Monday, 9 June 2025

07/06/25 - Harescombe - Match

Weight - 31lb 7oz
Catch - 11 Carp, 10 F1, 2 Skimmers
Weather - Bright & sunny, breezy and cooler later
Match - Open (16 fished) - 7th overall, 3rd in section

With the 2nd round of the Summer League coming up next week and having not fished the Match Lake for 5 weeks I needed to get back in tune.

I was happy to draw p12, as I have done well off it in the past, however with 16 anglers’ booked on I knew it was likely to be tricky.

I started just off the boards fishing paste, feeding a few micros, hoping for an early carp, however it took 25mins before I did net a carp, but it was only a 1.5lb. A couple more carp and F1s followed but nothing of any size.

An early look over my short meat line, but never had a bite, so switched back to the paste line for a couple more fish, which eventually died.

I was hoping the far line where the bank had collapsed would be my banker, although the right side was a little deeper than I remember it being from last year at 2ft deep. I cupped in some meat and micros, and soon caught an F1, but liners and foul hookers were a problem, so I switched to fishing paste. This was much better, although I wasn’t catching as quickly as expected and I was still only catching a small stamp of fish.

As the left side of the collapsed bank was shallower, I fished meat. I tried varying my feed switching from micros to groundbait, but the fish just wouldn’t come in, in any numbers.

My short meat line produced 1 decent F1 and my margins proved to be fruitless. It was all a little frustrating and on the all-out I felt I had more questions than answers.

In hindsight, I tried to push the peg too hard as I felt I needed to catch some better stamp fish, when all I needed to do was to keep catching, regardless of the stamp of fish and potentially frame. Fortunately, and more by luck than judgement I managed to pick up the section money by double de-fault.


1.
    56-  9 – Chris Cameron – p11
2.    51-  5 – Steve Partington – p25
3.    39-12 – Andy Pollard – p6
4.    36-11 – Chris Fox – p21
5.    33-  4 – Martin Pettifer – p19

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