Forum match on Bramley & Peartree lakes, Hartleylands

Today I am fishing a small match on Bramley and Peartree lakes at Hartleylands which Nick Gilbert has organised for members of his forum. Over the past few weeks we have been trying to think of a way to catch more fish on Peartree or to catch bigger fish in order to work out how to break the lake record in a 5 hour match. Normally I would reach for the pellet waggler on this venue because if you are good at the method you can usually frame and even win a match here. However, the last match I fished here was won on shallow pole (by Nick) at about 7m and I came 3rd fishing shallow pole at 11.5m. The shorter line was better because of the time you save and this was to become my choice for today together with fishing spicy meat down the edge for some bigger lumps. 15 turned out for the draw so there was going to be a lot of space for us however as Trevor Little pulled out our pegs for us it turned out that Nick would be fishing alongside me again. I had peg 18 and Nick had 16. Although it is always good fun fishing next to Nick, I think we both feel a bit miffed when we get drawn together because we both know we will be attacking the swim and end up having to share the fish, usually 60/40 in his favour though!

Upon arriving at my peg I realised that I had a very nice island peg with a short chuck and the wind behind me. This was crying out for the pellet waggler and I’m afraid my previous plans went out the window as I changed my mind and decided to start on the waggler to put some fish in the net, then feed the short line with pellets and also dump in a load of meat down either margin. The other reason I decided to start on the waggler was because I had recently bought 2 new 11’ Milo rods that I was dying to try out and had one of them set up shallow with a styro waggler. Along with this I also set up a meat rig for tight to the left margin and a meat rig for fishing down the shelf to my right. I then set up a shallow rig with a Scone float that I wanted to try out.

With my kit all sorted out and a few familiar faces around the lake I decided to go for a walk and found Mike explaining his floating feeder set-up to Jay. Nick and I decided to leave him to it as we walked back contemplating the wind direction and how it might effect the match.

When the whistle went I dumped in the meat and catapulted some pellets over to the island. As I rested the rod on my net to pick up the catty again, the tip flew round and fish number 1 was in the net within a minute of the match starting. After fish number 2 I called over to Nick that I was now in love with my Milo rod as the action was so soft it was a dream to use. About 20 minutes into the match Nick shouted over “how many you got now then?” and I replied “6”. Then after 30 minutes it was “9” and so it went on until I had 20 fish inside the first hour. This catch rate is typical with the wag on this lake so I wasn’t hammering it but at least I seemed to be ahead of everyone else.

During the second hour the wind picked up and started to push my float around when I was casting. Several times it ended up in a bush that was poking right out of the island and several times I snapped my hook length pulling for a break. After about 5 or 6 hooks I realised that I was in trouble because I had run out of hair rigs tied to my new Drennan Carp match hooks. I had begun to use these recently due to problems with hook holds using the PR27 pattern and my mind was definitely made up now as I lost about 5 fish in the second hour. I had made up for this however as a switch from 6mm to 8mm pellet brought me some slightly bigger fish.

As the third hour came around I had about 54 fish in the net and was probably ahead of everyone else. I mentioned to Nick that I hadn’t seen any activity on my pole line and he pointed out that although he was catching, the fish were only at half depth and his catch rate was the same as it was on the waggler which he also started on. My original plan was to drop the waggler and go out on the short line to put fish in the net faster but I was reluctant to do this as I was doing well on the wag and the fish didn’t seem to be coming quicker for Nick closer in. I continued on the waggler while I tried to make my mind up and was also dying to see if there were any lumps on the inside meat swims. Fate made my mind up though as once again a gust of wind grabbed my waggler and chucked it into the bush. I lost the whole rig on the pull and couldn’t make up my mind whether to rig it up again. I decided to pluck up the courage to throw the rod up the bank and picked up my cupping kit to top up the meat swims.

First put in and the float started to dip up and down which I put down to line bites. I wasn’t worried though because I was fishing about 4” over depth to allow for this and just waited for the float to sail away and soon it did just that. A nice 4lb fish came in after a short battle and I then dropped back in but didn’t get a sniff for a while. It turned out that the dips were also being caused by silver fish as I lifted a 1 ounce Roach out that had it’s lips glued onto my 10mm cube of meat! It fell off and I cupped in another large pot of meat and this was followed shortly by another 4lb Carp.

This sport continued but it was all too slow. I was hooking about 1 fish every 20 minutes and my weight was not increasing as much as it would have on the waggler. During the last hour I hooked a proper lump which decided to charge off and stretch my 13 hollow to an alarming length. After 10 minutes the 8lb fish was in the net and for the second time today I had decided to change something about my tackle………..to chuck away the 13 hollow and put something else in my 2 strongest power kits!

By now I knew that I had blown the match because Nick had put about 30 fish in his net in the final hour but at least I had worked out something on the day. I think that fishing for lumps down the edge should be done for 5 or 10 minutes at a time when you are resting a shallow line and it should be your shallow line that provides the bulk of your weight.

At the weigh-in Rusty put around 125lb on the scales from Bramley taken on shallow pole and Nick notched up 117lb. Trevor Little did well on paste though with 90lb and surprisingly I came 4th overall and 2nd on the lake with 88lb………….if only I had stayed on the waggler I might have stood a chance! Never mind, I would rather try out something new at a small match and be better prepared for the bigger ones!

So off I went with another £20 in my pocket and as I was waiting for the bath to run at home I emptied about £50 worth of PR27s into the bin and got out the 2 power kits fitted with the 13 hollow ready to be stripped down and rigged up with something a bit less stretchy! I will have a few busy evenings getting ready for my next match on the Reservoir!

My secret river swim and a day's pleasure fishing.........

I don’t do a great deal of pleasure fishing, just the odd trip to one of the local rivers for a bit of proper fishing instead of catching stockies for 5 hours. The season has just started and today the weather looked good and I didn’t have a match on so off I went at 8.15 in the morning armed with the bare minimum of tackle and my floppy Gortex hat to keep the sun or rain off my head.

Outside my front door is a footpath and 50 yards down this is a rarely fished free stretch of the Beult which I visited a few times last season. I had a couple of good days fishing there catching Roach, Chubletts and Perch trotting a little stick float down this narrow but picturesque river but the only time I went for something bigger on the feeder I ended up losing it to a clump of nearside reeds that the unknown culprit buried itself into. And so today’s main objective was to find out what the bigger fish are and how many of them inhabit this stretch.

My hopes were high because as you can see from the photo, this place looks like a proper fish haven and is rarely fished by anyone apart from the odd schoolboy with a lead and tin of corn. The only doubt I had was due to the possible lack of any fish moving in and out of this section because at one end is a water wheel that everything has to go through and at the other end is a shallow ford under the medieval bridge in the village centre. Now last year I saw a Common Carp around the 10lb mark cruising across this ford and this spring I saw some large skimmers drifting around in the sun-warmed shallows so maybe, just maybe, there were some nice fish to be had if I could find them.

One of the problems with fishing a natural venue that is not fished very often is finding an accessible swim. There are probably 6 or 8 swims along the bank but I could only get to a couple through all the nettles. I settled on the same swim where I lost the mysterious lump last year and proceeded to put together my 12’ MACH 3 Medium Feeder rod with a 2oz carbon tip and a medium plastic cage feeder with a size 14 eyed B911 tied to a 12” tale. My bait bucket contained about 4 pints of freshly prepared hemp mixed with a pint of casters, a tin of corn and half a pint of 6mm pellets. This was all mixed up the previous night so the concoction had time to soak and ferment a little……………..yum! I also had some Dendras for hook bait and a bit of dry groundbait in case my aforementioned concoction did not hold well in the feeder. The groundbait was 60% brown crumb, 20% white crumb and 20% crushed hemp. Last year I had tried a mainly groundbait attack for the bigger fish but this brought a lot of nuisance fish in and so this time I wanted to focus on using particles.

So, I set up my comfy carp chair (a bit different from my usual seat box), filled the feeder with bait, popped 2 Dendras on the hook and tipped it with corn and chucked it 25 yards downstream where I had hooked the lump last year. The mysterious fish in question didn’t really feel massive, just quite powerful and very determined to bury itself into the near bank reeds and nettles before I could get it within netting range.

After a few minutes the tip began to bob up and down a bit and then pulled over nicely enabling connection when I struck. The fish darted around a bit and made a good account of itself considering it was only a 10z Chub but at least it was one of the species that I was hoping for. Another similar sized Chub came along soon after and this continued until the tip slammed over and I hooked a fish that headed straight for the near side cover and buried itself in the reeds and nettles. Not again I thought! This was followed by a succession of small Chub but alas, the monster fish did not arrive.

I then started to get bites that were slower but I just couldn’t hit them. I decided to step up to a size 12 hook and increased my tail to 2’ hoping that the fish would have more time to take the bait before feeling any resistance. This worked a treat as the next fish was a 12oz Skimmer followed by it’s brother.

By now I was casting every 5 or 10 minutes which meant that a good bed of feed was going down but without over feeding the swim. The feeder I was using was working ok because it had teeth on the inside of the cage that helped to grip the mash of particles together.

The next few fish were all still Skimmers and then the swim died for a while, no knocks, no nudges, no liners. Had I caught everything in the swim? Had I spooked them off or had something bigger moved in?....Nod…nod...yank! The tip flew round and immediately I felt the familiar pull of a slab hugging the bottom and wondering what the hell was pulling back. River Bream are stronger than still water Bream because they need a bit more muscle to cope with the flow but this one obviously hadn’t ever seen a hook before because it was going bonkers! Well, bonkers in slow motion anyway! I carefully coaxed it up stream and after a bit of messing around among the near side Lillie pads I slid the net under it and admired the bronze beauty with a huge grin of contentment across my chops. 3lb, 4lb at a push.

Although I had achieved my aim of catching something a bit meaty on this river, I was not at all convinced that this was the species that snagged me up last year. A Bream just wouldn’t have the time, muscle or cunning to head for the nearside cover!

I quickly re-loaded the feeder, chucked it to the same spot and within 5 minutes the tip bounced over and another slab was on………..for about 10 seconds. This Bream was bigger and headed straight upstream and into a sunken weed bed whereby it snapped me up at the hook. Not cunning my arse! I was using 6lb reel line and 5lb Fox Micro trace so my only thought was that my hook tying hadn’t been too good. This sort of thing shatters my confidence a bit and I start wondering if all the hooks in my box were tied badly. On went a new trace then and back out with the feeder. 10 minutes later and the tip bounced round………………..and I hooked another slab………………….and the line gave way at the hook end. Bugger! Now I was really disturbed about this. I had tied some hooks using a knotless knot but without a hair, just the knot and I wondered if this knot slips too much if you haven’t got a hair dangling under it to take the slack up.

Now that my confidence in my pre-tied hooks was zero and I was a little suspect of using hi-tech line, I resorted to tying a spade end B911 with 3lb Maxima. I chucked the feeder out and as I settled the rod on the rest I heard an almighty splash over my feeder. As I looked up all I could see was the wake on the surface and wondered what hell it was. 10 minutes had passed and all I had was a couple of tiny knocks so I cast out again and the same thing happened, a big splash but I didn’t see the fish. Another cast and this time I kept my eye on the landing zone. The fish swirled and although I didn’t see it very well I am quite sure it was a Pike probably chasing the small fish that were giving me the little indications.

The sun was high in the sky by now and I was beginning to feel a little bit sleepy and after I munched on a couple of vegetarian sausage rolls I did something that I have never done in the whole of my 40 years on this earth…………….I brought the feeder in, popped the rod on it’s rest, pulled my hat over my eyes and slid down the chair ready for a nice snooze.

Having not seen a soul all day, I awoke to the rustle of the leaves as the breeze started to get a little stronger. I looked at my watch and decided to have another couple of hours fishing before heading home and so on I went, hoping that Mr. Pike had buggered off by now.

First chuck out and the tip went over to the pull of a nice 12oz Chub, good I thought, I was a bit fed up of Skimmers and only wanted slabs, Chub and whatever fish I kept losing to the near side cover. The Chub got a little bigger and then I hooked one around the 1lb mark and it headed straight for the nettles and reeds. I managed to pull it away and net it but something twigged in my head. Another chuck and another Chub of the same size and again it headed straight for the near bank nettles. Now this might not be rocket science but I am willing to bet that the fish I have lost to those nettles and reeds are bigger Chub, maybe not massive but big enough to take you on a merry dance towards a nice place to snag you up. It definitely wasn’t the Bream and I hadn’t caught much else that could have been responsible so I decided it must be Chub.

On then with my plight to hook said beast! Unfortunately the next hour only saw a few Chubletts and Skimmers come to my net. The Bream had buggered off, the Chub were getting smaller and then I went and did something else that I haven’t done since my Dad last tackled me up with a Peacock quill at the age of about 7 years old……………..I caught a bloody Eel! Damn, I hate Eels. They are ugly, difficult to unhook and only Noddies catch Eels so this was the signal for me to pack up, go home and get settled down to watch the footy.

I was quite happy with my day though, my understanding of this beautiful river was getting better, my catches were getting bigger and best of all…………you never know what you are going to catch next. Maybe that 10lb Common I saw, maybe a Tench if the rumours I hear are true? Who knows? I will just have to come back again soon!

1st Invicta League Round 6 on Peartree & Bramley Lakes, Hartleylands 08/06/08

It only seems like a few weeks ago we were all looking forward to this league but today is the last match that will decide the final positions. After the first match and terrible conditions, I was lying very close to the bottom but with some hard work and better weather, I was in 5th position going into this match but with little chance of a top 3 finish due to the points situation. My target at the start of the league was to finish in the top 6 and so this would still be my aim and I would therefore need good points today to keep the other anglers from overtaking me.

This match was ‘pole only’ and ‘float only’ which prevented me from fishing the pellet waggler which is the method I would always go for on these lakes in summer. I was unsure of the potential success of fishing shallow on the pole but this would be my main line of attack with paste in the margins as a back-up plan. My target for today would be 80 fish for around 100lb which I felt would be good for a pole only match seeing as you can get 100lb to 150lb plus on the waggler.

Because I was helping with the draw, one of the guys pulled my peg and out came peg 5 on Peartree. To my left and in my section was Mark Hathway and Kevin Pack which meant the company would be good but the competition would be hard but I was dead chuffed with my peg as it was one of my preferred choices being between the islands. Even though they are well out of reach with a pole, it may be possible to draw fish from the open area and also in the last match a few weeks ago, that area produced well.



The weather has been a lot warmer around here lately and apart from some odd days of rain, a shallow approach has been producing well. As I arrived at my peg I could see some fish on the surface but I was still uncertain how well a shallow approach would work on the pole. My mind was made up though and I decided to try 2 different rigs on a shallow line at 11.5m and just have 1 margin rig set up for later in the match. The 2 shallow rigs that I wanted to try are a little different to the ones I have been using, I wanted to experiment with a different float pattern and also weigh up the difference between a long line and a short line between float and pole tip. The new float pattern is a Preston Pink dibber that has a hole in the tip so that the line passes through the body. The float is very light, just needing a single number 6 shot under it and the weight of a 6mm pellet to cock it. I also wanted to try the Drennan Carp Match hooks out and see if I bumped or lost fewer fish with them so I had a few hair rigs tied up with them on instead of the PR27's I normaly use.



The experiment with the long and short line would be to determine if more fish are caught with the ‘self hooking’ short line or if the long line caught more fish because the pole is further off the surface therefore reducing the risk of spooking the fish. I know it may seem risky experimenting with new things in a match situation but you don’t learn much pleasure fishing because you have no competition to measure your success by and the water is not under pressure.

My bait choice today was simple then, a shed load of 6mm skrettings and a pint of paste made from ground expanders. I also had some worms and corn with me but only because they were in the bag from my last match.

While I was setting up, I had to think about the distance that I would fish out shallow. If we were at Monks then I would start at about 7m so that I could feed easily by hand but I wasn’t sure if the fish would come that close in at Hartleylands. I could have fished at 10m and still fed by hand although it gets a bit hard at that length either using your weak hand or swapping the pole over to your weak hand and feeding with your strong hand. Also, I wanted to draw fish from the gap between the islands so the closer I fished to it the better. I therefore settled on 11.5m as a happy medium between ease of feeding, speed and drawing fish and I would feed by hand when playing the fish and after netting it and feed with a pult when the pole is shipped out.
So upon hearing the whistle, I threw out a couple of handfuls of pellets at my 11.5m line and then shipped out 2 large cups of pellets down my left margin under a small tree. Another couple of handfuls of pellets out on the long line and I then shipped out the pole with the long line set 12” deep and slapped the rig on the surface. After 3 slaps the elastic pulled out and a nice 1lb Carp was in the net and my ‘clicker’ got it’s first push. By feeding with my right hand while playing fish and with the pult after I had shipped out, I managed to string together about 15 fish in the first hour. This isn’t exactly bagging up but I was happy with a steady stream of fish and the probability of things picking up later on.

At the start of the second hour I foul hooked a decent fish of around 2lb and so after I netted it I shallowed up to 6”. This brought fish at a faster rate and after 2 hours I had around 32 fish in the net. Things were looking good so I thought I would try out the short line rig and so out it went. The first problem I encountered with this rig is that when you are speed fishing it is easier to tangle a short rig around your pole tip and also it is not easy to slap on the surface and make much of a noise. I caught a few ‘self-hookers’ but the action was not as good so I popped it back on the roost and reverted back to the long line. By the way, the long line was 2’ between pole tip and float and the short line was 6”.

Using the short line had taught me one thing though and that was the effectiveness of having fish self-hook themselves. I therefore adopted a slightly different approach with the long line rig which involved holding the pole so that the line was tight between tip and float and slightly to one side so the tip was not directly over the float. This had a positive result because the fish were more confident with the pole further away from them and also I had plenty of fish self-hooked while I was putting pellets into the pult. The third hour therefore went much like the second with a total of 52 fish.

At this point the sun was high in the sky and the heat was really strong. The fourth hour seemed harder and more slapping and searching out the peg was required. I didn’t want the peg to fizzle out though so I upped the feed rate as much as I could which meant having the pult in my hand permanently. I winkled out as many fish as I could manage but by the end of the fourth hour I only had a total of 62 fish, only 10 had gone in the net during the last hour.

Things were looking up though as my increased feeding seemed to draw more fish in front of me. I looked at my clicker and felt that I wouldn’t hit my 80 fish target at the current rate and estimated that about 74 would be more realistic. I wasn’t going to roll over and play dead though so out went more pellets and more pellets and even more pellets. Using the self-hooking system of holding a tight line helped me because I was feeding so much. At this point a long shadow appeared on the surface and drifted towards my swim. I had already mugged a few off the surface by slapping the pellet down in their pathway but this fish looked nice. I slapped the rig down almost on top of it, there was a huge swirl and then the latex came peeling out. Within a minute the fish was under my feet and I simply played it out until it gave in after about a dozen gulps of air. A nice 6 or 7 pounder was in the net and I was very happy with the boost that it would give my weight!

As the last hour ticked by too quickly, I managed to up the catch rate with my feeding and I was getting closer to my target. With 15 minutes left I had passed my estimate of 74 fish and was going like the clappers. I was landing my 79th fish with one minute to go, scooped it in, chucked out some pellets and shipped out so fast you would think I was throwing a javelin. I hooked a fish right away and as the whistle went it was in my net being unhooked. 80!

It would be fair to say that I was pleased with my performance especially as I did not have sight of anyone else catching at the rate I was. And then in typical fashion Mr. Gilbert ventured up the bank to scupper my hopes as he told me he had 118 Carp!

So as usual I volunteered to help with the weigh-in and was handed the sling, meaning I was about to get soaked. My 80 fish went to 104lb odd which meant that the lump I had helped put me over the ton. Nick weighed in a mental 147lb odd which he had caught at 7m! Damn, if I had done that I could have fed by hand all day and caught more fish. His plan was to start short and follow them out and my plan relied on them not wanting it short. After the match we had a chat about whether you really need to fish to the islands to get a good weight and today has left us wondering whether the pellet waggler is the best method or if shallow pole could possibly overtake it. One thing is for sure though, you CAN catch close in shallow here!

Oh yes, the Preston Pink dibber........well I had trouble getting it to cock and it seemed to either take on water or dipped under when a pellet was very wet. Either way I think it is too light or needs a wire stem to help it cock. Also, the Drennan hooks seemed better than the PR27's so don't expect to find any in the shops around here as someone has gone and bought them all :~)

The results were drawn up with me, Nick and Colin Wood all winning our sections it meant that we would all hold the same league place and only the top 2 could change. So Nick ended up 4th and I was 5th overall and I have to say that I am dead chuffed with finishing 5th as my original goal was for a top 6 position against some very good anglers. I had earned myself another £40 for my ‘pools’ bank account but more importantly I had enjoyed a very good league and met some really decent blokes.

I can't help wondering where I would have finished if I had drawn a decent peg in the first match and earnt more than 1 point! Never mind, it's easy to say 'if only' all the time!

Oh yes, as an afterthought I asked Nick if he could work out the league places if it had been done on weight instead of points:
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1st Nick Gilbert, 2nd Matt Love :~)
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Here are the results and the proper table:
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1st Nick Gilbert 147-12
2nd Paul Kell 112-1 (guest)
3rd Matt Love 104-13
4th Collin Wood 95-12
5th Andy Goldthorpe 90-12 (guest)
6th Kevin Pack 86-1
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League Places
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1 Kevin Pack 333-15 26
2 Andy Silver 332-12 25
3 Collin Wood 290-12 24
4 Nick Gilbert 417-6 23
5 Matt Love 338-9 23
6 Mark Hathway 271-8 21
7 Ian Carley 261-10 21
8 Martin Charnock 156-13 20
9 Trevor Little 205-12 18
10 Tony Clark 216-11 17
11 Jay Lay 198-14 17
12 Mark Holland 186-9 17
13 Russ Evans 229-0 16
14 John Haigh 118-0 15
15 Dennis Price 167-12 14
16 Chris Jones 140-12 14
17 Martin Twine 124-13 14
18 Mark Greenway 53-11 6
19 Jim McDowell 61-13 4
20 Mike Jameson 31-6 3

There are a few opens and one or two other matches coming up soon including the angling forum’s Southern Inter-site Championship so keep an eye out for these over the next few months.