23/06/24 - Witherington Farm - Cottage

Weight - 58lb 10oz

Catch - 10 Carp

Weather - Warm & sunny

Match - Tackle Den (20 fished) - 3rd on lake, 8th overall

I was looking forward to this match, as I won the corresponding fixture last year with 186lb on paste and planned to do the same again regardless of which lake I drew.

However, since last year the fishery was underwater for most of the winter thanks to the river being flooded, which resulted in lost fish. More recently, I found out after the match, there was an algae problem on Cottage that resulted in an oxygen crash last week!

Even without knowing that I wanted to be on Selwood, but I drew p10 on Cottage, which was opposite the island. When I arrived, there were plenty of fish blowing and I thought I might catch a few.

Well, it was a struggle. I started at 8m on paste (Uzit GLM), feeding 4mm p-nut pellet and was surprised not to get a bite, although I eventually netted a foul hooker.

Jason Crump to my left caught a couple of fish on the straight lead cast to the island and after his 3^rd fish it prompted me to try the method. This resulted in an immediate response netting a 4lber. The hook pulled out of the next one, but then I couldn’t get another bite. Neither could Jason, although Dave Keen on the right-hand bank was catching casting a method to the island.

I kept pinging 6s to the island and I managed another carp on the straight lead and 8mm pellet later. I did consider whether to set up a meat rig, but decided against it preferring to stick with the paste hoping the fish would get their heads down, particularly as no one was really running away with it and most were struggling.

That said, in hindsight I wish I had brought some worm, as Crumpy caught a few fish on it during the middle part of the match, when the fish were really moody. There was plenty of blowing in the peg, but it just felt like the fish didn’t want to feed in the silt.

Eventually, with 90mins remaining I started to get clean bites on my 8m paste line and caught 6 carp before the end of the match. The surprise was I never had a bite from either of margins, despite feeding them from the start.

I finished the match 3^rd on the lake, just behind Jason and as expected Selwood was the better lake to be on.

1.    103-  8 – Andrew Black – (Selwood)

2.      81-  8 – Dave Keen – (Cottage)

3.      78-10 – Dan Barnett – (Selwood)

4.      70-  5 – Bobby Moore – (Selwood)

5.      66-10 – Cliff Dutton – (Selwood)

6.      65-12 – Matt Greaves – (Selwood)