Catch - 39 Carp, 8 F1, 4 Skimmers, 3 Tench, 1 Roach
Weather - Cool north easterly breeze. Mostly dry & sunny.
Match - Pairs - rd 1 - 18th out of 24, 4th out of 6 section
Today was the first round of a pairs series and I travelled down with my partner Tony, stopping off at Cannards Well for breakfast, which was better than usual.
Originally 20 pairs had booked in and even in the week leading up to the first match, there were 15 pairs, however as happens far too often the usual late drop outs didn't disappoint and we ended up with 12. This meant 4 sections of 6, 3 on Hillview and 1 on Ash.
After my recent run of poor draws I was looking forward to catching a few a fish and was told p56 was one of the best feeder pegs on Hill View lake. Great, although today the cool NE wind blowing across the lake.
Mark told me to fish the feeder for 5hrs then fish the pole short in the last hour. Not exactly my idea of fun, but if the tip kept going round then I wasn't going to complain. For company I had Ash Tomkins to my right on p58 and Ben Ludwell to my left on p54, so plenty of room, but that wind was definitely cold.
Starting on the banjo feeder cast a couple metres off the far side I caught my first carp on 6mm pellet after 10mins, but I was soon struggling. I tried groundbait, micros, a mixture of both as well as trying differing baits and dropping a little shorter of the far bank, but after an hour I only had 2 carp, 1 skimmer and a micro tench!
In the meantime those around me had already caught well, mostly small carp and silvers, and the better carp I was told would show on the feeder had yet to turn up. I had a decision to make. Stay on the feeder and hope the better carp turn up or switch to the pole? I viewed staying on the feeder, rightly or wrongly, as a gamble and to be honest I didn't feel confident I would catch.
A switch to the 5m line, where I had fed 4s and micros, I immediately started to catch small carp on 4 or 6mm expander. Feeding 4s seemed to bring the fish up in the water and when I switched to feeding a ball of micros my catch rate increased. At one point I felt I was catching Ash and started enjoying myself, but knew I needed a few better fish to make up for the poor first hour.
The feeder did produce one 4lb carp later, but the majority of fish were 1lb stockie's which I was catching quicker on the pole.
I had noticed Ash catching shallow, but due to the cold wind I hadn't set up a rig. With my short line fading a little and my feeder line not really producing, decided to start pinging 6s as 13m, hastily setting up a shallow rig. A switch 30mins later produced a bite much to my surprise and a short spell catching resulted in a number of F1's up to 1.5lb, but still none of the better sized carp I was hoping for.
I had also been feeding 6s to my left at 10m, 2m off the bank in 2.5ft of water. A previous try here only produced a small carp, but with 40mins left another look down the left margin and I soon had an 8lber, followed by a couple more better sized carp. Unfortunately come the weigh in they turned up a little too late and that poor first hour cost me dearly missing out on 2nd in section by 17lb.
Fortunately Tony came 2nd in his section and we currently lie 4th. A couple of errors today, mainly due to a lack familiarity with the venue, but will certainly enjoy coming back, although it could do with being a little closer to home.
1st - 148-12 - Nick Chedzoy (Preston Innovations) - p62 (ash)
2nd - 142-12 - Mark Poppleton (Colmic) - p70 (ash)
3rd - 125-11 - Steve Tucker (Garbolino) - p50 (hill view)
4th - 120-12 - Gary O'Shea (Preston Innovations) - p64 (ash)
5th - 117- 1 - Alex Nadin - p53 (hill view)
6th - 108-10 - Rich Wyatt - p67 (ash)
Pairs Standing
1st Nick Merry/Mark Poppleton - 3pts
2nd Steve Nadin/Alex Nadin - 4pts
3rd Nick Ewers/Nick Chedzoy - 5pts
4th Tony Rixon/Ken Rayner - 6pts (168-13)
5th Scott Russell/Ash Tomkins - 6pts (166-10)
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