Catch - 8 Carp, 1 Skimmer
Weather - Cold start, mostly sunny
Match - Short Pole Series - rd1 - 17th out of 27, 4th out of 7 section
Today was the first round of the short pole series (3+2) organised by Tony Rixon on Woodland lake at Chiltern Trinity. This is one of those venues I seem to struggle with and really wanted to get to grip with.
With 28 booked in, although 1 couldn't make it, there wasn't going to be much room, even for a short pole series, so a draw with some space was required.
Before the draw standing by peg 28 the wind felt really cold and I didn't want a second day being blown off my peg. At least P18 was sheltered, but it put me in the middle of 4 along the narrow right hand bank. For company to my right on P17 was Clint Wotlyla which is always entertaining and Dave Evans on p19.
Must admit I forgot how deep this lake is and had to set up a couple of fresh rigs to fish in open water. My intention as was to fish pellet, meat and paste, so no caster or maggot as I wanted to focus on the carp rather than worry about catching silvers.
As well as the open water swim, meat/hemp was fed to my left at an angle at the bottom of the shelf and meat/pellet in my right margin. My concern was the lack of any shelf, since the open water was 7ft and the margins 5ft, which I thought might be too deep.Starting on paste at 3+2 over pellet, I had 2x 7lbers after an hour, but it was slow going. Clint had caught a few skimmers on soft pellet, which prompted me to switch when no more carp showed, however only had 1 skimmer. I decided against setting up a lighter rig to target the skimmers properly, preferring to concentrate on the carp.
The middle part of the match was really hard foulhooking a couple of fish, one from the long line and one down the margins, which just confirmed my fears that the carp didn't really want to settle in the deep water.
I had noticed some carp moving around the reeds to my left. I hadn't bothered setting up a rig, because when I plumbed up the left margin it immediately sloped away to 6ft, when I moved away from the reeds. However I had no choice but to at least try and managed to find to a hand sized clear patch in the reeds (see picture). Even here it was 4ft deep. The only problem was a snag that only came to light when I tried lifting and dropping, turned out to be some old line, which I managed to pull out after the 3rd time of catching it. So with that out of the way the rig (powertrap 0.3g > .17 > 16 carp feeder) settled better. The last 75mins proved to be my best period. Initially I only getting liners but by toss potting meat and a little hemp, with double meat on the hook resulted in 7 carp being hooked, landing 6.
Well done to Mike Nicholls and Trigger who made the most of there corner pegs in my section, which offered a little more space and shallower water. In hindsight I should have set up a shallow rig, because a few fish had been caught this way and an extra fish or two could have pushed me into 3rd in section. I also wish I had dumped in a cup of pellet over my long line earlier than I did, because as I was packing up the line fizzing well.
1st 117- 9 - Mike Nicholls - p15
2nd 96- 5 - Tim Ford - p33
3rd 94-13 - Paul Elmes - p10
4th 88- 0 - Bela Bakos - p12
5th 84- 3 - Craig Edmunds - p20
6th 77- 0 - Tony Rixon - p30
Silvers
1st 18- 4 - Dave Evans - p19
2nd 16- 5 - Chris Fox - p28
3rd 15-13 - Paul Faires - p27
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