28/06/26 - Manor Farm - Windmill

Weight - 16lb 7oz

Catch - 5 F1, 1 Carp, 1 Tench, 1 Skimmer, 1 Roach

Weather - Warm, sunny & breezy

Match - Tackle Den (17 fished) - 11th overall

I was looking forward to this match, as recent results showed the venue was fishing well and caster shallow was working.

The match was supposed to be over Windmill and Ash lakes, however when we arrived, we were told we would all be on Windmill which would make the fishing harder.

I drew P31 opposite the point of the island and I would have preferred to have been at the other end of the lake where the wind was blowing. The island had plenty of overhanging brambles, which meant I couldn’t get tight, but I still fancied it for a few fish.

I had Steve Venn to my right on p32 and didn’t expect my right margin to be productive however my left margin under the tree plumbed up lovely with a nice flat bottom.

As it turned out the whole lake fished poorly.

I caught a couple of fish early on the method to the island. My left margin initially produced an F1 and a 5lb carp on 6mm pellet over 4s, but these were the only fish I caught here.

Despite feeding caster shallow for 3hrs, I never had any indications, not even from silvers.

I even tried the pellet waggler by the island without success, which just left a short line fed with meat, which produced 1 F1 and a skimmer.

A really poor day. In hindsight, would I have changed my approach. Probably not. Of those around me, we all had a similar number of fish, it was just I only had 1 carp compared to 2 or 3 that others had caught.

As expected, the windward end of the lake proved to be best.

1.    63-11 – Cliff Dutton – p24

2.    41-  0 – Darren Lawrence – p22

3.    36-13 – Brian Duckett – p26

4.    32-13 – Andy Burns – p34

5.    31-12 – Pete Philips – p20 

27/06/2026 - Harescombe - Match

Weight - 35lb 0oz

Catch - 10 Carp, 3 F1, 1 Skimmer, 1 Roach

Weather - Hot, sunny and breezy

Match - Summer League rd 2 (12 fished) - 7th overall, 4th in section

The 2^nd round of the Summer League and we were on Match Lake. After last weekends 3^rd in the open I was confident in my approach, i.e. meat and paste, with pellet as a backup. I had hoped to fish Thursdays affordable open, however this was understandably called off due to the intense hot weather, where the water temperature in the margins reached 31c! Even today the water temperature was 25.8c increasing to 27c. Due to the increased water temperatures, the match was reduced from 6 to 5 hours to reduce the stress on the fish.

At least it wasn’t as hot for today’s match and I drew p12, which was one of my favourites, however since Gary has reinforced the bank to stop the island eroding you can no longer fish into the shallow water.

On the all-in I started on So Simple Cocosquid paste by the boards and caught 2 carp after 30mins, but it wasn’t as productive as I had hoped.

In fact, this was the pattern for my match. I just couldn’t get anything to really work properly.

I tried fishing a metre off the boards with dead maggot over a small ball of groundbait and micros, which produced 1 carp and a small skimmer.

Fishing shallow with pellet didn’t work either, which was surprising and frustrating.

At the halfway point, I realised I may be on the wrong bait, as Elvis opposite me on p18 was catching well shallow on maggot and I saw Mark down on p6 catching on maggot.

During the 2^nd half of the match, I decided to focus on the margins targeting the bigger carp in an attempt to pull back the deficit. Needless to say it was slow going. Fishing meat only produced 2 fish, with paste being the most productive down the left margin towards the p11 pallet.

4^th in section was not what I needed as Steve Brown on p2 won the section fishing caster and maggot, and Mark Court was 2^nd in section fishing maggot.

To be honest I didn’t expect maggot and caster to be so dominant and I have to accept I got it wrong.

1.    91-  0 - Elvis – p18

2.    80-13 - Steve Brown – p1

3.    71-14 - Mark Court – p6

4.    65-11 - Andy Jane – p8