10/07/25 - Harescombe - Match

Weight - 71lb 4oz

Catch - 25 Carp, 5 F1, 4 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 1 Eel

Weather - Hot & sunny, light breeze

Match - Open (15 fished) - 1st overall

I decided to take a flex day off work to fish today, so I could practice ahead of Saturdays Summer Series.

When I arrived, I realised I hadn’t replaced a pair of broken reading glasses. Fortunately, Andy Burns lent me a spare pair – thanks mate.

Bait wise I only cut up 1 tin of meat, as it hasn’t been working the same as last year and I felt in the last couple of matches, I have wasted time trying to make it work.

Since leaving Uzit, I been trying Blakes bait. Following a recommendation, I’ve started using the Attrax 2.5mm & 4mm pellet which are lovely as you can soak them and they won’t breakdown. They also offer a coarse or fine crushed pellet groundbait and I’ve started using the coarse mix as a paste.

Peg 10 for me which had a small collapsed area by the island and some shallow water. There was a bigger area towards p11, but to be honest I didn’t want to fish that long unless I was struggling.

On the all-in I started a metre off the island with paste and had 3 carp in 15mins and by the end of the hour I was up to 8 fish.

The 2^nd hour was a nightmare, as I tried various areas of the swim, but was getting bitted out by roach, they were everywhere. I even tried the meat in the shallow water for 1 roach whilst I couldn’t get a bite on hard pellet.

At the start of the 3^rd hour, I eventually started catching in the deep water off the island on paste but couldn’t catch more than 2 or 3 fish before having to switch to another deep-water swim to my right.

As the match progressed, I started catching from the shallow water after it received a ¾ cup of micros and 4s, again rotating with another swim to my left tight to the boards. In the fact the shallow waters swim got stronger but still needed to be rested at times.

I had been feeding a short line and both margins, fully expecting to catch late on, however the margins seemed to be full of roach, and I only managed 1 F1 from the short. To be honest I didn’t waste too much time trying to make these lines work as my far lines were proving to be best.

So, a first win for a couple of months and I was pleased as I felt I fished a better match than I have recently.

1.    71-  4 – Ken Rayner – p10

2.    52-15 – Mick Lane – p12

3.    48-  1 – Ron Whitehead – p29

4.    40-  5 – Gareth Parker – p25

5.    40-  4 – Stitch – p19