05 July 2015

Interservices Championship week, Forest Lane Fishery 03/07/2015

Day 1, Oaklands peg 5
The brief was simple, two short lines and do what you want long, in short it never really happened for me, I fished a meat feeder towards the middle of the lake, pellet and meat short (I only had room for 1 short line as Martin and I were pegged on adjacent pegs and they were quite tight) and finally I fished caster shallow at 13m.
The feeder was slow but I had a few barbel and small carp on it through the day, the meat short didn’t work and I only managed a few small chub on the shallow caster line.  I finished with 7kg and lowest weight of the day but I tried a few things that didn’t work so that’s enough of that.

Day 2, The Don peg 8
Gaz must have felt sorry for me as he put me on a good peg today, I fished maggot to the island at 14.5m, paste and chopped worm and caster on 2 short lines, a method rod got set up, and finally margin rig. The day itself was simple as I could only really catch on the island line and when they were there the elastic would get ripped out within seconds.  The heat caused a few problems like the temperature of my pole and also the far bank vegetation started to which caused me to get caught up in it a few times towards the end of the day.
I ended up with over 20KG of mostly barbel for third on the day, narrowly beaten by Martin on the end peg and his last second lump from down the edge.

Day 3, Furlong peg 11
I got to my peg and nearly cried as I had no far bank cover at all and that is where most of the team plan was, I plumbed up two 2+2 lines, several spots along the far bank where I would fish maggot and pellet, a track line and finally a top kit rig for between my keepnets.  My best line by far was the top kit maggot line and although I had only clicked 7.6kg I weighed in 17kg+ oops.  Another hot day with temperatures into the thirties by all accounts.


Day 4, Interservices Individual Championship, Furlong Peg 10.
I knew I would not win from here so again it was a day of trying things out, the same rigs as the day before but this time I had fewer barbel and more real carp, mostly from the far bank on worm.  I weighed 11kg+ which was nowhere to be honest but again I learnt a few things that we passed on that evening.


Day 5, Interservices Championship, Oaklands peg 14
This turned out to be a really good draw as it put me on the windward end of the lake with no one between myself and the bank to my right.
 I set up a method, long pole up and down, short pole and a top kit rig, I also set up a waggler as there was little wind at times and I thought that this might have made the fish a bit spooky. At the all in I cast out the method for 10 minutes next to the aerator and had no indications so I tried my short lines for a couple of small fish before going shallow.  It was only after about 20 minutes of the match but  I picked up a few bursts of carp, chub and goldfish buy varying the depth but after a while the wind dropped off and the fish were visibly spooking from the pole tip.  It was at this point that I tried the wag, and first or second cast I had a carp pulling line off the drag as soon as the bait hit the water, I managed a few more small carp and a couple of barbel by casting around the swim but the wind picked up so I went back onto the pole.


Whilst untangling a rig I chucked the tip tight to the bank along the of my peg and had to catch my rod 5 times as it was nearly dragged in by 3 carp and a couple of small barbel, one thing I did have to do was change the feeder that I had set up, I started on a 30g banjo with a size 16QM1 hook and I pulled out of 2 fish halfway in as they were tearing around, so I scaled down to a 20g scoop feeder and didn’t lose another fish like that for the rest of the day.  I still pulled out of a couple but that was more down to pulling too hard.
In the closing stages I tried my keepnet line, deck line long and also put my keepnet rig over my long line and all of these also produced fish but I could not string more than a couple of fish together on a line and if I did it was rudd or micro carp.   I was confident of a good weight though and I even had another net delivered to my peg as I thought that the carp I had been catching were more than I actually had, I landed my last fish on the method 30 seconds before the all out.
The scales were kind to me and I weighed on 29.030Kg which was enough for a section win by 5kg but it was still a bitter taste as all I needed was 30Kg for a new lake record and I had lost a couple of carp before swapping feeders and a couple on the pole.
The good news was however that my section win along with the other 5 saw Fosters Team Army win the Interservices Championship 2015.


What would I have done differently?

I needed to remember that it was selection and not really a practice for the first 3 days as I spent too long staying off the methods that were working around me.

Other than that it was a good week with a great bunch of lads and a top result, roll on next year as the RAF have chosen a venue that a few of us have fished before and done alright on.

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