AAF Group 2 Pairs witherington Farm, 27/08/2011

This was the inaugural pair’s match that pairs together an angle who would take part in the army masters competition and an angler who would fish the clubman. The Idea was to allow the Clubman to pick the Masters brain on how to fish the venue and hopefully learn something that would aid them in the future.

The draw saw the pairs and pegs get selected and I was lucky enough to end up with Pete and fortunately he had a good idea as to how to approach his swim so my job was easy, just go and catch some fish from peg 74 on the Inner Snake. On arriving at my peg about 3 people had told me that I was on a flyer, but you still need to catch the fish was my reply. Looking at my swim I had a small overhang in the far bank rough that would be my main area, there was a cut out opposite the next peg to my right (oh yeah everyone had 2 blank pegs either side!!) that was screaming out for a method chuck, I had the platform to my left just out of sight so I knew that I would fish a margin line down there and finally I planned to start on a paste line at 5m and then join it with another at 11m somewhere. I plumbed up at 5m and found the same depth at 11m in line with a purple plant at around 10 o’clock, these lines would get fished with paste and the rig was 0.19mm to a 0.17mm bottom and a size 5 Tubertini 175. These hooks are nails; I matched it with a Frenzee FP900 in 0.4g and had red Vespe E2 hollow which as with all my elastics was set through a Tension Puller kit. For the across line I set up a standard 0.15mm mainline to a 0.13mm bottom and 18 B911 with a 4X12 Big H Border float on Yellow Reflex Hollow elastic for fishing pellet on the deck, I also set up a Sconezone Slapper on 0.17mm and 0.15mm bottom to an 18 PR36 for fishing shallow again on the same elastic. My Margin rig was a 0.3g Frenzee FP800, 0.19mm to a 0.17mm bottom and a size 3 “175” this time on 13H preston Hollo.  Finally I set a method a 30g small inline method with a 4” 0.19mm hooklength with a 16 QM1 and a bait band, the rod for the short 18m chuck was my new Browning Force Carp Wand, at 8 feet long it is the perfect length for short chucks and also getting the fish to pop up closer in when you are landing them.

My bait for the day was a pint of mixed 2mm and 4mm carp pellet with a handful of Sonubaits F1 groundbait, a few 4mm and 6mm expanders, 2pints of hemp, a tin of corn, a tin of 6mm meat, a pint of 6mm carp pellet, some special paste mix and a kilo of Sensas crushed pellet groundbait that I mixed quite wet. On the all in i put a big lump of paste on my hook and filled the pot up with hemp and 6mm pellet before shipping out to my 5m mark and awaiting action, I got indications almost instantly and on my 3^rd put in the float buried and carp no.1 was on its way to the keepnet. Not bad for 10 mins work but alas that was the only one and after 20 mins I fed my 11m paste line with a pot of hemp and pellet before shipping across the far bank with a 4mm pellet on the hook and a cad pot full of pellet. The reaction again was almost instant but short lived and after an hour I had 3 carp a goldfish and a skimmer, I alternated for the next 40mins between the paste line at 11m and the far bank before seeing a carp swirl across and my mind was made up to fish shallow across. This gave me two small carp and a few Goldfish and Rudd over the next hour and by this time it was obvious that the 11m paste line was not going to work as I had only foul hooked 1 carp on it and was getting skimmered so I needed to come up with a plan for the 2^nd half of the match.

I decided to start my LHS Margin with 3 cups of loose groundbait and I plumbed my paste rig to fish on a 2+1 line just behind some reeds in the water to my right where it was a foot deeper than my left margin. I fed a few 6mm pellets and cubes of meat on this line by hand and went back across for another 20 mins. This saw me get seen off by a carp in the reeds so I chucked the feeder to my right and over the next hour I had a couple of carp and a skimmer on the tip before my mainline broke halfway down (8lb Sensor??????) and a few more goldfish on the shallow rig so I had a look down my LH margin, this was followed by a roach eating double meat so I fed another two cups of groundbait and tried my RH margin. The float buried almost immediately and another carp was on its way into the waiting net, followed closely by a skimmer, I tried the LH and had a carp so the pattern for the rest of the match was set with take a couple of fish from a margin, reefed and move onto the other side. The last hour was strong with about 8 fish to 10lb coming in for as total of around 16 Carp and a handful of bits for a total weight (Eventually Mayo!!) of just over 74lb. This was enough to win my section and the news got better when I caught up with my partner and he had finished 4th in his section, history will however show that our 5 points was only good enough for second pair on the day beaten by Gary and Daryl with 4 points, but it was still a good fun day and I can’t wait for the next one!!

Orchard Lakes Sunday Series-21/08/2011

Another Sunday series saw me waking up at Orchard lakes as I had been bank running the day before along the Basingstoke Canal and to save fuel I stayed in my van. I drew peg 2 out of the bag and was told straight away that I was fishing for 3^rd in section so I decided to enjoy my day and set up 4 rigs. I had 2 identical rigs on Green Preston Hollo elastic with 0.19mm mainline and a 0.17mm bottom to a 16 B911and the floats were Frenzee FP800. These were for fishing under my platform on a Tension Puller kit with pellet. I also set up a standard far bank rig with a 0.15mm bottom to a 16 B911 and also a shallow rig set up with 0.19-0.15 and an 18 PR36 and a micro pellet band, both of these were set up on Cenex yellow hollow Elastic again through Tension Pulla Kits.

At the all in I fed a small ball of softened 2mm and 4mm pellet down each margin before shipping my new Xitan Z9 across to the far bank with the same mix in a small Cad Pot and a 4mm expander on the hook. It took all of a minute for my first fish but I decided to have a look down the inside to see if the fish were there as they would be quicker to catch. I had a couple of very small carp and made a decision to fish the far bank and give my new pole a proper work out. After about 20 minutes I went over to the shallow rig as I was getting liner instantly as the carp came up in the water for the pellet so I mixed it very wet and added groundbait to increase the cloud effect, fishing a 6mm pellet in the middle of the cloud. This worked very well with me having several periods where it was a fish on the hook even before the pellet mix was hitting the water, but even though I got my head down nearly the full 5 hours across I could not compete with the guys who were fishing on their top kits. I ended up with 123lb and 5^th out of 6 in my section. Even though I had a really good day testing my new Z9 to destruction (I broke a top kit on a carp, probably a manufacturing defect as I was not horsing it that much), and practicing fishing the long pole at speed for small fish I was never going to compete fishing in that manner.

Next stop is Witherington Farm for a pairs match, should be fun.

Div 2 National Practice, Basingstoke Canal, 07/08/11

Breakfast at maccy d’s was followed by getting lost on the way to my section, I set up my platform in the water and then realised that I could not see anything coming along the tow path. I decided to risk it as it meant that I could fish 13m under the far bank trees rather than 14.5m. I was soon set up with a couple of squatt rigs and a worm rig and just before the all in I had a runner decided to jump through my no.5 section and then throw abuse at me for blocking the tow path. Not a good start, made worst when at the all in I fed a small ball of ground bait and went straight on top of it at 13m, 3 roach before the eyes appeared then a top up saw my swim fill with crayfish. I lost count of how many I caught but I landed 8 in the last hour over my worm line. I finished the day with 40-50 fish for 1lb 13oz that saw me come around about last in section and saw Stu Dabbs run off skipping with my shiny pound from the next peg. On the plus side I hope that my experience was able to help the team on their plan for the National but with this was the end of a weekend that had seen the following.

13 hours of driving

10 hours of fishing

Alot of bait

20 +Hours of prep

A week of practice on the Junkie

All for less than 3lb of fish!!! Not my favourite weekend of recent history!

Div 1 National, New Junction Canal, 06/08/11

Div 1 National, New Junction Canal

I got to my peg nice and early, set up with no rush and wasn’t even phased when Alan Scotthorne sat in the peg to my left, I was confident in my approach as we Team Army had spent a full week up there practising and we had a good plan.

The squatt line would be fished at a sensible distance looking for 9ft, I set up 3 rigs for this line, 1: a 1.25g DS14H on 0.11. to 0.08 and a 22 B511 on no.5 Preston through 3 sections for bagging. 2: a 0.6g DS14 same mainline but a 0.07mm bottom and a 22 B511 this time with no.3 elastic through 2 sections and finally 3: a 0.3g Inter 3 float on the same line and elastic as the last rig but a 20 B511 for hemp, the shotting patterns were a bulk and 3 no.10 in 30cm for the bagging rig, a bulk and 5 X no.13 for the normal rig and then spread styls on the Hemp rig.

I also set up a 14.5m worm line that was on 0.15mm to 0.13 and a 16 Drennan Wide Gape hook, and the same line was used on an inside line worm rig for fishing in and around the weedbeds 5m out. The Bomb rod was set up again and finally a 2.5m whip for fishing under my feet for perch.

My match however, was a disaster with my balled in groundbait being the wrong plan, I lost the only 2 Roach I hooked on my first 2 drops and then it was a struggle for the rest of the day. In the end I had 4 perch from the squatt line, 1 on the tip, 1 on the short worm line and 1 on the long worm line for a grand total of 300g. Alan to my left had 1.320Kg as he found a few roach on bread at 16m in the last hour and the local guy to my right, had 1.300Kg including a skimmer on his squatt line and about 20 small perch. The Army came in around 25^th so fortunately my result had been carried but we had 3 blow outs and 7 good results, always next year on the Bristol Avon!!

Inter Corps Championship, New Junction Canal 22/07/11

This is a team event consisting of 8 teams of 6 anglers all descending on a section of the New Junction Canal near Doncaster, I was team captain for the Royal Signals and with a little help had come up with a team plan would see us utilising several areas of the swim. Evan with last minute personnel changes the team was ready to go on the day with what I thought was a reasonable chance of a decent result. I drew a couple of section end pegs and also the stretch end peg for Dave B so it was shaping up for a good day. I however, decided that I would walk to my swim from the wrong car park; this did not prove to be a problem though as the towpath was metalled the whole way. I got to my peg and found that I had Mick the Edge to my left whom had been on the venue for the previous 3 days and Shaun Stockley of Harrison Lincs County on my right.

To the plan then, line 1 was the keepnet line, at the all a pinch of mushed worm and pinkies would get fed at the bottom of the keepnet and the rig was a 0.5g Drennan pinkie with a 0.09mm bottom to a 20 Wide Gape Match, elastic was Preston 5 through 3 sections. This would be fished for 10 mins or until bites stopped completely, then the 9ft Squatt line would be attacked my rig was a 0.6g Browning Nevis shotted with a bulk of no.8 shot 50cm from the hook and 5 X No.12 shot as droppers. The hooklength was 10cm of 0.06mm line to a 24 B590, elastic was no3 Vespe through 2 sections. At the start we potted 4 balls of sieved groundbait containing squatt and hemp on this line and loose fed squatt and hemp over the top depending how much it was flowing as to what would be fed. Next was a 14.5m Worm line for bonus fish, green Vespe hollow to 0.15mm mainline, a 0.11mm bottom and a 16 wide gape match hook was set under a 2g Drennan Trio float and 10 worms were fed through a bait dropper on this line 10 mins before fishing it. Finally a tip rod was also set up with a bomb rig and a 0.15mm bottom to a size 10 hook for chucking a lob worm across the canal. I also set up a bread rig to be fished at 6m in case it was hard.

From the all in I knew I was in for a bad day with Mick to my right catching roach steadily all day on squatt and Shaun managed to snare a bonus eel on his worm line, I struggled for bites on all of my lines taking only a few perch from the inside and a couple of squatt fish in the first half of the match. I fed a bread line with a couple of hours to go and had a quick run of 6 roach and a few casts with fined down gear on the tip and a chopped worm feeder saw me snare a 6 oz perch that helped boost my weight to 2lb 3oz and 6^th in my section of 8. This was unfortunately the pattern for all our anglers apart from Jon Hatch who managed to mug a rogue Chub on his tip rod that helped him to a section win. Well done to the engineers who won on the day only beating the AGC by the narrowest of margins. We were 6^th of 8 only beating the teams who were missing an angler!!!

AAF Gp2 Mt 10 Viaduct

This was it the deciding match of the season with myself and John tying on points at the top of the table, only a section win would do it for me, as count back would beat me. The morning consisted of the groups AGM and some fun prize giving’s followed by the teams draw, Chris drew me out peg 59 on Lodge and instantly I was not happy as I thought that I was stuck on the open bank down the RHS of the lake. However it would seem that lots of moaning tends to make swims better when you get to them as I had a huge willow to fish under to my left, an aerator and a bit of open water to chuck in, the only drawback was that Trev Senior had drawn peg 60, this cut down on the amount of room that I had to my right and he is a very handy angler at Viaduct so I would be watching him closely.

I set up a 6m margin rig for under the tree on 17H preston elastic, 0.19mm mainline, a 0.17mm bottom and size 4 ‘175’, this was under a Frenzee margin float and I would feed Hemp and Meat. I plumbed up and fished a long pellet line at 16m with a standard skimmer rig for back up and I also set up a bomb and pellet wag as my main line of attack into the open water as some shapes could be seen cruising before the all in. As the horn went I fed a pot of hemp and Meat under the tree to my left and fished the pellet wag for about 30mins before I noticed a fish waving at me from under the tree. A 10mm cube of meat was shipped into place and 30 seconds later I was attached to 14lb of angry Lodge Mirror. After the disturbance I re fed and cast the bomb out with a double pellet rig, 3 minutes later and carp no.2 hung itself and so the day went on with long spells without indications followed by quick runs of fish. I caught on the pellet wag, Bomb and down the edge a total of 11 carp and also had another 3lb of silvers from on the pellet line mid match. This gave me a combined weight of 81lb 2oz and after helping with the weigh in it was clear that this was enough for the lake and section win.

I returned to the clubhouse to get the good news, Craig had a section win and Chris had managed a 3^rd from a temperamental peg so the 11 sigs team had won again, this still was not enough to win the league for the team but we cut a close 2^nd. Watch this space for next year as the team is getting stronger all the time with all 3 members fishing for the Corps team.  On the individual John had a blowout so with a score of 6 points (4 section wins and a second) taken from my best 5 results I had won the AAF Gp 2 Individual league for this year.