Orchard Lakes Mid week Open

This was my first mid week open at Orchard and was surprised at their only being 5 of us fishing, before the draw I was chatting with Shaine about how the Sunday series had gone the weekend before and it transpired that it had fished a bit more tricky than usual but there had still been at least 10 ton ups so a good day was on the cards. I drew peg 24 and this transpired to be the golden peg, my day had started well could it get better?

On looking at my peg I decided on a two pronged attack of a method across to the bare bank and paste or pellet down the edge. My method gear consisted of my 10ft carp feeder rod, 8lb mainline with a 12” twisted loop; this had a 30g small Preston inline method feeder running along it and stopping it was a Korum quick change bead. My hooklength was 4 inches long of 0.19mm line to a 16 PR36 with a hair rigged baitband to take a 6-8mm pellet. My feed for around the feeder was 2, 3 and 4mm pellet in the ratio 2:2:1 with a bit of groundbait to help stick them around the feeder. For the pole I set up a standard margin paste rig and a pellet rig with a 16 B911 to 0.15mm hooklength, these were plumbed to find a spot on each side that was the same depth (2.5 ft).

At the all in I cast my method around a meter off the far bank and then fed a handful of hemp and 6mm pellet on each margin, it took 2 mins for my first fish that was a small Tench. By the end of the first hour I had 10 counter Carp (over a pound) and a few bits in the form of micro carp and Tench, the second hour was much the same but then the third and forth saw me putting more fish in the net as the carp turned up in numbers on the method line and it was reminiscent of a feeding frenzy as the feeder hit the water. The problems I suffered from was the small fish kept on knocking the feeder down the ledge and the baitband was stretching and struggling to hold on to the pellet. I ended up with 63 counter Carp and alot of bits for a total weight of 145lb 8oz; this was enough to win the match by about 70lb as everyone else had struggled to get the fish feeding close in. I had a few looks down the edge but the carp were smaller and I was getting alot of bites off silvers when I was feeding pellet. I started to feed meat and this brought in bigger fish but is was slower than on the method so there I stayed for most of the match. It is off to the canal again at the weekend so look out Roach!!