It was off to a new venue for this one and Hordle lakes
were programmed into the sat nav and off I went Via Chris’s house and Maccy D’s.
We had enough time to say hi to the guys and have a look around the ponds when
we got there and after looking at both of the lakes that were in I fancied a
draw anywhere on Willow lake as there seemed to be more water to go at rather
than Spring lake that was a snake lake. Chris and I both drew on Willow
fortunately with me on 6 and he was on 4, we soon discovered that these were
not the permenant peg numbers as I ended up with 4 blank pegs between me and
peg 5 to my right, and peg 7 was not drawn out giving me another blank peg to
my left... ACRES....
After extensive plumbing up I decided to fish a meat line
o a 2+2 line at 2 O’Clock to my right, it was about 4 feet deep there and I set
the float to fish about an inch over depth just up from the bottom of the
shelf. I started with a Preston Inter 1 float on the line with 0.18mm main line to a 0.14 bottom and on the business
end was a size 2 Tubertini 175 as I had heard that there were some bonus fish
in this pond. I had this rigged on yellow Browning Reflex elastic through a
tension puller kit so that I could land
anything that I hooked on it. My final rig was for paste to fish in front of
the platform to my left, I found 4 feet again tight to the pilings and had a
quick grope around under the water to see if there were any undercuts to worry
about. The answer was no so it was a 4X10 Big H paste float on 0.20 Hybrid
power mono to a 0.18mm Cenex bottom and again a tubertinin 175 but this time a
size 5. This was rigged on a 17H elastic through a heavy tension puller kit and
a paste pot was put on the very end of the kit next to the bush.
My plan was simple, I would feed the meat line at the all
in then fish the island for 2 hours, then hopefully the carp would be on the
meat line and in the last 2 hours I would plunder the margins. So the all in sounded
and out went ½ a pot of hemp and 6mm meat onto the chosen spot then I cast the
method to within inches of the island, I was watching Chris still cupping in
bait on his spots when my rod wrapped round and Carp number 1 was soon in the
net, not that I told anyone!!(MUCH!!)
It was steady for the first couple of hours with the odd
carp and skimmer falling to pellet or mini boilie on the hair, the problem I
had was the overhanging bushes and a determination to get the feeder really
tight to the island. From the start I was also pinging a few 8mm pellets
towards the island and after a while I had a look, I would love to say that it
was solid but I can’t, I managed a couple of chub but it was soon time to go
onto the meat line. By this time the guy opposite had started getting a few
carp shallow, he was not setting the world on fire but he was definitely ahead
of anybody else, even Chris was getting a few on the pole behind the island. I
shipped down to the right with a medium cad pot on the end of my top kit full
of hemp and meat, dropped the lot in held onto the rig and after 30 seconds was
playing a skimmer, 2 minutes later though it was a carp and at about 3lb it was
the start of a good run of fish. I managed around 15 over the next couple of
hours interspersed with a few skimmers and proper roach but it was fading fast
on me and it was about time to prep my margin. I potted 5 full pots of
groundbait, meat and hemp in down on the edge line then I cast the method back
to the island, that didn’t work but the waggler gave me a couple of quick fish
before they backed off again.
It was time so I shipped my paste rig off and down the
edge, the float settled perfectly on the slope and after a count of 85 the
float disappeared, followed after the strike by around 10 of proper elastic,
there was an over flow pipe in the middle of my swim and it was interesting to
play the fish around it but I soon had an absolute HORSE in the landing net.
Next put in and the same result but with a slightly smaller fish and then the
same on the third put in, I had managed over 30lb of carp in 3 put ins near
enough so I knew what was going to be my main line for the last period of the
match.
I topped up after every 3 proper indications and this
kept the fish in my swim until the all out, I managed to land about 8 carp for
around 60lb over that period but they were alot harder to come by at the end as
I ran out of groundbait.
The all in saw me a very happy boy as I knew that I had
done alright and reckoned that I had around 140lb of fish, Chris thought that
he had 50lb and a wager was set on top weight, top silvers and closest guess
(well I had to give him a chance), the guy to his right weighed first with
96lb, Chris had 85lb!! Then it was around to me and 5 weighs saw 135lb 11oz on
the scales helped alot by this little beauty at 15lb 10oz.
Many thanks to Rich for running it and I hope to go back
soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment