01/08/21 - Orchard - Match Lake

Weight - 63lb 4oz (15lb 7oz - silvers)

Catch - 23 Carp, 5 F1, 13 Ide, 11 Crucians, 6 Barbel, 2 Roach

Weather - Dry start, showers later

Match - Haines Summer Series (rd 4) - 13 fished

This was the 4^th round of the Haines Summer Series and 13 of us made the trek down to New Milton in Hampshire. Having only fished the venue a couple of times, the last time being 2 years ago, I was reliant on trying to get some local information and went armed with 5pts of caster. In fact, there were a couple of us who had similar information, either taking maggot or caster.
 

I drew p24, which put me in the middle of the left-hand canal and felt I needed to beat the 2 end pegs to compete for the section.
 
On the all-in I started at 5m on pellet, but only caught 2 crucians. So, switched to fishing kriller paste on the far bank feeding a small ball of micros and started catching carp, crucians and even barbel.
 
Whilst fishing the far bank I primed the shallow caster swim, next to the aerator. After an hour I tried the caster line hoping for plenty of carp. Well, I had plenty of bites from Ide, but only 1 carp and there weren’t any signs to suggest carp were in the swim.
 
Back on the paste, I was catching well, but every time I went back to the caster line, I only caught silvers and an increasingly strong breeze meant I couldn’t group my caster tightly enough, so decided to concentrate on the far bank.
 
A brief look on the short pellet line didn’t produce, so I started feeding my margins with 90mins to go. Caster and corn down the right and micros down the left. Unfortunately, the right margin only produced more silvers regardless of what I put on the hook, whilst the left margin produced a number of better sized carp on paste, plus another couple of barbel.
 
I lost my biggest carp of 8lb when the hook pulled as I was putting the net under the fish and felt it might cost me and come the all out, I thought I had about 60lb. Martin on the end peg 18 was admitting to 80lb, Steve on the other end peg said he only had 19 carp and Andy on p22 had a late run down his margin.
 
Martin did win the section with 84lb, Andy weighed 69lb and I only weighed 63lb, but the real kicker was Steve’s carp were a much bigger stamp and he pushed me into 4^th in section.

No catch photo, as the rain was biblical when we finished.
 
To be honest I was a bit gutted as that lost carp at the net did indeed cost me 2^nd in section and 3^rd overall. I felt a little unlucky to have caught a smaller stamp of carp, but in hindsight I think I got pre-occupied with the idea of feeding caster. Once it wasn’t working as expected I should have stopped and not feed so much down the margin, as it only brought in more silvers. If I was to have my match again, I would have struck with paste and pellet.

1. 84-14 - Martin Pettifer - p18

2. 83-  5 - Allan Oram - p41

3. 69-13 - Andy Eagle - p22

4. 66-11 - Nick Veale - p43

5. 65-  5 - Steve Martin - p30

6. 63-  4 - Ken Rayner - p24