With no island chuck I didn’t bother setting up any rods. There were a couple of cruisers but decided to start down the right-hand end bank with double corn, toss potting some corn and micros, but other than a few bites from silvers there was nothing doing for the first 20 mins.
Switching to a 14m line slightly to my right where I had feed some micros & 4s, produced a small carp almost immediately on hair rigged 4mm pellet. I then lost next 2, before catching a decent crucian.
As there were a few more cruisers showing I decided to try my luck, mugging 1 on 8mm pellet, but they were really moody. I managed to drop the pellet in amongst a pod of 8, thinking at least 1 would take the bait, but no and I was in danger of wasting time chasing shadows. I tried a 6mm pellet, thinking they would prefer a smaller bait, but the fish just weren’t feeding, so reverted back to an 8mm and did manage an 11lber later on.
I kept the right hand 14m line topped with pellet, hoping the carp would eventually settle over it later in the match, but they never did. In the meantime, I had kept a 14m swim slightly to my left topped up with micros, 4s and dead maggot and since I was struggling to catch carp decided to try for some silvers. Double dead reds only produced a small skimmer and a couple of roach, so I soon switched to a 4mm expander and cut out the dead maggot from my top ups.
This produced a couple of better skimmers and then 3 carp which was a bonus, although regardless of which line I tried lost fish was still a problem and to be fair I wasn’t the only one.
With 2.5hrs remaining I had started feeding my left margin at 5m with micros and corn, but when I started fishing here with an hour remaining it didn’t feel right and I felt the fish weren’t coming over to much feed. Instead, I moved to 8m down the margin and just toss potted some corn and micros, fishing double corn. This produced 3 carp and a skimmer.
Overall, a frustrating day as the fish just weren’t feeding properly and I lost 8 carp in total, any one of which would have won me the match, although Smiffy also lost a few too. It was at least good to see the fish more spread around and hopefully it won’t be long before the weights start improving.
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