All the Gear, No Idea

Saturday, 1 April 2017

01 April 2017, Main Lake (Reepham Fishery)

Day two of the three day Reepham festival today and following yesterday’s so-so result I wasn’t the only angler in the queue for the draw looking for an out-and-out flyer! Unfortunately my luck was out once again as I drew peg 8 on the Main Lake – isn’t it funny how you can know the flyers on a lake you haven’t even fished yet?!?

Looking towards peg 10

Peg 8 is at least on the right side of the lake but is a pretty average peg in a section full of great feature pegs – number 8 offers access to more of the open water than most but is in the same section as peg 12 (a lovely peg with a long margin to the left that won the lake yesterday), peg 10 (not for the feint-hearted but it does offer a huge patch of stick-ups that holds loads of fish), peg 2 (a narrow peg but one that is next to the bridge across the link between Main and Long Lakes) and peg 27 (commonly known as ‘the best peg in Norfolk’). Damage limitation time then!

Nice day for it!

I started my match on the pellet waggler – Marcus next door on peg 10 actually hooked a fish on his pellet waggler rig (no bait) before the all-in and whenever the wind dropped and the sun came out it was obvious that there were lots of big fish cruising about in the middle of the lake. Remarkably after just 10 minutes I had two nice fish for 10-12lb in the onion bag – not a bad start when my target was only 50lb!!! Unfortunately the following 50 minutes were biteless so I also ended the first hour with two nice fish for 10-12lb ...

The view towards peg 2

After slowly coming to the conclusion that the fish cruising about in the middle of the lake near the surface were sunbathing and not feeding I decided a switch to the bomb with a wafter was in order – after 10 minutes with just a few minor line bites I switched to mini hybrid feeder and started to have a little tidy of my side tray. Looking back at my rod I noticed it was doubled-over – game on!!!

I spent the remainder of the match focusing on this method – bites were hardly instant, but by being patient and continuing to ping a few pellets over the top I was able to keep the fish coming at a reasonable rate. (I did try the waggler again from time to time, though this approach (and my short pole and margin lines) failed to produce any bites.)

Needed to put a few more in these!

In the end my bag of carp weighed 43-14-0, once again just about good enough for third in section after beating Marcus by a mere 7 ounces and Del Maggin on peg 6 by less than five pounds! (Reg Barrass won the section and lake from peg 2 with 81-3-0 (not a bad weight when you consider he landed his first fish with just two hours to go) and Steve ‘Widget’ Crowe was second with 66-9-0 from ‘the best peg in Norfolk’.)

Until next time ...

Friday, 31 March 2017

31 March 2017, Bungalow Lake (Reepham Fishery)

After what seemed like another endless winter it was finally time for the first festival of the year – not the usual White Acres but indeed a new venue, the beautifully tranquil Reepham Fishery located in the picturesque Norfolk countryside just 10 miles or so from Norwich. This is a cracking venue recently taken over by a good friend of ours consisting of 4 or 5 lakes and some excellent accommodation in the form of a series of bungalows and some top class static caravans.

Draw time!

The festival itself is to be fished over three days and contested by 42 anglers split into 3 rotations of 2 sections each. As per usual the rotations are drawn well before the start of the festival and as a result I spent today on the Bungalow Lake, a rectangular pond situated no more than 50 yards from the backdoor of the bungalow I’m staying in!!!

Steve Crowe on peg 8

My dip into the bag of dreams saw peg 10 float to the surface – being new to the venue this didn’t mean much to me but it turned-out to be a bit of a corner peg on the far bank with a nice looking margin to the right. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to be a flyer (the pegs on the bungalow bank get fished the most and hence seem to hold more fish) and Steve ‘Widget’ Crowe (presenter of From the Water’s Edge) was of the opinion that his peg (number 8) was the worst peg on the lake so I wasn’t overly excited!

The view to the left

The lake itself is basically a rectangle with 18 platforms spread around the perimeter with no central island, effectively making it pole only. Despite the draw being at 9 and the walk to my peg taking all of two minutes I took my usual eternity to set-up and by 11 I only had 2 rigs ready to go – a rig for fishing tight to the bank in twelve inches at top kit plus 4 to the right and another for fishing into the deeper water at various spots between top kit plus 2 and top kit plus 4.

The margin to the right

I started my match with a quick look down the edge but (not for the first time) this didn’t produce any early mug fish so it was soon out to top kit plus two with a 4mm expander over some micros (the fish in this lake apparently averaged two to the pound so this seemed like a safe bet). Things started slowly, but I eventually got a few fish in the net – I did try throwing a few 4mm hard pellets at the float but this actually sowed my catch rate, though a switch to top kit plus 3 with a larger 6mm expander did improve things for a spell. The high point of my match probably came when I feed a big pot of maggots over my margin line and caught three better fish in a row on worm hookbaits – though unfortunately the fish came and went in a blink of an eye!

Yours truly in action!

I basically spent the second half of the match rotating between various spots straight in front and the margin line – this led to some smaller fish from the deeper line and two more better fish from the margin (though neither more maggots, mushy meat nor neat groundbait seemed spectacular).

Daniel Brydon weighing-in

Throughout the match I could see the guys on the opposite bank catching really well all day (luckily they weren’t in my section), though I could also see Daniel Brydon and Reg Barrass (who were in my section) also catching really well from the other corner on my bank from the vacant platforms they each had. As a result I was fairly pleased that my 24-3-0 was enough for third in section, for once being on the right side of some tight results as I just about beat a 23, a 22 and an 18 – Daniel weighed 81-13-0 to win the lake and Reg weighed 34-15-0 to beat me to the default section money.

Until next time ...

Sunday, 26 March 2017

26 March 2017, Top Lake (Willinghurst)

Another match at Willinghurst again today and the weather forecast was an interesting one – nice and sunny but with a strong north-easterly wind blowing. Not unusual for the time of year but the pre-match talk was that this would no doubt this would knock-down the weights when compared to last weekend, especially as the number of anglers to fit around the same lakes (Top and Old) had increased from 16 to 22/23.

All the gear ...

After last week’s taste of success I had hoped for another go on Old Lake but I ended-up with peg 12 on Top Lake, not a known flyer but one that looked pretty inviting and with the change in wind direction who know where the fish might turn-up? The peg was an end peg on the day as peg 13 (which sits diagonally opposite to the left) wasn’t in and casting to the grassy bank to side of peg 13’s platform with a mini hybrid feeder was to be part of my plan of attack, as were pole lines at 13m to the left just past some marginal rushes, 13m straight in front and at the bottom of the near shelf (top kit plus three sections).

The Guru hybrid feeder

I spent the first forty-five minutes of the mach trying to sneak a fish or two from any of my three pole lines, though rather worryingly the only bites came from small roach (that are becoming an increasingly common sight when fishing with hard pellets). Luckily a switch to the feeder to the far bank led to three carp in three casts – when the following three casts were biteless I rested that line for 15 minutes and when I returned I had carp on casts 1, 3 and 4 meaning I ended the first two hours of the match with 6 carp for about 30lb.

Unfortunately the third hour was biteless so I also ended the first three hours of the match with 6 carp for about 30lb!!!

Looks fishy!

The fourth hour was also very, very tough but a trip to the cafe for a coffee did the trick and on my return I managed to sneak-out a carp from my short pole line on an over-sized Ringers 6mm hard pellet. The start of the fifth hour saw a lost foul-hooker on the same tactics, though I did eventually manage to hook another in the mouth that ended-up in the net.

So going into the final hour I had 8 carp for about 40lb, not a bad total as far as I could tell and still in with a shout with a good last hour. Unfortunately things continued to be hard and I was absolutely gutted to lose the best fish of the day (what looked like a double-figure fish snapped my 0.13 hooklength after going on a second run whilst I only had my top kit in my hand) and I could only manage one more carp in that final hour.

The mighty Roob Titan

In the end I put those 9 carp on the scales for 44-8-0, a reasonable score but somewhat off the pace when compared to Martin Johnson’s winning 79lb from Top Lake peg 6 – to be frank Martin fished a great match and I got my feeding all wrong! I was far too aggressive, feeding my margin line via a big pot, feeding my 13m line via a catapult and feeding my 5m line by hand being three massive mistakes – tapping in a few pellets or a few pieces of meat via a pole mounted pot and waiting patiently for a bite being the order of the day!!!

Until next time ...

Sunday, 19 March 2017

19 March 2017, Old Lake (Willinghurst)

Back to Willinghurst again today for the open match and after last week’s soaking I was pleased to see that if nothing else we’d be dry for the duration (something that is by no means a given at this time of year in England’s green and pleasant land). The numbers were down slightly on last week (just 16 today) but as the match was to be spread over Top Lake and Old Lake that would mean every match angler’s favourite phrase – lots of room!

Old Lake, peg 10

The pre-match buzz implied that pegs 10 and 11 on Old Lake would be plumb draws (as there seemed to be a lot of fish in this area mid-week) so you won’t be surprised to hear that my dip into the bag of dreams saw Old Lake 10 stick to my mitt! This is a swim that I’d drawn before and for my money offers three interesting lines to go at – on top of the shallow central bar (that used to be an island) at about 20m, into the deeper water beyond the bar at about 30m and the platform opposite at some 40m. (The platforms opposite pegs 10 to 13 aren’t normally pegged in the open matches and that was the case today.)

For company I had ex-footballer (Dartford, Gravesend & Northfleet, West Ham, Peterborough, Wigan, Fulham, Hull, Ipswich and MK Dons) and the only angler fishing today with their own Wikipedia page – Jimmy Bullard – next door on peg 11 and fellow Apollo Guildford angler Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22. (Pegs 24, 26, 8, 5 and 1 were also in today.)

Hard pellets and hi-viz hookbaits

I kicked things off with a quick look on the central bar, though 5 minutes on bomb & bread followed by 5 minutes with a 10mm chocolate orange wafter failed to induce a pull so it was soon time for a switch to the feeder and a chuck to the platform opposite whilst commencing the relentless process of pinging 8mm pellets into the deeper water at 30m.

Two fish from the far side and one from the 30m line saw me finish the first hour with three reasonable carp in the net (not bad by Willinghurst standards as things normally start really, really slowly), though the second hour was even better with five more from the far side so by noon I had eight carp in the net and was probably ahead of Jimmy by a fish or two (who couldn’t buy a bite from his far bank but was picking-up carp on a semi-regular basis from his open water line on the bomb & punched meat).

Jimmy's back

The third and fourth hours weren’t quite as prolific – at the time the far bank line with the hybrid feeder still seemed the best bet for bite, though in reality the open water swim was just as productive as both lines yielded three fish each in this middle period of the match. (Resting the far bank line by fishing the open water swim often led to a quick bite when returning to it, so I guess it was still too early in the year for the fish to being feeding confidently in shallow water all day long.)

So at the end of the fourth hour I had 14 carp in the onion bag, probably neck-and-neck with Jimmy who had eroded my slender lead with more carp from his open water line.

Three nets!!!

Going into the final third of the match I was expecting sport to pick-up but from my perspective the fifth hour was my slowest with just two fish from the far side and no pulls from the open water swim – to compound things at this point Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22 started to slay some real munters from his short pole line and (end peg) Jimmy opened his long margin line to his left (which turned-out to be absolutely solid).

So come three o’clock and with my match slipping away from me I needed another option to get me out of jail – with no obvious margin line to speak of I decided to put my faith in some fish turning-up on the bar so I stopped pinging my open water swim and instead started to batter the shallow water down the middle with copious amounts of 8mm pellets. Luckily this line came good and probably saw the four biggest fish of the day grace the net before the ‘all out’ was eventually called at four thirty.

Jon and Pikey improvising

Those four fish from the bar saw me close my account with 22 carp from 23 pulls (and the one that I lost was definitely foul-hooked as it gave a really weird bite and it kited-off to the right in an odd fashion) for a grand total of 130-5-0, eclipsing my previous Willinghurst PB by a staggering three ounces!!!

The top 3 on the day

This was just about good enough for third overall on the day – whilst I was miles behind winner Mick Keeper (178-8-0 from Top Lake) and Jimmy (who’s margin line really kicked-in to see him finish on 172-9-0), I was only just ahead of Jon Radford’s 126-9-0 and Jon Cook’s 120-odd meaning those bigger fish from the bar (coupled with a 95.65% conversion rate) made all the difference!!!

Until next time ...

Sunday, 12 March 2017

12 March 2017, Top Lake (Willinghurst)

After a couple of aborted attempts it was finally time to get my 2017 campaign underway so it was back to Willinghurst for a well attended open match including the usual stellar line-up – competing against the likes of Perry Stone, Pete Upperton, Tommy Hiller, (ex-footballer and reality TV star) Jimmy Bullard and the Apollo Guildford venue experts can only make you a better angler I guess!!!

The pre-match plan!

My draw saw me on Top lake peg 4 – for my money this can be a really good summer edge peg (as proved by Paul Holland on a coaching day Bagger and myself attended back in August last year) as you can get into some lovely shallow water tight to the bank to the right. Saying that I’m sure it can be pretty good all year around as there is also a long reed-lined margin to the left and a good amount of open water in front (though I was a little cut-off on the day as there was an angler pegged on the far bank to my right).

Given the presence of the angler opposite I left the tip rod in the bag and set-up three pole rigs for four different lines – the first of these was a 4x14 Roob on 0.15 Guru N-Gauge to a 15cm hooklength of 0.13 to a size 16 LWG (eyed) with a hair-rigged bait band for fishing with hard pellets on the deck straight in front at 14.5m and at the bottom of the near shelf to the left at top kit plus three (these lines were both 3’ deep). The second (a 4x12 Roob on 0.15 into a 10cm hooklength of 0.13 and a size 16 LWG (spade)) was for fishing in 2’ of water at 14.5m to my right just beyond a clump of reed roots close to the bank. The final rig (for fishing tight to the bank to my right in 18” at top kit plus 3) consisted of the same hooklength as the second rig but with a 0.4g Drennan Margin Crystal on 0.17. (All three rigs were mounted on white Hydro top kits.)

Looking right from peg 4

I kicked-off my match with a quick look at my 14.5m margin with a 7mm cube of luncheon meat on the hook and 3 or 4 samples fed via a medium Guru pole pot – after just a couple of minutes with no indications it was clear that nothing was going to happen so it was time for an immediate switch to the 4x14 Roob rig with a banded White Acres (over-sized) 6mm pellet over the line at the bottom of the near shelf to the left. After 6 or 7 minutes the float started to move in that tell-tale circular fashion (which in my mind is caused by a fish displacing the water near the hookbait) and on the twenty minute mark the float buried in the blink of an eye – there’s no mistaking the proper bites with this rig!

That bite led to a nice 7 pounder in the net – I’d hoped that this was the start of a bagging session but no further bites materialised in the next twenty minutes and a switch to the 14.5m line straight in front only saw a roach grace the net. A switch back to the shorter line only led to a succession of dreaded crayfish (definitely not a good sign) so I plumbed-up a third line for the 4x14 Roob rig at the bottom of the near shelf to the right to give myself another option. By rotating through these three lines I was able to snare another roach, a foul-hooked gudgeon plus a very welcome 8 pounder (again from the short line to the left) during the second hour.

Plenty of room to the left

I kept rotating through the three hard pellet lines throughout the third and fourth hours but they only yielded a solitary roach and another foul-hooked gudgeon. I also started looking at the 14.5m margin line too – this one was more productive and at one point I hooked two carp in two casts! (The first ended-up in the net but unfortunately the second one came-off after a few seconds.) I then made a fatal mistake in reaching for my cupping kit and feeding a small handful of 4mm pellets and some 7mm meat – even though the cup was probably only 10% full it killed my long margin line as I never had another bite from it!!!

Open water in front

Going into the fifth hour (today’s match was a 6 hour affair fished from ten until four) and with nothing to lose I wetted down some micro pellets and fed half a pot (with some 7mm meat mixed in) tight to the bank to the right on my top kit plus 3 margin line (18” deep here). I left it for a few minutes then went over it with a 7mm cube of meat on the hook – the float flew under straight away and I’d thought I’d cracked it but unfortunately it was a roach. Two more roach in two casts nearly saw me give-up when cast number 4 saw me attached to another (albeit) small carp. After landing that carp I really did think I was going to win the match so I fed another half pot of micros – yes, you’ve guessed it I never had another bite from this line!

In fact the final 90 minutes of my match were a massive anti-climax as despite rotating through my five different lines I don’t think I had another sign – unless you include those silly crayfish bites that is!!!

The moment of truth

So in the end I finished-up with four carp and a few roach/gudgeon for an unspectacular 21-14-0 and a ‘must try harder next time’. As it happened it seemed that all of the anglers on the main bowl of Top lake struggled with all of the weights coming from the feature pegs – Pete Upperton (Guru) (peg 1) 88-6-0, Pete Franklin (Apollo Guildford) (peg 29) 65-11-0 and Dave Carter (Apollo Guildford) (peg 26) 63-0-0 – but well done to those guys as you still have to work hard to catch ‘em!!!!

Until next time ...

Monday, 2 January 2017

02 January 2017, Middle Lake (Gold Valley)

Today was my first day on the bank for over two months and I was seriously worried that I’d forget what to do – well if nothing else you’ll see shortly that my drawing hand was certainly able to recall what a flyer felt like!!!

Nice day for it!!!

Today’s match was the slightly belated Apollo Guildford Match Team’s Christmas bash held on the recently restocked Middle Lake at Gold Valley – this lake has been boosted with ghost F1s and loads of stockie (proper) carp so these were to be my target. (I had assumed that all of the older, bigger carp had been moved to Syndicate Lake, but this was later proved to be incorrect).

Flyer!!!

The weather recently has been pretty cold and yesterday saw rain all day – coupled with today’s bright sunshine things were always going to be tricky so I was very pleased to draw peg 61, a nice end peg with some recent form. Peg 61 is in a corner and has some rushes growing from a floating pontoon – this was just out of range of the pole (18m) but I still felt that this was close enough to form the main part of my attack as 16m of pole would put me pretty close and it really was a cracking looking feature.

End Peg Billy!!!

On plumbing-up the peg seemed quite shallow with the deepest water (3’ at the most) directly in line with the middle of the rushes where there was a V formed by the bottom of the slope of the long (parallel) margin and the ever decreasing depth towards the open water to the right. Having been away from the bank for quite I while I decided to keep things ultra-simple and made this the only line I’d gear-up for prior to the start of the match (I’ll let you decide if this was single-mindedness or laziness).

Starting hooklength components

Over recent months I've watched loads of videos with the likes of Des Shipp, Paul Holland and Andy Bennett sacking-up on F1s – however F1s are very few and far between in my part of the southeast of England and as a result I had to use a set-up that I’d normally use for summer carp fishing! This rig was based around a 4x12 Roob on 0.17 Guru N-Gauge, but at least the use of orange Hydrolastic and a hooklength of 0.10 flurocarbon into a size 20 Guru F1 Maggot hook lent a little finesse!

Guru pole pots

As I planned to drip maggots via small pole-mounted pot and attempt to have my target species follow my hookbait down to the bottom the shotting pattern was one number 10 Stotz at 6”, another at 12” and a small bulk at 19” – hopefully such a pattern would get my hook into the catching zone pretty quickly but still give a nice fall through the final foot or so.

All the gear ...

I was hoping to get off to a flying start but after the 60 minutes of dripping maggots and allowing my hookbait to fall though the swim I was still biteless – I was just about to set-up a tip rod when the little dimple of my 4x12 Roob left above the surface finally disappeared from sight and it was fish on! And then it wasn’t – I call tell you it’s not ideal when your first fish of the year comes off half way back to the bank!!! ‘Not to worry’ I thought to myself as I shipped-out again when the same thing happened 2 minutes later. After it happened for the third time I needed to make a change and swapped my F1 Maggot hook for a much heavier LWG – I was worried that such a pattern would be too coarse for F1s in clear water but I can honestly say I never lost another fish all day!!!

Switching to LWGs paid-off

By the end of the second hour I had 6 F1s and 2 stockie carp in the net – not huge fish but at least I was getting some action. The swim directly in front of the rushes then died and I was torn between starting a new line in open water to the right or trying closer to the long (parallel) margin – I had reservations about fishing further to the left as there was a steep slope and the water seemed too shallow given the bright, clear conditions but I shallowed-up and with an extremely long lash I gave it a go. 4 stockie carp in as many casts probably meant that this was the right thing to do!!!

Yours truly

Just as I thought I was going to empty it the fish seemed to spook away and I couldn't manage another bite from any line for the next 90 minutes. Luckily the fish returned in the final hour and I was able to pick-up one more stockie carp from the left and 2 F1s and 3 stockie carp from the original line – this gave me a total of 8 F1s and 10 stockie carp, not a bad day’s catch for the middle of winter.

Jason Morgan and his winning bag

In the end my fish went 26-5-0, good enough for third place overall behind the 3 carp caught by Lee Simmons (31-8-0) and the ten or so caught by today’s winner Jason Morgan (83-0-0). So all-in-all a good day – the weather was cold but lovely and sunny, I’d managed a few bites and the banter with the lads was a good as ever – lets hope 2017 brings lots more days like these!!!