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).
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!!!
He who dares Rodney, he who dares!!! Porth Reservoir today, fished for the bream all day and came last in section!!!
So that’s another White Acres festival done and dusted, unfortunately my fishing performances were generally below par but the drinking and the banter were good so who cares!!!
Right lake, nearly the right peg!!! Though it did only score 2 points yesterday ...
Peg 12 it is
Twin Oaks peg 12 today. Had a mid-match meltdown and never had a fish between 14:30 and 16:00 as I was chasing shadows trying to catch the carp I could see swirling and tailing-up over my secret deep margin line at the bottom of the marginal shelf!!!
Looking left
Other than that the first part of the match was OK as I managed a few on the hybrid feeder and the latter part of the match was OK once I started fishing the proper (tight to the bank) margin and the 5m line.
All the gear ...
I was never going to compete with pegs 16 and 18 (and the awesome Roy Penkethmen who caught 120lb from peg 8) but was disappointed that my 67lb was just four pounds behind peg 10 and five pounds behind the mighty Paul Holland on peg 4, that wasted 90 minutes really costing me!!!
4 points only I'm afraid, Porth Reservoir tomorrow ...
White Acres Maver festival day three today and Trewaters 49 was to be my home for 5 hours of fun and excitement ...
Nice photo of a tree
I started the match by fishing the secret deep margin rig at top kit plus 1 to the right in 3 feet of water – the float dipped under almost immediately, though after a spirited battle (lasting what seemed like a lifetime) something of a beast came off at the net!!! To say I was annoyed would be something of an understatement!!!
Looking towards the central island
A switch to the pellet feeder to the island only lasted 3 chucks so the next few hours saw me rotating between the deep margin and a 5m line, potting few 6mm pellets as I went. This was fairly productive and I caught steadily, often getting one when returning to a rested swim.
The corner to the left
Towards the end I fed the left margin (at TK + 1) with micros/riddled meat then maggots but could only generate a poor response (lost a small carp, landed odd skimmer) so I switched to fishing the deep margin rig at 11.5m into the corner – this got me a few more carp but I then lost a foul-hooker which seemed to upset things somewhat. I eventually went right under the bush in the corner at 13m with 15 minutes to go – I caught 3 carp doing this but I also lost 2 rigs in the gorse!!!
60lb on the nose for fourth in section and six points was the result – ohh and I beat Steve Sanders off the next peg so that was nice!
Today was day two of the 2016 Maver festival and after yesterday’s good start I was looking for another flyer in order to keep the momentum going. Being drawn into E section for this festival meant that I’d be staying onsite today as I’d be fishing Pollawyn – over recent seasons the fishing on this lake seems to have gotten trickier and trickier, making that dip into the bag of dreams even more vital ...
The pegs to draw on Pollawyn normally include those on the infamous High Bank – these face onto the widest part of the lake and are typically home to the big old carp that have been swimming about in this lake since the initial stocking way back when. However my home for the day was to be peg 45 – this isn’t on the High Bank but is often considered to be something of a flyer as you can flick a swinger rig with 16m of pole and a 2m lash into the far-bank rushes, as demonstrated by Lee Edwards in the Preston Innovations Winning Pegs 6 DVD.
Looking left
So with the far-bank rushes being the obvious feature this formed the basis of my pre-match attack, the rig in question being mounted on a black Hydrolastic top kit and consisting of 0.17 Guru N-Gauge mainline, a 0.6g Drennan Inline Crystal Dibber and a 15cm hooklength of 0.13 into a size 16 Guru LWG hook with a hair-rigged pellet band. As a back-up I also set-up a rig for fishing for perch and other silverfish along the left-hand margin, as well as a rig for catching anything and everything at top kit plus two sections slightly to the right.
Looking right
Unfortunately the match itself didn’t really go to plan! I spent a great deal of the match (far too long in hindsight) flicking my rig towards the far-bank rushes, only hooking 6 carp and only managing to land 3. (I did however manage to hook the rushes many, many times and I did manage to get through loads and loads of hooklengths!) When I finally got around to trying my other lines I couldn’t buy a bite from the left-hand margin (even on single maggot) and the 5m line only produced a few perch and barbel (I have a sneaky feeling that there aren’t as many skimmers in this lake as there used to be).
Cosy!
In the end my 3 carp and associated bits and bobs went 19-0-0, only good enough for 4 points (sixth in section). This means that I’ve dropped from twenty-fourth to sixtieth and looking for a better result tomorrow on Jenny’s Lake or Trewaters!
