Catch - 15 Carp, 1 Perch
Weather - Cold & cloudy
Match - 1st out of 13
If I’m being honest I didn’t have much enthusiasm for
fishing this Sunday. I would have preferred to fish Saturday, considering my
first visit to Hillview or failing that there was a knock up at Harescombe.
However the weather forecast was for wind and rain, which is my least favourite
conditions to fish in, so decided not to bother, which just left Sunday.
Tony was running a match at Avalon, however it isn’t high
on my list of venues to fish (I know some love the place, but I’m not a fan),
which left very few options, until Craig suggested a match at Two Counties Farm
near Mere, which is a venue I had never seen, let alone fished. As I said not
much enthusiasm, because as from Thursday only 7 or 8 had booked in and it was
a bit far away for a knock out. The lake is only a couple of years old, run by
Gillingham AC and apparently received a stocking of the Todber F1s which are
now sorely missed from Park Lake. So with promises of plenty of bites, I
decided to fish and as it turned out 13 eventually turned up.
Information on the venue was scarce, other than the fact the
lake had a central island and was stocked with carp & F1s. On arrival the
lake looked well maintained and the water had a decent colour. The lake itself
held 26 well spaced platforms and the island varied from 17m to 30m away from
the bank. We were also told the lake bottom was uneven, with bars, troughs and
plateaus following advice from the EA, which meant it, was dug as a club water,
rather than a match lake.
I had also been told to draw the far bank of the lake,
because the car park bank doesn’t fish as well during a match, so I shouldn’t
have been surprised to myself on p8 which put me on the car park bank, 2 from
the end bank. The good news however, was I was the end peg, because a gap had
to be left for any club members who wanted to fish.
Trevor the match organiser also said there were a lot of
small perch, so decided not use maggot unless I really needed to, preferring to
stick with expander and corn. The island was 25/30m away, which was an obvious
place to target. Plumbing up revealed a nice wide flat area in 6ft of water at
13-14m, which meant I was able to target 2 swims. One slightly to my right and the
other was at more of angle to my left. I also found a flat area 8m to my left,
5m from the bank which was just less than 4ft deep. I also plumbed a margin,
but the rig remained unused.
Well at least the weather was more favourable with hardly
any wind and as such I set up a HB frostie 0.4g > .12 > 18 silverfish
pellet to fish at 13m, however the easterly breeze picked up a little and it
just wasn’t sitting right, so after an hour set up a SM Chimp 0.5g > .10
> 18 silverfish pellet which sat much better.
Starting the match, micros/4s was deposited at 13m and
4s/corn at 13m left. Whilst I let that settle I cast the straight lead to the
island. The anglers to my right and those on the end bank all chucked method
feeders almost into the same collective spot! So I was quite happy with my
stealthier lead only approach, expecting the fish to desert the end of the island
in a hurry.
I tried corn and bread, but other than a few liners no
proper bites, whilst one of the method chucker’s hooked 2 carp, but lost the 2nd
when his landing net detached with the fish in the net. Reports also suggested
a few fish were already being caught from the far bank as was Mark at the other
end of my bank and with an hour gone I was still fishless. A brief look on the
pole didn’t yield a bite, so it was back on the lead/corn when the tip went
round. So that’s what a hooked fish feels like – I was beginning to forget! Anyway
just as I put the net under the fish the hook pulled and a quick scope meant it
was safely netted. At last a bit of fishy luck this has sadly been missing
recently. By this point Mark was already up to 10 fish.
Whilst on the lead, I had started catapulting 4s over the
left hand 13m swim really to make something happen, but kept still kept feeding
micros/4s into the right hand swim. With no further bites on the lead, I had a
bite almost immediately from the left hand swim, landing my 2nd
carp, soon followed by the 3rd.
By rotating left and right I started to put a few fish in
the net. The right hand only kicked into life after cupping a half cup of pellet,
which produced fewer, but larger fish up to 7lb. Although it slowed up in the
last hour, I managed my last fish on the all-out.
I knew Mark had struggled in the last 2 hours and the
jungle drums suggested someone had 60-70lb. I thought I had 45-50lb and wasn’t far
off with 52-4. The 60-70lb turned out to be 48lb, apparently he had caught a
lot of fish on the method, but obviously a much smaller stamp. Which just left
Mark who finished with 39-12.
After Tuesday’s blank, I was pleased to get back into
winning ways quickly. As for the venue, I would be happy to return.
1st 52- 4 – Ken Rayner
2nd 48- 4 – Mark
3rd 39-12 – Mark Poppleton
4th 30- 8 – Nick Merry
5th 29- 4 – Calum Craig
6th 21- 0 - Paul
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