What a
difference a few days make! After what seemed to be an eternity of bitingly
cold north easterly winds I was sunbathing in the garden yesterday afternoon in
what felt like a balmy 15 degrees Celsius! However an upshot of the change in
the weather to clear skies and very light winds has led to some very severe
overnight frosts and the temperature gauge in the car was reading a very chilly
minus three on the way to East Sussex for the Supercup clash of the first round
between (the aptly named) Jack Frost Tackle of Crawley and the mighty Godalming
AS …
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| A frozen More House Farm Fishery |
As a result of
the fall in temperature overnight the lake (Canal at More House Farm Fishery)
was covered in a thick layer of ice, so despite being April the icebreakers
were called into action and in order to allow a decent amount of time to set-up
the start time was pushed back by an hour to 1100. (At this point I’d like to say
a big thank you to the chaps from Jack Frost Tackle for helping our guys with
the clearing of swims – never has an icebreaker been thrown so accurately to a
far margin!)
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| Peg 8 on Canal |
Canal is a uniform
rectangular lake approximately 16m wide with 20 pegs, so as our draw only saw
two teams of 8 going head-to-head it was a simple case of pegging every
platform from 2 to 17 with no gaps in between – of course this made the two end
pegs the fancied draws (but more of that later).
My draw saw me
pretty much in the middle of the lake on peg 8 – there are no visible features
on this lake but I did seem to be in an area that was slightly wider than
average and shipping-out my trusty old Garbolino 995 to 16m confirmed this as I
was about 3m short of the far bank!
However this
wasn’t an issue as I’d decided to target a depth of 3 feet and I found this
exact depth at 16m slightly to the right of centre – apparently when this lake
as dug it was created with a double shelf on the near and far margins, and
whilst in some areas this has been eroded I personally found a nice flat area
around my intended focal point. Given the cold start to the day and a target
species of carp in the 1 to 3lb bracket I settled on a compromise of blue
Hydrolastic, 0.13 Reflo Power main line into a hooklength of 0.11 and a size 20
Tubertini 808 – the float was a 4x12 KC Carpa Chimp.
I also set-up a
second pole rig to fish down the track at 8m in 4 feet of water with a 0.1g Mo
Brown Slim’o (same gear as the Chimp rig but a slightly lighter 0.10
hooklength) and two tip rods – one with a free running set-up for a straight
lead or cage feeder, the other with a 24g Guru method feeder.
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| Posh sweetcorn today! |
It may sound a
little posh but today I’d be trying Tesco Finest sweetcorn for the first time –
not because I’m a sucker for branding but because it was the cheapest on offer!
In fact it was only a little over 40p a pack and I’m going back during the week
to buy a case of it before the price goes up!!! The grains of corn are a
fantastic texture for hooking and the colour is slightly washed-out
(potentially not as obvious as the vibrant Jolly Green Giant), hopefully
meaning the fish won’t be as suspicious as the bait immediately looks like it
has been in the lake for days.
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| The usual suspects! |
Other baits for
today were half a pint of red maggots (live for a change), some Sonubaits Fin
Perfect 4mm expanders and some 2mm hard pellets that were soaked for two and a
half minutes before being drained and left to stand.
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| Looking right |
11 o’clock soon
came around and things were already starting to warm-up given the bright
sunshine and still conditions, but despite this I decided to start very
cautiously and carefully counted 6 maggots, 4 grains of corn and a pinch of 2mm
pellets into my cupping kit before shipping-out to 16m and depositing
accurately on my mark – the last thing you want to do (and believe me I’ve done
it before) is bounce your pole off a roller a spill your feed into a random
spot in your swim!
I shipped back
and slipped a nice looking grain of corn onto the hook, whizzed back to 16m and
settled into a rhythm – ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two,
one, lift, drop, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one,
lift, drop, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one …
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| And they're off! |
Twenty minutes
later the float disappeared from sight and after a few hairy moments involving
the line cutting though sheets of ice I had a nice looking pound and a half
ghostie in the net – not a huge fish but
when fishing a team event where blanks are very likely it’s great to get
something in the net early doors! (At this point, with the exception of the two
end pegs, very little had been caught but straight after I landed my fish the
guy I was fishing against latched into an even bigger fish on the method –
typical!)
I gave it
another ten minutes without feeding, but nothing materialised so with half an
hour gone I was feeding my second helping of 6 maggots, 4 grains of corn and a
pinch of 2mm pellets – a further 30 minutes of lifting and dropping later the
float dipped again and a second ghostie was in the net (the hookbait
was two red maggots).
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| The ice didn't last long |
This time I decided
to feed straight away but unfortunately the following 25 minutes disappeared
without an indication, so in order to try something different I cast a straight
lead rig with an orange fluro boilie beyond my pole line to about 1m from the
far bank. Things had really started to slow across the whole lake now so it was
no surprise that I didn’t get an indication on this, nor after 20 minutes back
on the pole or on the straight lead rig cast towards some reeds slightly to my
left (which were now accessible now that the ice had melted).
By now it was
about 1330 (the halfway point) so I thought it was a worth having a quick
wonder along the bank to see where we stood in terms of the team event – by my
estimation we were winning 3 sections, losing 4 and tying another (we had 3
blanks at this point, Jack Frost Tackle only had 2) which meant the score was
probably 14-16 in Jack Frost Tackle’s favour. I did my best to encourage those
that were blanking to catch even the tiniest of fish – but these things are as
ever easier said than done, especially as we were fishing a lake with carp but
completely devoid of silver fish!
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| Nice to see the sun again! |
Funnily enough
the little walkabout seemed to have done my swim the power of good as after
shipping out the pole to 16m again (this time with a red Marukyu 6mm JPz on the
hook) I missed a sharp bite almost immediately but made no mistake 2 minutes
later and carp number three was in the net!
Unfortunately
(despite fishing the original 16m line for another hour, opening a new 16m line
to the left at 1445 and fishing the method for the final 45 minutes) I never
had another bite – I wasn’t alone and I’m pretty sure the fish I caught just
over the halfway point was the last one caught outside of the two end pegs!!!
So even though
it was by now a gloriously sunny day I think most anglers were pleased when the
‘all out’ was called at 1600 as it had been a real struggle for bites and it
was soon time for the all important weigh-in.
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| Bagger happy to be back in the money! |
First to weigh
was Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis (Godalming
AS) with an impressive 39-12-0
from peg 2 and my 5-0-0 was also enough for a section win, but 2 blanks meant
that after the first 4 sections we were tying on 8 penalty points each.
Unfortunately the final 4 sections only gave my Godalming AS team one section
win against Jack Frost Tackle’s three, meaning the final score was 14-16 to
Jack Frost Tackle (who also had a convincing weight advantage thanks to Mark
Parrot’s titanic 64-14-0 from the far end peg).
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| The final reckoning |
Final team
score:
- Jack Frost Tackle, 14
- Godalming AS, 16
Individual:
- Mark Parrot (JFT), 64-14-0
- Claire Hollis (GAS), 39-12-0
- Johnny Mott (JFT), 12-0-0
- Gary Daniels (JFT), 10-0-0
So that’s my
Supercup over for another year. As ever it has been fun fishing a new venue and
meeting some new faces – well done to Jack Frost Tackle and good luck in the
next round!
Why not follow
me on Twitter? @philip_r_morris
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