03/01/26 - Harescombe - Doughnut

Weight - 13lb 1oz

Catch - 4 Carp

Weather - Cold, sunny, northerly breeze.

Match - Winter League (13 fished) - 11th overall, 4th in section

Another cold week and a forecast heavy overnight frost meant the ice breaker was packed into the car.

At the draw we had 2 no shows and the draw was completed with all pegs in. I drew p17, with my section running from p11 to p19. I was reasonably happy, although I would have preferred p19 as its closer to the ‘hot’ pegs in the 20s. I was a little concerned as p13 hadn’t been drawn with Nigel Reeves on p11 (who was lying 2^nd in the league) and Allan Oram on p15.

When I arrived at the lake, there was ice from p11 round to p26. Fortunately, it was fairly thin, and I wasn’t concerned about breaking it up as I felt it would drift around anyway as it melted and any fish, I hooked from the far side I could use the pole to break the ice. Also, I was hoping everyone throwing their ice breakers would push the fish towards me.

On the all-in I started dobbin bread, before switching to maggot, hooking a carp that came off as I was shipping back.

With an hour gone I hooked another carp fishing on the deck (in 3ft of water) with double pinkie that was safely landed. I soon hooked another on the maggot dobbin rig, but as the fish kited left the pole jammed against a thick piece of ice and the hook pulled.

Soon after the ice had completely cleared from my peg drifting into the 20s. The northerly breeze was proving to be a real pain, as I had to fish the full 16m to get to the far side, however the wind was just strong enough to make it very awkward.

I tried the straight lead, a tiny cage feeder and a maggot feeder, but other than 1 lost fish I was struggling to get a bite. In the meantime, Allan and Nigel both started catching on the maggot feeder, and Sean on p19 had also caught a couple of fish on the method.

I knew there were fish under the small bush opposite me, but the wind and later the sun meant I couldn’t ether present the rig properly or I couldn’t see the float! Eventually I caught 2 more carp on the straight lead and maggot tight to the far bank, right of the small bush, but knew I would be bottom of my section.

Somehow (more by luck than judgement) other results went my way and I’m still lying 3^rd in the league, but it is now very tight for the final round.

1.    55-  9 – Rich Churchill – p5

2.    46-13 – Tom Driver – p23

3.    44-13 – Simon Duke – p20

4.    43-  1 – Paul Dunford – p21