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When the Spring League finishes, Nick usually runs a match open to members of various forums. The match is usually booked across the two small match lakes, Bramley and Peartree, which although have 20 odd pegs each, can really only hold 10 without causing problems of fishing too close together towards the islands. I usually use this match as an opportunity to experiment with a few things as there is nothing much to lose apart from the pools which were being split over the top 2 on each lake with a small section payout as well.
The weather has been very good recently although the past week has seen the odd tropical rain storm however, the temperature had shot up today and we were going to be in for a real scorcher. A few of us were chatting over breakfast about the possible weights and the chance of the lake record being broken on Bramley as we were fishing for 6 hours today. I have never fished a 6 hour match before and to be honest I don’t feel that 6 hour weights should be allowed to count as match records so my main thoughts of today were focused on a big weight and a chance to experiment with a couple of things.
I just want to talk for a moment about what I wanted to experiment with today. Firstly, I feel that in good conditions you need to find the method that puts fish in your nets the quickest. Now that may seem obvious but up until the end of last summer I would reach for my waggler rods before anything else on this venue. Fishing the pellet waggler is a very successful method here along with the method feeder and occasionally fishing down the edge for lumps and anglers usually go with the method they are best at. However, in a couple of matches on this venue I have fed a shallow pole line at around 10m to see if the method could work as well as it does at Monk lakes. When I have done this the fish have always been there at the first put-in which has previously been around 40-60 minutes or so. So one of the experiments I wanted to run today was to see how quickly I could catch shallow at a 7m line. This would show me whether I need to feed and fish to the islands for a while so the pole line can build up or whether I can go straight out on the quicker method.
Something else I wanted to try out in this hot weather was laying down a large bed of feed in a margin swim and see how productive it could be. Given that we are fishing for 6 hours up until about 4 o’clock, the lumps should come in and potentially add significant weight to the nets of smaller fish. I opted to feed hemp with a bit of corn mixed in and fished a new soft hooker pellet over the top. Trevor Price (GOT Baits owner) sent some down as part of the prize hamper for the spring league and told me that they were not on the market yet. They are a large soft dark pellet, probably a 10mm-12mm expander but coated in a slightly sticky white substance that really does look and feel like emulsion. They actually look delicious and would be easily visible on the deck.
So my plan today was to feed shallow close in and down the edge and hopefully not need to pick up the waggler rod at all although I did bring a pair with me along with a bomb rod. At the draw I was given peg 24 which is on the car park end at the point of the first island. It is not a noted peg and even though the weather was hot I would still expect to catch better from the pegs opposite the gap between the islands. I wasn’t too bothered though as I am always quite confident of catching well up in the water at this time of year. By the way, this is now 8 times out of 8 matches that I have drawn Peartree rather than Bramley!
As this was to be a 6 hour match, the ‘all in’ was sounded at 10.15 and I threw some pellets out at 7m and dumped 2 jam jars of hemp down the left hand margin which looked a better option than the right hand margin as I could ship the pole a reasonable distance along the bank and under the branches of a bush. I flicked a few more pellets out at 7m and shipped the pole out with my fingers crossed that I would get a quick response. My eyes were half on the float and half on my watch as I flicked pellets out every 5 seconds. I started off at 18” deep and continued feeding every 10 seconds and slapping every 10 seconds as I usually lift the rig out as soon as the pellet has had time to reach maximum depth. Looking around the lake it seemed everyone was having a slow start and clearly not feeding much apart from Al Loader to my left who was out on the shallow pole as well.
I looked at my watch as I was shipping in my first carp of the day……….. 8 MINUTES !!!
This information will prove very valuable from now on, especially as we have the Nick Puncher Memorial match approaching on this venue and over 100 anglers will be fishing. I need to test this response out more in the future but if today was anything to go by then I know that I only need to fish to the island for a few minutes to pinch a few carp before taking a look close in. By the way, my shallow rigs were the same as they always are and I had a ‘long line’ rig for easy slapping and so that I could flick the rig beyond the pole tip and keep the pole off their heads in these calm conditions. The second rig was a ‘short line’ rig to use if the fish became more confident and started to hang themselves. I also brought some more of those white pellets with me that Nick had mentioned a few weeks ago. I’m not sure if he feels they work any better on the hook than the usual darker pellets but I am beginning to think that they do. They are a little larger than expected for 6mm pellets and the feed pellets seem smaller to me than usual. The white ones do seem to get a bit slippery when wet but they hold together well and stay in the band a bit longer.
Anyway, after my 8 minute wait for the first fish I started bagging and had 20 fish in the net within the first hour, including the initial 8 minute wait where I could have had a few on the wag as well. The fish were all very small though, around the 1lb mark rather than the usual pound and a half. Things slowed down a bit during the second hour but adding a section and keeping up the feed I still managed 35 fish by the 2 hour mark. The conditions were now extremely hot and the lake was dead calm so I decided to sling 2 handfulls of hemp down the edge and rest the shallow line a while.
On went a large white expander and as soon as the float settled under the bush it shot under and the doubled 8 slip came peeling out of the pole. Unfortunately I couldn’t have any spare sections attached behind me due to a bushy tree to my right so I had to hold on with only 5.5m in my hands. I managed to reach for another section to add on while the fish steamed off and soon a nice plump 7lb carp was netted. I began to think I had made a good call by feeding heavily under that bush.
Another pellet went on but the float was just bobbing around from small stuff nibbling it. This is a problem at HLF as there are a lot of tiny silvers that will attack a soft bait and I therefore opted to re-load the jam jar in an attempt to draw more carp in to push the silvers out.
Back out to the shallow line then and the fish were queued up waiting. I continued to catch and began to slip the fish into a second net having put 40 in the first. Again though things eased up and although the fish were all at the depth I wanted them, they just seemed more interested in basking than feeding. I stuck another dozen fish in the net by the 3 hour mark before resting the swim again.
I had been feeding handfuls of hemp down the edge every 20 minutes to make a bit of noise and to hold the bigger fish there so it was now time to take another look. A few missed bites then resulted in a couple of small carp so it seemed the very few larger fish were up for it today. I stuck a couple more jam jars under the bush and went out shallow again.
By the close of the 5th hour I had about 75 fish and was quite disappointed at their size and that the hot conditions seemed to spoil the chance of a big weight. I was sure that 150lb – 200lb would be on the cards but with 75 fish I would be lucky to get close to a ton!
Altering depth was not an option as I was pricking them as I lifted the rig. The fish were all up at 12” and quite a few were cruising around my swim. I did manage to mug one or two of them that seemed a little closer to 2lb but they just weren’t that fussed on eating even if the sound of the pellets was drawing them in.
My thoughts kept tempting me to go down the edge again and try to put some weight together to compensate for the smaller fish but I kept thinking back to this fixture last year where I decided to fish half the match shallow and stay down the edge for the second half as an experiment to see if the lumps would build a better weight. Looking around the lake I was unsure how close certain other anglers were to my weight as I had seen a couple of blokes catching reasonably well. What if their fish were bigger than mine? Should I stay shallow or go down the edge? Finally I made my decision as I really wanted to give the margin swim a reasonable chance to prove itself to me and the final 45 minutes was devoted entirely to the bush.
So, in went 4 handfulls of hemp and out went the rig. Every time I hooked a fish I chucked another handful down there to settle them. I lost 2 more lumps due to not having enough pole behind me to cater for their runs but I stuck at it in the hope that I would be able to tame one or two. Unfortunately most of the fish were just around the 1lb to 2lb mark so it seemed that even down the edge it was only the small fish that were interested.
Fortunately a bit of cloud cover started to pass over, I was really hot and fishing for 6 hours in this heat left me hoping for the final whistle. It came and I was passed the scales to do the weigh-in.
I finished on 82 fish for an estimated 100lb and the scales showed 101 odd. A few weights in the 80’s and 90’s were recorded but it seemed my disappointing day had won the lake. Bramley had fished a bit weird as well but the weights were a little better. Nick won the Bramley match with 123lb so we both went home £65 better off and I left with some valuable information about this place and how the weather can affect the fishing.
My next match will be the Nick Puncher Memorial 100+ open. Fingers crossed for a good draw!
Monday, 29 June 2009
Evening pairs match, Sam's Lakes Headcorn
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I’ve never fished an evening match before but the idea of avoiding the mid-day heat and enjoying the cooler hours and potentially better evening fishing was appealing. Nick needed a partner and knew how much I like this venue so we drew at 4 and fished from 5 until 8. I’ve only fished this place about 3 times and the match today was on the bottom lake that I have only ever fished for silvers. Usually everyone fishes for the carp but I wasn’t sure of the stocking density. They also seem to be caught mainly from around the group of islands to the right and not in open water. Continuing with my year of bad draws I pulled out peg 5 which was in no-man’s land with only open water and Lilly pads close in to my left. Nick, who I am slowly begging to think is a magnate (no, not that sort of magnate) drew a peg in the middle of the island cluster but without an island chuck. Without knowing if Carp would dominate this match, I took 3 pints of maggot with me as this place is stuffed with silvers as well as the usual carp gear and a box of mixed pellets, meat and corn.
At the start I fed a couple of jam jars of the mixture by the Lilly pads and chucked out a conker bomb clipped up at the same distance as my pellet waggler which was about 40m. I fed 8mm pellets over the top to draw them up but didn’t have anything but liners for half an hour.
Next out was the waggler and I began to catch fish between 2lb and 8lb but not as quickly as Nick who was apparently catching them one-a-bung. I rested the swim about half way through the match and had a look by the Lilly pads but there was no sign of life down there.
During the course of the match I was feeding maggots 10m out at about 2 o’clock. The swim was absolutely swirling with fish but I didn’t see anything bigger than a few ounces and all the while I was putting carp in the net I wasn’t about to fish for silvers.
To cut a short story even shorter, I weighed in 40 odd pound of carp which was 2nd on the lake and Nick had around 100lb.............in 3 hours! Good enough for a win and a lovely evening’s fishing.
I’ve never fished an evening match before but the idea of avoiding the mid-day heat and enjoying the cooler hours and potentially better evening fishing was appealing. Nick needed a partner and knew how much I like this venue so we drew at 4 and fished from 5 until 8. I’ve only fished this place about 3 times and the match today was on the bottom lake that I have only ever fished for silvers. Usually everyone fishes for the carp but I wasn’t sure of the stocking density. They also seem to be caught mainly from around the group of islands to the right and not in open water. Continuing with my year of bad draws I pulled out peg 5 which was in no-man’s land with only open water and Lilly pads close in to my left. Nick, who I am slowly begging to think is a magnate (no, not that sort of magnate) drew a peg in the middle of the island cluster but without an island chuck. Without knowing if Carp would dominate this match, I took 3 pints of maggot with me as this place is stuffed with silvers as well as the usual carp gear and a box of mixed pellets, meat and corn.
At the start I fed a couple of jam jars of the mixture by the Lilly pads and chucked out a conker bomb clipped up at the same distance as my pellet waggler which was about 40m. I fed 8mm pellets over the top to draw them up but didn’t have anything but liners for half an hour.
Next out was the waggler and I began to catch fish between 2lb and 8lb but not as quickly as Nick who was apparently catching them one-a-bung. I rested the swim about half way through the match and had a look by the Lilly pads but there was no sign of life down there.
During the course of the match I was feeding maggots 10m out at about 2 o’clock. The swim was absolutely swirling with fish but I didn’t see anything bigger than a few ounces and all the while I was putting carp in the net I wasn’t about to fish for silvers.
To cut a short story even shorter, I weighed in 40 odd pound of carp which was 2nd on the lake and Nick had around 100lb.............in 3 hours! Good enough for a win and a lovely evening’s fishing.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Monk Lakes 1 & 2 - Pad's Army charity open
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These matches seem to be quite popular and are drawing anglers from further afield. In the car park I was approached by a guy that sounded Scandinavian, (sorry mate I didn’t ask your name but thanks for coming over). He recognised me from my blog and told me how interesting he finds it and also Nick’s blog. We had a good chat and then went up to the draw. Out came peg 61 for me and I was relatively pleased to be on the left side of lake 2 and half way up the spit. It could have been better but at least I was in with a chance if the fish were in the mood.
Arriving at my peg I found a youngster to my right called Ross who helps out at Monks and has recently been selected for the England Juniors squad (or something impressive like that). We had a chat once we were all tackled up and he is going to do well for himself.
Now at this point the weather was looking a bit suspect, chilly, cloudy and not many gaps in the cloud cover but there was a good breeze (as usual) and I hoped it would push the clouds over quickly. My hopes were met and by the time the match started it was turning in to another sunny June day.
I decided on 4 rigs, 2 of which would be based around my usual shallow approach at this venue. Both rigs had “Matt’s Slappers” made by Nick Gilbert, one was a long-line rig for slapping hard (about 4’ from float to pole) and the other was a short line “hang ‘em” rig for the self-hooking method. Next was a margin rig, I had a good depth and lots of reeds so a short Gilbert diamond went onto this one. Finally, as I had a spare 20 minutes I decided to stick on a deck rig for out in front (just in case) and this had a long Gilbert diamond on it. Hopefully neither of these rigs would get wet but sometimes the margins can work well if you need to rest the main line or it dies all together.
I took some hemp for down the edge, cheaper than my favoured caster approach and I wanted to see if it would work just as well. The main bait though would be 6mm hard pellets although I did take a box of different pellets with me to try as a change bait. They seemed to work well but I will keep these pellets secret for the time being just in case it was a fluke that they worked better than the usual ones. Something I did notice today was the size of my main feed pellets. They seemed a lot smaller than the “secret” pellets I took. The feed pellets this year seem darker than last year and I am also wondering if they are a bit smaller for some reason or maybe the “secret” pellets were just a bit bigger, maybe 6.5mm.
On with the match then and as the horn sounded I balled in 8 jaffas of method mix with a packet of yellow pineapple Atomic Cloud mixed in at around 8m. After flicking a few pellets over the top I shipped the pole out and connected with a 2lb carp immediately. You know that feeling when you start catching straight away? Well in the first 5 minutes I had 5 carp in the net, rock n roll!
Things didn’t remain at this speed for long though and within the first hour I had around 20 fish which was still ok given their size. Now something I have noticed this spring is that every match I have fished the sport has taken a dive around mid-day and sure enough as I was beginning to suspect that I could do the double ton, the bites dropped off. I spent the next 2 hours altering depth, changing the pellet type, changing my feeding pattern and going a bit longer. This was not wasted effort though as I was still putting fish in the net, just not quite as quickly. I continued with this but had to fish at 10m for bites and needed to chop and change which hand I was feeding with in order to get the bait out to the right distance. With the breeze today it was hard to reach 10m with my left hand so often I was holding the pole in my wrong hand in order to feed with my right hand. I have done this before and it works fine but just takes a bit more energy and can get quite tiring.
After a lot of chopping and changing I settled on one specific depth and feed rate that seemed to work best and this entailed throwing quite a few pellets out every few seconds. The fish seemed to respond better to a more positive approach.
During the 4th hour the fishing seemed to pick up again and I had a good spell but the bites still dropped off after a while. I decided to put on one of my alternative pellets and this seemed to work well. I maintained my feed rate and worked hard until the final hour when I had the fish swirling and boiling in front of me. In fact, they were responding so well I managed to get them back to 8m which was great because I could lose a section and go back to the easier fishing and feeding with my left hand.
I stuck a third net in now as I didn’t want to risk having too much in them and now the fish were coming one a bung and I was rocking. My thoughts of a frame place had disappeared when the bites tailed off at mid-day but I was now putting about 1lb of fish in the net every minute! Then disaster struck and 15 minutes before the end a decent carp managed to get under my nets and I had to remove them all from my spray bar in order to save the fish and get my rig back. The fish had shed the hook on to one of the nets and I lost a good 10 or 12 minutes fishing time when the bites were coming fast. I managed another few fish before the end of the match and estimated around 110lb which I felt would only be any good if the lakes had fished hard. That dry spell at mid-day seemed to mess my chances up and maybe I should have gone down the edge but I was reluctant to do this when I was still catching out in front.
There was something else that I felt spoiled my chances today and that was lack of preparation. My new job consumes so much time that a Saturday match means I have limited time to prepare on Friday evening. One thing I forgot to do last night was check my hook length boxes and I realised that I only had a couple of 14’s tied to 0.18 and a few 12’s tied to .18 as well. I would normally use a 14 to 0.16 or 0.18 if the fishing is frantic and I like to change my hook length when the hair becomes twisted or kinked. I therefore had to fish the second half of the match with 12’s tied to 0.18 which was far from ideal.
I wandered over to the far bank of my lake and there was a weight of 115lb on the board already and I was convinced that had beaten me. Word on the street was lake 1 had fished bad and 102lb had won it but I thought I had more than that in my net. As the scales came along my bank a bloke weighed in 124lb and I knew that I was now stuffed and was regretting my lack of preparation and that mid-day dry spell.
As I took out the third net that I put in it seemed quite heavy and went about 40lb. I was now worried that I may have put too much in my other nets but they were close to 50lb each and my total was 136lb which surprised me. A few blokes were chatting to me along the bank and a couple of them belong to Total Fishing. They were nice blokes probably from Surrey I would think as they mentioned waters from over that way.
Young Ross next to me pulled out his nets and put a very respectable weight together, I think he had around 50 or 60lb which is good going among the field of experienced adults on the pond!
As we walked along the bank a few blokes were asking me how I fished the match and it was apparent that nobody had caught down the edge. Maybe I made the right choice by staying on the shallow line? Then at the end of the spit there were some heavy nets but fortunately they only went 125lb keeping me in the lead. I heard a few blokes moaning that they hadn’t caught well on the back of the spit and people began to assume I had won it.
I decided to take my gear back to the car at this point and as I returned there were only 4 left to weigh in towards the bridge. One bloke had 200lb on meat down the edge and another had 150lb. Bugger!
So I was knocked down to 3rd place and went home with only a small trophy and £50. Never mind, at least my run of bad draws seems to have evolved into average draws now!
There are few things that I was pondering on today and I need to investigate these during this summer.
Firstly, when I ran out of size 14 hook lengths and used 12’s instead, I was still getting plenty of fish, these are the hooks I use for bigger fish and the hair is about 10-15mm long. I was under the impression that this was too long for small carp but it didn’t seem to affect the bites-to-fish ratio. Perhaps a longer hair is better or at least not worse than a 5mm hair!
I was also using doubled 8 slip today but when netting the fish I still had to stand for the 2lb and 3lb carp. Even though I have reduced the amount of slip in my kits by adding Dacron, I think I might have to bite the bullet and cut my top kits down and use much less in them. Doubled 8 should be able to handle anything really and doubled 6 should be fine for the smaller carp. Now where is my hack saw?
Another point to note was that the “secret” pellets sunk quicker than the usual ones but nearly all my bites came when the rig slapped the surface so maybe the sink rate did not matter much. In fact, I think it is entirely possible that because I feed and then slap, the pellet was catching up with the feed instead of falling on top of it. Maybe I am just imagining it though but I will pursue this thought further. Also, the fish seemed to like the “secret” pellet more, perhaps it made no difference but the fishing just got better and there is a rather unique feature about these pellets that may have something to do with increasing bites. Again I will have to dabble more with this before I send you all off on a mission to waste your cash on a lost cause!
I have to say that although my hopes of a win were trashed at the last hurdle, the best thing about today was the number of blokes that approached me for a chat. And good luck to Ross pegged next to me, you had me worried half way through the match! I’m not sure if you need any help with your fishing but if you want some advice on fishing shallow then just ask me next time and I will help you as much as I can.
Let’s hope this weather holds up and gets better, there are some good matches and festivals coming up and I don’t want another summer of fishing spoiled by the weather!
These matches seem to be quite popular and are drawing anglers from further afield. In the car park I was approached by a guy that sounded Scandinavian, (sorry mate I didn’t ask your name but thanks for coming over). He recognised me from my blog and told me how interesting he finds it and also Nick’s blog. We had a good chat and then went up to the draw. Out came peg 61 for me and I was relatively pleased to be on the left side of lake 2 and half way up the spit. It could have been better but at least I was in with a chance if the fish were in the mood.
Arriving at my peg I found a youngster to my right called Ross who helps out at Monks and has recently been selected for the England Juniors squad (or something impressive like that). We had a chat once we were all tackled up and he is going to do well for himself.
Now at this point the weather was looking a bit suspect, chilly, cloudy and not many gaps in the cloud cover but there was a good breeze (as usual) and I hoped it would push the clouds over quickly. My hopes were met and by the time the match started it was turning in to another sunny June day.
I decided on 4 rigs, 2 of which would be based around my usual shallow approach at this venue. Both rigs had “Matt’s Slappers” made by Nick Gilbert, one was a long-line rig for slapping hard (about 4’ from float to pole) and the other was a short line “hang ‘em” rig for the self-hooking method. Next was a margin rig, I had a good depth and lots of reeds so a short Gilbert diamond went onto this one. Finally, as I had a spare 20 minutes I decided to stick on a deck rig for out in front (just in case) and this had a long Gilbert diamond on it. Hopefully neither of these rigs would get wet but sometimes the margins can work well if you need to rest the main line or it dies all together.
I took some hemp for down the edge, cheaper than my favoured caster approach and I wanted to see if it would work just as well. The main bait though would be 6mm hard pellets although I did take a box of different pellets with me to try as a change bait. They seemed to work well but I will keep these pellets secret for the time being just in case it was a fluke that they worked better than the usual ones. Something I did notice today was the size of my main feed pellets. They seemed a lot smaller than the “secret” pellets I took. The feed pellets this year seem darker than last year and I am also wondering if they are a bit smaller for some reason or maybe the “secret” pellets were just a bit bigger, maybe 6.5mm.
On with the match then and as the horn sounded I balled in 8 jaffas of method mix with a packet of yellow pineapple Atomic Cloud mixed in at around 8m. After flicking a few pellets over the top I shipped the pole out and connected with a 2lb carp immediately. You know that feeling when you start catching straight away? Well in the first 5 minutes I had 5 carp in the net, rock n roll!
Things didn’t remain at this speed for long though and within the first hour I had around 20 fish which was still ok given their size. Now something I have noticed this spring is that every match I have fished the sport has taken a dive around mid-day and sure enough as I was beginning to suspect that I could do the double ton, the bites dropped off. I spent the next 2 hours altering depth, changing the pellet type, changing my feeding pattern and going a bit longer. This was not wasted effort though as I was still putting fish in the net, just not quite as quickly. I continued with this but had to fish at 10m for bites and needed to chop and change which hand I was feeding with in order to get the bait out to the right distance. With the breeze today it was hard to reach 10m with my left hand so often I was holding the pole in my wrong hand in order to feed with my right hand. I have done this before and it works fine but just takes a bit more energy and can get quite tiring.
After a lot of chopping and changing I settled on one specific depth and feed rate that seemed to work best and this entailed throwing quite a few pellets out every few seconds. The fish seemed to respond better to a more positive approach.
During the 4th hour the fishing seemed to pick up again and I had a good spell but the bites still dropped off after a while. I decided to put on one of my alternative pellets and this seemed to work well. I maintained my feed rate and worked hard until the final hour when I had the fish swirling and boiling in front of me. In fact, they were responding so well I managed to get them back to 8m which was great because I could lose a section and go back to the easier fishing and feeding with my left hand.
I stuck a third net in now as I didn’t want to risk having too much in them and now the fish were coming one a bung and I was rocking. My thoughts of a frame place had disappeared when the bites tailed off at mid-day but I was now putting about 1lb of fish in the net every minute! Then disaster struck and 15 minutes before the end a decent carp managed to get under my nets and I had to remove them all from my spray bar in order to save the fish and get my rig back. The fish had shed the hook on to one of the nets and I lost a good 10 or 12 minutes fishing time when the bites were coming fast. I managed another few fish before the end of the match and estimated around 110lb which I felt would only be any good if the lakes had fished hard. That dry spell at mid-day seemed to mess my chances up and maybe I should have gone down the edge but I was reluctant to do this when I was still catching out in front.
There was something else that I felt spoiled my chances today and that was lack of preparation. My new job consumes so much time that a Saturday match means I have limited time to prepare on Friday evening. One thing I forgot to do last night was check my hook length boxes and I realised that I only had a couple of 14’s tied to 0.18 and a few 12’s tied to .18 as well. I would normally use a 14 to 0.16 or 0.18 if the fishing is frantic and I like to change my hook length when the hair becomes twisted or kinked. I therefore had to fish the second half of the match with 12’s tied to 0.18 which was far from ideal.
I wandered over to the far bank of my lake and there was a weight of 115lb on the board already and I was convinced that had beaten me. Word on the street was lake 1 had fished bad and 102lb had won it but I thought I had more than that in my net. As the scales came along my bank a bloke weighed in 124lb and I knew that I was now stuffed and was regretting my lack of preparation and that mid-day dry spell.
As I took out the third net that I put in it seemed quite heavy and went about 40lb. I was now worried that I may have put too much in my other nets but they were close to 50lb each and my total was 136lb which surprised me. A few blokes were chatting to me along the bank and a couple of them belong to Total Fishing. They were nice blokes probably from Surrey I would think as they mentioned waters from over that way.
Young Ross next to me pulled out his nets and put a very respectable weight together, I think he had around 50 or 60lb which is good going among the field of experienced adults on the pond!
As we walked along the bank a few blokes were asking me how I fished the match and it was apparent that nobody had caught down the edge. Maybe I made the right choice by staying on the shallow line? Then at the end of the spit there were some heavy nets but fortunately they only went 125lb keeping me in the lead. I heard a few blokes moaning that they hadn’t caught well on the back of the spit and people began to assume I had won it.
I decided to take my gear back to the car at this point and as I returned there were only 4 left to weigh in towards the bridge. One bloke had 200lb on meat down the edge and another had 150lb. Bugger!
So I was knocked down to 3rd place and went home with only a small trophy and £50. Never mind, at least my run of bad draws seems to have evolved into average draws now!
There are few things that I was pondering on today and I need to investigate these during this summer.
Firstly, when I ran out of size 14 hook lengths and used 12’s instead, I was still getting plenty of fish, these are the hooks I use for bigger fish and the hair is about 10-15mm long. I was under the impression that this was too long for small carp but it didn’t seem to affect the bites-to-fish ratio. Perhaps a longer hair is better or at least not worse than a 5mm hair!
I was also using doubled 8 slip today but when netting the fish I still had to stand for the 2lb and 3lb carp. Even though I have reduced the amount of slip in my kits by adding Dacron, I think I might have to bite the bullet and cut my top kits down and use much less in them. Doubled 8 should be able to handle anything really and doubled 6 should be fine for the smaller carp. Now where is my hack saw?
Another point to note was that the “secret” pellets sunk quicker than the usual ones but nearly all my bites came when the rig slapped the surface so maybe the sink rate did not matter much. In fact, I think it is entirely possible that because I feed and then slap, the pellet was catching up with the feed instead of falling on top of it. Maybe I am just imagining it though but I will pursue this thought further. Also, the fish seemed to like the “secret” pellet more, perhaps it made no difference but the fishing just got better and there is a rather unique feature about these pellets that may have something to do with increasing bites. Again I will have to dabble more with this before I send you all off on a mission to waste your cash on a lost cause!
I have to say that although my hopes of a win were trashed at the last hurdle, the best thing about today was the number of blokes that approached me for a chat. And good luck to Ross pegged next to me, you had me worried half way through the match! I’m not sure if you need any help with your fishing but if you want some advice on fishing shallow then just ask me next time and I will help you as much as I can.
Let’s hope this weather holds up and gets better, there are some good matches and festivals coming up and I don’t want another summer of fishing spoiled by the weather!
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