Monday, 5 May 2025

01/05/25 - Harescombe - Match

Weight - 45lb 12oz
Catch - 11 Carp, 4 F1, 8 Skimmers
Weather - Hot & sunny
Match - Open (17 fished) - 4th overall, 1st in section

Having just returned from 4 nights away in Pembrokeshire with Poppy (the Staffy) loving running around the various beaches we visited, I still had a few days remaining of my holiday and decided to book into todays affordable open as a practice for the forthcoming Pole Masters.

I drew peg 5 again and to be honest I wasn’t that excited about it as I felt you needed some shallow water to fish into on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year.

I was drawn next to Luke Seabrook on peg 6 and knew he would fish pellet up and down against the boards on the island. I decided to take a contrary approach, focusing on paste and meat, so it would be a useful benchmark to see the best approach.

On the all-in I started straight across on paste, feeding a few 2mm p-nut pellet and on the 2nd put-in caught a 5lber. After an hour I had another 2 and 15lb in the net for a very useful start. As very little was being caught around the lake I was happy to stick with the paste, but after that first hour I wasnt getting any indications.

A switch to fishing 4mm expander over crushed expander a metre off the far bank resulted in a couple of small skimmers, plus a couple more smaller carp.

The 2nd half of the match was a case of rotating swims to keep putting fish in the net, catching a few F1s and carp from the left margin on meat and a couple more carp on paste from the far bank. The shallower right margin was a waste of time, catching only 2 skimmers and it was full of small silvers gorging themselves on spawn.

In the last half an hour I struggled to catch, whilst Luke did and to be honest, I thought he had beaten me, however my good start proved decisive.

1.   
53-  1 – Phil Auger – p17
2.    51-10 – Tony Rixon – p9
3.    50-  2 – Jerry Wiggett – p15
4.    45-12 – Ken Rayner – p5
5.    43-  7 – Steve Rich – p23

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