Orchard Lakes Open

Peg 42

At the draw I was reliably informed that this was an end peg so I was quite expectant for a good days fishing however I will point out now that we had a strong gusting south westerly pushing straight across me from right to left and in my mind (at the start) this ruled out the long pole. I could however chuck a method into the wind towards the peg next door as that was blank with me being on an end peg, so that was to be my main attack for the day. I needed a second line of attack though and decided that 2 pole lines at the same distance at 10 and 2 would be a good idea, this was in about 5 feet of water and due to the undertow being created by the stiffening breeze Hemp and Corn were to be my baits for these two lines. I decided that I would feed the left hand swim negatively by potting a small amount of bait at the start then loose feeding over the top and that I would dump feed on the RHS swim. The rig for this line was a 4X14 Drennan Carp 5 (I think) on 0.15 main with a 0.14 bottom to an 18, B911, this started on Green Vespe hollow elastic but changed later to doubled 8.

At the all in i fed both my pole swims with Hemp and Corn before dispatching a small preston 15g inline method feeder with a single dead red on an 18 Drennan Margin Carp hook to 0.15mm hook length of 4”. My ground bait was Sonubaits F1 with some 1mm, 2mm and 4mm Skrettings mixed in to give the fish a little something to look for. I had the dream start with 5 fish in the net within 20 mins however the guys to my left were trying to fish the long poles across and seemed to be catching bigger fish. After another 30mins in which I only landed 2 fish due to hook pulls I decided to try a long pole line, I got off my box set up a rig at 3ft deep, plumbed it up and had to fish 13m to find that depth, cupped in a small amount of softened pellet, mag and corn (so I didn’t have to use a kinderpot) and shipped out my rig behind it. Five minutes were enough and that rig was chucked up the bank behind me in disgust, I was struggling to hold the pole anything like steady so decided to concentrate on the method for an hour. However, in that brief look I had landed a small carp and lost another fish which got me thinking ‘What if I could find that depth closer to me?’

I had a look in the margins with the 3ft rig and found a flat spot on my top 2, with 2 hours left to go I potted in hemp and mag into the margin before having a look on my corn lines.

The rest of the match was very busy with me catching the bulk of my fish from the RH corn line and my margin swim in quick succession, the best feeding regime on the day was to dump half a pot of bait, rest the swim by catching from another line until you had to feed then move onto the next line. The signal to swap swim was when silvers invaded the swim.

I finished with 75lb 14oz for a second in the match, I was beaten into 2^nd by 10lb but had lost that much off the hook during my bad spell and I feel as though I should have looked on my corn lines earlier, perhaps, don’t know. Ah well nearly my first win of 2011. Til the next time.