Back to Willinghurst again today and for logistical reasons we switched this weekend’s fishing from the usual Sunday to Saturday – that doesn’t sound too significant but it meant that for once I wasn’t fishing with a hang-over!!!
My draw saw me on Top Lake number 10, a peg in the main bowl that I drew back in August of last year. Being one of only 4 anglers pegged in the main bowl today it meant that I had plenty of open water to go at and in terms of features I had a vacant platform at 14.5m to my left plus some rushes (which I didn’t intended to fish to after being cut-off on multiple occasions last time) at about 10m to the right.
Given the nice weather today, and what with plenty of horse chestnut fluff flying about and landing on the water, plenty of carp were showing before the match and I fully expected to catch shallow on the pole so this approach (combined with a hard pellet on the deck 5m line and a meat over riddled meat/micro pellet tactic to peg 11’s platform) formed my pre-match plan of attack.
I started on the short pole with White Acre’s 6mm pellets but it soon became obvious that there were loads of roach there but no carp – or if there were carp there they weren’t getting a look in because of the roach! A switch to the long pole shallow and it was the same problem – I could only see the odd carp to try and mug (without success) and flicking my rig into the area where I was loose-feeding 6mm Skretting’s pellets only led to more roach!
Remembering something that Paul Holland said on our coaching day last year I hastily erected a tip rod with a two-thirds of an ounce Guru X-Safe lead and a 30cm trace of 0.17 into a size 12 QM1 –attaching a 10mm yellow wafter and pinging-out a few 8mm pellets to 25m I cast out whilst mixing-up some micro pellets and groundbait. After about 7 minutes the tip pulled ‘round and I was into my first carp of the day. By switching to a 24g method feeder with a cut-down chocolate orange wafter on an 8mm hair I landed 6 or 7 more (small) carp and at the halfway stage I felt I was still in the running as nobody seemed to be bagging and quite a few were struggling.
Unfortunately this line died as we got into the afternoon and the remainder of my catch came from the 5m line (2 small carp, 2 nice skimmers and loads of roach), the platform to the left (one carp landed, one carp lost in the rushes to my right and loads of roach) plus a second margin line to my right, halfway between the rushes and myself (4 carp, 1 tench and loads of roach).
In the end it was a bit of a frustrating day, made even more frustrating when I weighed 52-11-0, ninth out of ten on the day but less than 20lb behind Kris Fields who filled the final framing place with 71lb from peg 26!!! (Luke Sheriff won from the Bomb Hole with 148lb and Shaun Barnett was second from peg 19 with 101lb.)
Until next time ...
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| All the gear ... |
My draw saw me on Top Lake number 10, a peg in the main bowl that I drew back in August of last year. Being one of only 4 anglers pegged in the main bowl today it meant that I had plenty of open water to go at and in terms of features I had a vacant platform at 14.5m to my left plus some rushes (which I didn’t intended to fish to after being cut-off on multiple occasions last time) at about 10m to the right.
Given the nice weather today, and what with plenty of horse chestnut fluff flying about and landing on the water, plenty of carp were showing before the match and I fully expected to catch shallow on the pole so this approach (combined with a hard pellet on the deck 5m line and a meat over riddled meat/micro pellet tactic to peg 11’s platform) formed my pre-match plan of attack.
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| Plenty of open water to go at |
I started on the short pole with White Acre’s 6mm pellets but it soon became obvious that there were loads of roach there but no carp – or if there were carp there they weren’t getting a look in because of the roach! A switch to the long pole shallow and it was the same problem – I could only see the odd carp to try and mug (without success) and flicking my rig into the area where I was loose-feeding 6mm Skretting’s pellets only led to more roach!
 |
| A nice vacant platform to the left |
Remembering something that Paul Holland said on our coaching day last year I hastily erected a tip rod with a two-thirds of an ounce Guru X-Safe lead and a 30cm trace of 0.17 into a size 12 QM1 –attaching a 10mm yellow wafter and pinging-out a few 8mm pellets to 25m I cast out whilst mixing-up some micro pellets and groundbait. After about 7 minutes the tip pulled ‘round and I was into my first carp of the day. By switching to a 24g method feeder with a cut-down chocolate orange wafter on an 8mm hair I landed 6 or 7 more (small) carp and at the halfway stage I felt I was still in the running as nobody seemed to be bagging and quite a few were struggling.
Unfortunately this line died as we got into the afternoon and the remainder of my catch came from the 5m line (2 small carp, 2 nice skimmers and loads of roach), the platform to the left (one carp landed, one carp lost in the rushes to my right and loads of roach) plus a second margin line to my right, halfway between the rushes and myself (4 carp, 1 tench and loads of roach).
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| Rushes to the right |
In the end it was a bit of a frustrating day, made even more frustrating when I weighed 52-11-0, ninth out of ten on the day but less than 20lb behind Kris Fields who filled the final framing place with 71lb from peg 26!!! (Luke Sheriff won from the Bomb Hole with 148lb and Shaun Barnett was second from peg 19 with 101lb.)
Until next time ...
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