At Shannon’s you can draw various different types of peg from open water, corner pegs, short island pegs and long island pegs so a variety of methods and baits could work although I was hoping for open water so I could use my running line methods. I therefore took 2 pellet waggler rods, a bomb rod, a method rod and my pole holdall. In my carryall I had plenty of 8mm pellets for open water, 4mm pellets if I drew an island peg, loads of corn and half a kilo of cooked mussels plus groundbait if I needed the feeder.
At the draw Bill the match organiser asked me to hold the bag of peg numbers and so I asked for a volunteer to draw mine and was handed peg 12 which is 16m to the island and most definitely not my sort of peg. Looking at it, I had an overhanging tree to the right hand side of the island with lily pads directly opposite and a gap to the left of them. I could see movement in both areas either side of the lilies so decided to feed both with 4mm pellets via a catty. I also had an overhanging tree to my right hand margin which looked promising and rushes to my left that would be worth feeding.
With this number of swims available I decided to ignore the track unless I needed it later and decided to feed both island swims and both margins. Plumbing up, I had around 2’ of depth around 2’ from the island and away from the overhanging vegetation, around 4’ down the middle and about 3’ down the margin under the tree. This was on the near slope but directly under the branches. My rigs for across and in the margins both had NG XT Margin floats with the shot bulked around half depth and laying on a few inches. This would allow me to position the bait on the shelves or lay-on further up the shelves. I also like fishing over-depth in the margins to help avoid foul hookers by keeping the rig line away from the hook and feed bait. I also set up an NG Finesse 0.3g for down the track on the drop in case I needed to fish there. Rig line was Fox Micro Plus 0.18 with 0.18 hook lengths and hooks were Drennan Carp Match for hair rigged bands and Maver MT3 for down the edge. A few blokes have commented that the Finesse seems too delicate for catching big carp but in open water they are a dream to fish with and I have not damaged one yet! They are superb at fishing on the drop or half depth with light baits or at full depth with larger baits, especially when bites might be a bit shy.
My plan was to feed both island swims with 4mm pellets by catapult and feed corn down both margins by hand and this is exactly what I did when the whistle went. My first put-in was to the right hand island swim and it resulted in a foul hooker which proceeded to take me up and down the far bank before the hook pulled as it kited under a tree further down the peg. Then after re-feeding I had another foul hooker which did the same and after 20 minutes I had nothing to show for my efforts. Then finally a carp hooked properly came to the net but neither island swims were fishing well, probably due to the foul hooked fish. I then decided to drop in under the margin tree and had a lump immediately but didn’t get any further indications so I carried on feeding the island swims and the margins and rotated around them all. I also decided to start feeding down the track at 11m to try and bring something to life and I managed a couple of smaller fish there but again nothing prolific.
Things really weren’t going well and by 2 o’clock I only had 33lb registered on my clicker and only an hour and a half to go. This was becoming a nightmare. Having fed the margins all day I was hoping that one of them would come to life as a last resort and the tree to my right looked the most likely. I dropped my rig in and the float buried immediately. It was another double figure lump. My second put-in resulted in another take along with a third. I re-fed under the tree and then tried the left margin to give the tree a rest but didn’t get a sniff.
It was now time to focus my efforts so I dropped the island swims and the left margin completely and decided to feed heavy down the right under the tree while still feeding pellets over the 11m line in case I needed to rotate. The sport continued under the tree and I had about 120lb of fish in 90 minutes. At this point Bill suggested we fish on for another hour which everyone seemed to agree with but it wasn’t such a good thing for me as a bloke had just walked up to me for a chat and sky-lined my margin swim. That was the end of that so I went out to the 11m line and caught a couple there while feeding up the margin again.
I kept trying the margin swim but with no luck until with 15 minutes to go I finally had another fish and managed another couple close to double figures before the all-out was called.
I had 144lb on my clicker and felt I would be lucky to frame with that. After packing away most of my gear I walked around for the weigh-in to see Jonny Watt register 165 odd from the end peg along the damn wall. There were another couple of weights around 130-150lb so I was now feeling the pain of not getting to grips with my peg.
It was my turn to weigh in and I tell you what, 10 of those fish in one net don’t half weigh a lot! After 2 nets I was told that another 20 odd pound would see me beating Jonny but I wasn’t confident that my smallest net would have much in it, probably 3 carp. Luckily though it tipped past the finishing post and I had won my £10 back off Jonny that I lost on the Res a few weeks back.
Back in the car park it turned out I had won with Jonny a very close second......sorry mate!
I must admit to feeling like I fluked this win because margin fishing is a bit hit and miss and normally it is a miss on my usual venues. However, I have been trying the margins a lot lately and it has enabled me to sort out my rig and feeding, I reckon this won me the match as I now have a good feel for catching lumps down the edge. It was a good job I took a dozen tins of corn with me because I only returned with 2 and I used the whole half kilo of mussels and was running out.
For anyone who wants to learn a bit about mussels then drop me a line, they are great in white wine, a paella and also on the hook!
As I said, I feel like I fluked this win. Perhaps I should have started feeding 8mm pellets across, the carp may have been pre-occupied with the 4mm pellets hence the foul hookers. After the match Bill also told me that the peg responds well to paste down the middle but I wouldn’t have thought to try that with all the obvious features around.
Never mind, at least I went home with £60 from the pools, a soggy £10 note from Jonny (and nearly a black eye) and some good experience at catching lumps all day (plus a bad back).
Up next are a couple of ‘Fish To Win’ qualifiers so fingers crossed!
1st matt love ..............peg 12 168lb 2oz
2nd jonny watt ..............peg 3 165lb 8oz
3rd splitshott [greg] peg 10 137lb 12oz
4th squeaky peg 8 137lb 4oz
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