Leading up to today, there have been differing opinions as to which pegs will be good or bad and at one point I mentioned that I would like to draw peg 9 as last weekend it looked good with fish topping by the islands and peg 9 has two islands available to fish. As everone was eager to fish with the howling wind off their backs, Nick settled on a group of pegs that should make comfortable swims for most although the other guys wanted peg 6 and 8 in as well for some reason. These two pegs would be facing the wind!
At the draw everyone seemed happy that they had pulled out a peg with the wind behind them and then I stuck my hand in a pulled out peg 9...... yay! Being the event organiser, Nick drew last and pulled out peg 6, I was not the least bit jealous!!!
Given that some of the guys here today are also fishing the Invicta League and just want to play around with a few methods, it seemed likely that anyone could win the pools money. We proceded to our pegs with the wind building up and the clouds looking a bit ominous.
I had never fished Hartley Lands before in the winter or spring and so my main objective was to ascertain whether maggots would catch the carp or if pellets would be better and I also took some light and dark expanders and a bag of corn. I set up 4 rods to try different methods as follows:
13' Drennan Floatmaster with a Drennan loaded bodied crystal on 3lb main line with a 0.14 hook length and size 18 PR27 hook.
11' 6" Drennan Series 7 pellet waggler rod with an unloaded Drennan crystal pellet waggler to 3lb line and a hair rigged pellet band on a size 16 PR27 to 0.14 hook length.
10' Drennan Puddle Chucker method feeder rod with 4lb main line with a small method feeder with a size 16 PR27 hook and a hair rigged pellet band to a 6" length of 0.16 line. This was attached to the rig via a Korum quick change bead.
9' Shakespeare Wand with 4lb main line and a running maggot feeder with a size 18 PR27 to a 12" 0.16 hook length.
All of the reels were my trusty Daiwa TD-R models with the smaller 2058 models on the float rods and the larger 3012 models on the feeder rods.
I settled down with everything prepared and prayed that the weather would be kind.
As I had a bit of time on my hands I had a wander around the lake to chat to a few of the guys. To my right on peg 8 was Jay who had drawn exactly the same peg as last week.
And then next to him on peg 6 was Nick who was not looking forward to fishing for 5 hours with the wind in his face, I think he drew the worst peg of the match!
Around the corner were a few guys from the Maggotdrowners forum that we fish with every now and then, a good bunch and full of banter. Peter and Vince seemed to have their own little battle of witts going on and I understand that Vince beat Peter last time out and so Peter was looking for revenge. As Vince had brought his whistle along, he blew for the start and we all got our heads down to brave the ellements.
I picked up one of my cattapults and began spraying maggots to the end of the island, baited up with double red and chucked out the waggler. It was soon apparent that the wind was going to be a problem because although it was helping me to get bait to the island, it was also pushing my float off course when casting and there were a few overhanging bushes to watch out for. I quickly decided to clip up and cast to the right of the island and let the wind take the rig in towards the bushes and then allow the clip to prevent it from going any further. I'm not exactly fond of clipping up as I have seen more anglers chucking rigs into bushes because they rely on the clip too much and also because when you put the rod down at a slight angle to allow for 'pulls', you tend to pull the rig away from the feature. Far better to learn how to cast properly and pull the rod around with the bail arm open and then close it when the rod is down ready to grab your catty! Today was different though as a good low chuck was needed to get through the wind and the clip just gave me a bit of security against lobbing it too far. Also, in winter the carp are less lively and it was unlikely that I would need to worry about 'giving' line on a take.
The first hour of the match for me was painful, all I could catch were tiny Roach and not a single sign of a carp. I had been spraying the island with half a pouch every minute but this did not feed off the Roach nor did it induce the Carp to feed. I therefore upped the feed rate to a full pouch every 30 seconds and soon after I was into my first Carp. The sport was still frantic with the Roach but at least Carp were coming every now and then, just not quick enough though!
To my right Jay was catching regularly on a cage feeder and I knew that a feeder approach was a definate banker but wanted to plough on with the waggler to see what would happen. Around 2 hours into the match Peter was on his way round with his camera and as he approached I hooked a decent fish and he did the honours with the camera:
I reckon by now that Jay had 20 Carp in his net whereas I had about 6 Carp and loads of tiny Roach. So with half the match gone I decided to change tactics to see if I could bag more Carp with my 'banker' method and so I put down the waggler rod and started pinging 6mm pellets to the same swim on the end of the island. I mixed up some groundbait that I use when fishing 'the method' and picked up my feeder rod. I stuck a 6mm pellet on the hair rigged band, loaded the feeder and chucked it within 6 inches of the island. The pellets I used were ordinary course pellets distributed in bulk by Dynamite Baits, I think they are Skrettings. I like to use a groundbait similar to the pellets and opted for ground pellet with some halibut groundbait added to make it more aromatic. I also use a float stop above the feeder which you can slide up and down the main line. This has two uses, firstly it prevents the feeder from sliding down to the rod tip when you are re-baiting the hook and secondly it can act as a semi-bolt rig but with the ability to increase or decrease the amount of 'give' in the rig. Today I was not burying the pellet in the feeder for two reasons, firstly because the island shelves at Hartley Lands are quite steep and often you will find that even with the flattest feeders, they still slip down the shelf a little. Having the hook bait 6" behind the feeder means that it is surrounded by the groundbait that falls off the feeder on the way down the shelf. The second reason is that if the bites are quite quick then I see no reason to bury and hide the pellet because in colder weather the fish are not attacking the feeder, they are just rummaging around it looking for any larger particles. I have fished the method feeder in the summer and to be honest the bites are so quick that your tip can go round before the feeder has even hit bottom. This lends itself to burying the hookbait thus preventing foul hooking fish that are attacking the feeder instead of the pellet which is 6" away. Also, if the fish are actually attacking the feeder then bites can come quicker this way.
So, back to the match and with Jay catching at the same rate as me I needed to do something to catch him up and so I continued to fire pellets over the top of the feeder. This is another reason I used a semi-bolt rig because for much of the time my hands were on the catapult and not on the butt of the rod. To prove my method worked I can tell you that around 50% of the carp I caught on the method were from drop-backs and the fish were hooking themselves either by pulling the feeder or by pulling against the float stop. The combination of a hair rig and a semi-fixed rig works very well!
After a while I noticed that Nick was becoming restless because of the poor weather and the bad peg he had. At one point he tried the pole line to see if there were any carp there:
Shortly after this he came over for a chat and having noted that Jay and I seemed to be catching more than most he decided to take a walk to see what else was happening.
As I continued to catch it became apparent that pinging pellets over the feeder was working well. This is a tactic I have used before with success, especially when I want the Carp to come shallow so that I can swap over to the pellet waggler. Jay remarked that he thought I was catching him up but I doubted that I was making progress as he probably had 15 carp more than me when I switched methods half way through the match. Towards the end though I noticed his catch rate was falling whereas I was maintaining a good rate and probably putting 2 fish in the net to his 1.
When Nick returned from his walk he noted that Alan across on peg 32 could not buy a bite on the feeder to the end of his island and was catching well on his top kit. Nick then noticed movement in his margin, threw in some bait and hooked a nice 2 pounder! This may turn out to be an important piece of information for the coming matches as we had all assumed that the weather was too poor for fish to come to the margins!
The final whistle was blown and I thought Jay would be the winner and I would be around 5lb behind him. To our surprise Alan had weighed in 34lb 12oz, most of which was caught on his top kit and as the scales moved around to Jay it was going to be a close call with me being a little disturbed at the thought of coming 3rd like I always seem to. Jay managed 33lb 4oz putting him second and as I hawled my net out everyone started to moan as they were convinced I had more. To my amazement the scales went around to 35lb 4oz to take 1st place in a knock-up where I only fished the 'proper' method for half the match.
The conclusion to this practice match was that several methods would work although the feeder would probably dominate with the inside line a potential back-up. I had learned what I needed to know ready for the 1st proper match next Sunday so look out for the report!
Oh yes, and Vince beat Peter again :~O
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