a
proper bite was frustrating. I tried pellet, maggot & worm, all of which
was ignored. Dom Sullivan on p10 however was catching across, although Glenn
Culvert to my left on p13 was having the same issues as me.The down the track swims didn’t produce anything, although the 13m right hand swim did produce a carp on expander. Even on the deep rigs carp were swimming into the line, just cruising around enjoying the sun. After 2 hours and several foul hookers I only had 2 carp in the carp in the net.
The wind was also picking up, so my 0.4g chump rig for fishing down the track was replaced with a SM Chimp 0.5g > .10. > 20 silverfish maggot hook to fish single maggot, never had a bite. I have to say I was having a bit of tourettes moment, I couldn’t hook the fish properly, I couldn’t get a bite from silvers and the wind was increasing in strength – I really was disappearing up my own arse vowing never to return to the venue, but its not fair to just drop out of a series, because it’s a lot of hassle for the organiser. After a quiet word to myself, I realised any silvers money was unlikely because Charlie Barnes on p9 was catching the odd skimmers, which probably helped Dom catch better from the island. Also I had a seen a few others catch in my section, which meant I really needed to recover from a bad position.
As well as getting stronger, the wind had also changed
direction, blowing directly at me, which was fine to fish across to the island,
but feeding pellet across was a bit like a scatter gun, so decided to ignore
the island, instead potting small amounts of micros & 4s on the 2nd
shelf where hopefully the carp (& may be a few skimmers) would settle
later. Despite several small top ups, I never had a bite, which just left the
right margin.The wind had made my right hand 13m swim redundant, because any presentation was impossible, so I focused on fishing tight into the margin, however the change of wind direction meant all the scum & debris had blown into the swim, making presenting a bait very difficult. I really wasn’t having the best of days, although I did cheer up when I netted a 10lber on double maggot.
Another new rig was set-up this time so I could hair-rig a 10mm JPZ pellet. The theory being a bigger & heavier bait would sit better in the wind and got though the scum better. I kept feeding caster at 10m, but caught most of my fish further along away from the feed.
In the end I managed to claw back some section places and was only 10lb from claiming 3rd in section. Dom fished a great match making the most of fishing across then plundering his margin late on. With lighter winds, I’m certain I would have caught more, but ultimately it was that first hour when I couldn’t catch that cost me decent section points.
During the last 6 weeks I have really struggled to put any results together, following an 8 month period of picking up in 75% of matches fished. Hopefully normal serve will resume shortly. As for the new pole – what a difference, a real quality piece of kit, although the top kit package sold with it could be better.
1st 85- 6 - Dom Sullivan - p10
2nd 69- 8 - Russ Peck - p36
3rd 51-13 - Tom Thick - p34
4th 51-12 - Bob Gullick - p21
5th 46- 8 - Nigel Vigus - p38
6th 45- 0 - Glenn Calvert - p13
Silvers
1st 10- 7 - Paul Faires - p15
2nd 10- 4 - Tom Thick - p34
3rd 9- 8 - Bob Gullick - p21
4th 9- 2 - Charlie Barnes - p9
5th 6-10 - Pete Bartlett - p30
6th 5-10 - Russ Peck - p36
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