Catch - 25 Carp
Weather - Bright & sunny, but cool.
Match - Marks Stag Do - 6th out of 16
Instead of having a conventional stag do prior to his wedding in October, Mark decided to have a stag match. The format would be a randomly drawn team match with 4 teams of 4, with Mark, Nick, Hippy and I as team captains. The 3 best weights from each team member would count and the top 2 teams would be paid out, plus a prize for the biggest fish, which meant everyone, had a chance of a pickup. After completing the draw, Steve Ince, Calum Craig and Bryan Neale became part of Team Rayner.
Prior to the draw for pegs Mark organised a BBQ and as you
can see from the pictures, Andy Fox took on the duties of chef, with Craig
Knight as his commi. After having our fill of sausage, ½lb burger and ribs
which was all very nice, it was time for the draw. Steve ended up on peg 1 behind
the small island, Calum was on the far side behind the big island, Bryan was on
the top bank and I was left with the top left hand corner. The team draw didn’t
look too bad, with Steve and Calum on the best pegs. As for me I wasn’t too enthusiastic.
It’s a peg that looks good, but only occasionally throws up weights during the
day, although some big weights are possible during the evening and since we
were fishing 1.30-7.30 I was hopefully of a strong finish.
Before talking about the match, I have to mention Allan the
owner who has been busy creating some new swims, taking out trees and bushes
along the top bank, creating some wider swims with long margins. He also
removed a few snags, including one big branch which resembled a Christmas tree
with broken terminal tackle.
Setting up I decided to keep it simple. The straight lead/meat
over 8mm pellet @ 20m and the margins feeding groundbait/4mm pellet. On the all
in I went straight down the left hand margin because I had seen some activity
whilst setting up, but hardly had a liner. Ok, no worries the straight lead
line will provide a few fish, which it did after an hour. After 3hrs I still
only had 1 carp in the net, losing 2, one felt foul hooked and the other
snagged me.
I had contemplated setting up a new line at 11/13m, but I
was so far behind everyone, I really needed some big fish, which meant I needed
my margins to work. So far I had been feeding hand size balls of groundbait
into the right hand margin and cupping groundbait into the left side.
Throughout the first 3hrs, I had tried the margins with paste, meat and bunches
of maggot. There were signs of a few fish in the area with the occasionally
cloud bloom, but had very few liners. Must admit I was starting to get worried
about letting the team down as well the stick I was going to get for not
catching – not that anyone would have done that!
On the 3 hour mark I had my 2nd carp on double
8mm meat from the right side, finishing the 4th hour of the match
with 11 fish and only one of them was less than 3lb, so the come back was on.
The 5th hour was slower with a further 5 again all on meat, although
I did lose a couple due to hook pulls. Another 9 followed during the final
hour, including contender for the biggest fish of 10lb 12oz. The majority came
from the right hand side and for some reason the left side only produced a
handful of fish, which was a surprise because I was expecting it to be the
other way around.
By the end of the match 3kgs of groundbait, 3pts of 4s and
just over a tin of meat, had been fed into the margins, so I wasn’t shy about getting
the fish into the swim. I was also very relieved to have at least caught and
news was filtering down that both Calum and Steve had caught well, so the team
result was looking good. In fact it turned out my result wasn’t required to win,
which Mark enjoyed telling me!
Overall a nice relaxed day, with plenty of banter and good
fishing.
1st 203-12 – Steve Ince – p1
2nd 143-15 – Mark Poppleton – p10
3rd 138-10 – Rich Whitmarsh – p6
4th 136-11 – Calum Craig – p14
5th 127-14 – Nick Ince – p15
6th 119-12 – Ken Rayner – p7
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