21/06/26 - Harescombe - Match

Weight - 61lb 1oz

Catch - 18 Carp, 9 F1, 1 Gudgeon

Weather - Hot & sunny

Match - Open (13 fished) - 3rd overall, 2nd in section.

I was looking forward to returning to match lake as I haven’t fished it since the Pole Champs and I was more than happy to draw p29.

Looking at recent results, it hasn’t featured that often, however it is a peg that has been kind to me in the past.

On arrival the aerator was in full flow and was switched off just before the start of the match.

On the all-in I started by the island on Cocosquid paste and there were plenty of fish swimming about and not feeding. I tried feeding a cup of kriller micros and 4s to get their heads down, but they just weren’t feeding.

In the meantime, I had been feeding 8mm meat (covered in Sludge) and 6mm kriller pellet my side of the spillway where I caught 2 carp on meat. I also started tosspotting meat and a few micros the other side of the spillway at 13m.

After 2hrs I only had 4 fish, however the 13m spillway swim kicked into life and I started to get regular bites all on meat, just feeding no more than 4 cubes with a few micros.

I kept the near spillway swim topped up and picked up the occasional fish when I needed to rest the far swim.

I also started feeding 2 pouches of 6s to the island and when I returned fishing paste caught a couple of fish before having to rest the swim and returning for a couple fish. To be honest, paste wasn’t as effective as I had hoped. 

The last 30mins of the 5.5hr match the swim faded, before catching a couple more fish from the far spillway swim towards the all-out.

I knew I had done ok, but I was a little concerned that the stamp of fish may go against me, particularly as I saw Mark on p4 catching some decent fish, which is how it turned out.

1.    73-13 – Andy Jane – p18

2.    67-  3 – Mark Court – p4

3.    61-  1 – Ken Rayner – p29

4.    60-13 – Richard Rogers -p15

5.    58-  1 – Steve Partington – p13