Today was the first part of a bank holiday double and something a little different as it was a ‘secret teams of four’ event! 36 anglers took to the banks of MBK Coloured Ponds (18 from Woking DAA and 18 from Godalming AS) and via the draw were sorted into teams of four, with one angler from each team on a different lake (in effect fishing in a section of 9). (Whilst each angler drew their own peg in the usual fashion the organisers had predetermined the peg numbers that made-up each team.)
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| MBK Coloured Ponds, Pond 4 |
Despite this being an inter-club match there was a good standard of angler present today with open match regulars of the likes of Ian Dixon, Simon Duke, Dave Steer and Alex Clements (who has just been called-up to the England under 23 squad). However anglers of all ability were certainly enjoying the lovely May sunshine – when is it ever sunny on a bank holiday weekend in the UK?
Many of you will already be familiar with this venue – if not follow the link below to a recent write-up that sets the scene:
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| Peg 5 - spirit level anyone? |
Along with everybody else I was hoping for a favoured corner peg and despite there being a total of 16 such pegs in the bag lady luck decided to put me on a peg slap bang in the middle of Pond 4!!! (Not an end peg but at least I was on the lake that I would’ve chosen given the choice).
Peg 5 is something of a ‘bird cage’ given the trees overhead and the relative proximity to the banking that separates the lake from the top car park, but it is at the start of the wider pegs where the near bank opens out towards the walkway between this lake and Pond 3. As a result I settled on an opening plan of fishing the straight lead and pellet waggler over lose fed 8mm pellets at 25m, plus the pole at top kit plus 2 towards an inviting looking tree stump along my left margin.
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| Bait-Tech N-Tice Polony |
The main baits today were 2 pints of 8mm pellets for the long line with some corn and a tin of Bait-Tech N-Tice polony for the margin swim. (In reserve I also had some groundbait, expander pellets, worms and maggots (both live and dead) in case I needed to fish for skimmers on the long pole or as a different option for the margin.)
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| I finally managed a fish on this in 2013! |
Well it was soon 10 o’clock and time for the start of this six hour contest – on the whistle I fed my margin line (I’ve seen people catch all day from their margin on this lake before) and once again started the relentless process of firing 8mm pellets in threes and fours to 25m via a catapult.
The first hour didn’t yield any bites on the tip or from the margin swim and my only return was a single foul-hooked fish on the pellet waggler (tackle was the same 6lb Daiwa Sensor main line, 6g stumpy Preston Innovations Dura pellet waggler and 25cm of 0.19 Reflo Power into a size 16 Guru Pellet Waggler hook used at Gold Valley last week).
As ever at this venue when it’s warm there were lots of ghost carp cruising very close to the surface but proving impossible to catch!
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| Today's straight lead gear |
However the second hour was better and saw a total of four carp fall to the bomb – the first early on after the bait had been in the water for nearly 10 minutes, the others very quickly in a row towards the end of the hour.
Starting gear for the straight lead was 8lb Daiwa Sensor main line, a 2/3 ounce Guru square lead and a 30cm hooklength of 0.19 Guru N-Gauge into a size 14 Guru QM1 with a micro bait band. However after the first fish I switched to a 1/3 ounce bomb – this seemed to make a big difference as the entry splash was much more discrete than the heavier version that I normally use.
In between the first and second carp of the hour I’d also managed to miss a proper bite and lose another foul-hooker on the pellet waggler – despite the ideal weather conditions and the visible fish this approach really wasn’t working so was pretty much discarded at this point.
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| New Drennan catapults |
The third hour saw three more carp on the tip and I felt I was doing OK – I could see Ian Dixon and Chris Kampa in the corners diagonally opposite caching a few, but I was sure I was in touch with them and ahead of the rest of the lake/section (most of whom only had one or two carp each at this point).
However in order to ease the pressure on my 25m line I opened a new pole swim directly in front at top kit plus 3 sections with half a pot of (live) maggots at about twelve thirty – this seems to be the time of day when carp become very difficult to catch so it is worth winkling-out a few roach and perch in order to keep the catch rate ticking over.
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| Spare platform to the right - behind the tree! |
Into the second half of this six hour match and the fourth hour saw three more carp fall to the straight lead and a few chunky perch on the maggot line. I’d been continuing to fed my left had margin with corn and meat via a cupping kit, but in order to give myself another option I set-up a second margin rig to fish in front of the spare platform to my right – I couldn’t fish tight to it as there was a rather inconvenient willow tree between myself and peg 4 but by leaning forward on my box I could get pretty close to it! (This new line was kicked-off with 4 large pots of loose groundbait and a sprinkling of dead maggots.)
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| Gear for the maggot line |
The fifth hour only saw one carp in the net – though it was the best fish of the day at around eight pounds and took about 20 minutes to land as it was foul-hooked in the pectoral fin on my silvers rig that was set-up on blue Hydrolastic!!! (This rig consisted of a 4x12 KC Carp Chimp on 0.15 main line to a hooklength of 0.13 and a size 18 Kamasan B911 – heavy gear for silvers but I knew there was always a chance of hooking a rogue carp on this line.)
Despite others doing so I couldn’t get a bite from a carp on either of my margin lines – though I did get excited a couple of times when the float dipped but it only proved to be small perch attempting to snaffle two whole dendrabenas!
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| Gear for the right margin |
Into the last hour now and I continued to persist with my margin lines but without any carp action – I did however manage two more carp on the bomb from my (by now) neglected 25m line. This left me with a total of 13 carp and a few perch for a pleasing 53-11-0.
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| Nick Stunt was to my left |
This meant I was second on the lake behind Ian Dixon (who’d put 71lb of mainly waggler caught carp onto the scales) from corner peg 16, but well clear of third place (a low thirty). It also turned-out that I’d managed third overall – though miles behind Alex Clements who had a massive 144lb from Pond 3!!! Furthermore my ‘secret team of four’ took second place in the team event – all-in-all a very good day considering the sun was still shining!
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| Is a lighter bomb (right) the way forward? |
Conclusions: Following-on from last week’s hammering by Mark Goddard I made two adjustments to my approach to the bomb & pellet that seemed to make a big difference – switching to a lighter weight and feeding more! (Even though it felt like I fed a lot of 8mm pellets in total I still probably only fed one and half pints – not a great deal compared to what I fed through my cupping kit into the margin.) I also couldn’t make margin work and wasted time on it – with hindsight I should’ve kept 25m line going properly as this had been the banker all day. Finally it is always worth opening a maggot line for silvers if things go quiet - its rather uncanny the number of times this has resulted in a bonus carp too!
Until next time …
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