24/08/22 - Barston

Weight - 35lb 13oz (28lb 5oz - silvers)

Catch - 33 Skimmers, 6 Carp, 1 F1

Weather - Cloudy and rain later

Match - Garbolino Club Angler Final (44 fished) - 7th out of 8 section

A call from David Haynes at Match Fishing Magazine the day before informed me that Dave Bruton had pulled out of the final and I was 2^nd in section, meaning I could take his place. After arranging a day’s holiday from work at short notice I agreed.

I went into the draw early hoping for 124 and got excited when I saw 24. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a 1 in front of it, however 24 is in a decent area and with the wind blowing in I quite fancied it.

I was hoping for a simple match catching shallow at 16m with a meat back up line at 13m.

Starting at 16m slapping without feed I soon caught a skimmer, losing a 2^nd 5 minutes later, but no carp after 20mins.

I noticed a couple of carp being landed to my left on the feeder, so I gave it a go, but had no pulls. Therefore, 40 minutes in I decided to switch to my meat line and soon caught a couple of carp, but they were only about 1lb a piece and then the skimmers turned up.

2 hours into the match, it was looking like the winner would come from the 120’s and I was just fishing for my section. Whilst I was still catching skimmers, it was steady rather than hectic and news was filtering down that a few carp were being caught further up in my section.

I had been pinging 8s long, fishing the straight lead and waggler over the top but not a bite. The breeze that had being blowing into to me had all but disappeared and as the match progressed the cloud cover increased, and it started to drizzle which turned into persistent rain.

Every time I came back to the 13m line I would catch small carp or skimmers, but I really needed some proper carp to pull back in the section. To try something different I decided to fish 6mm pellet at 16m on the deck to continue catching skimmers but keep pinging 6s over the top hoping to pull in some fish. I caught a few skimmers, but just couldn’t pull in those carp.

A look down my margin only produced a skimmer, and I eventually caught a carp over my pinged 8mm pellet line on the lead, but again it was small.

By the end I was a little disappointed. Had I stuck with catching the skimmers I would have 40-50lb, but my section was won with 99lb and there was a couple of 50lb weights. So, whilst I finished well down, I felt I had no choice but to be aggressive with my feed in the second half of the match to pull in some carp. It just simply didn’t happen. Always next year.

Well done to Matthew Threlfall who won from p120 with 234lb.