24 February 2016

Shearwater Match, 24/2/16

So it was another days leave so that I could go to Shearwater and fish a match run by my mate Mark, so after a quick pit stop for breakfast and a pretty easy run down I was soon at the draw paid in and ready to go.  We had a pair of carp anglers turn up as we were gathered in the car park, but they found a gap on the dam wall so it was not as bad as it could have been.  I spent most of my time trying to get into Johns head after the trouncing that he had given me last week, I also fancied drawing on the road bank as I wanted to try and fish at range all day, well I got my wish and peg 9 was my destination for the day. 



It was basically the peg that Pez had won the group match from a fortnight ago so I was confident of a few fish, my confidence increased when I had John drop into the peg to my left and Gary to my right, so the same three people adjacent to each other two weeks on the bounce.   I at least knew that there would be some fish about with these two around.  I went about setting up a cage feeder rod and method rod both clipped up at the same number of turns, I decided to start at 65 turns (68 meters ish) and I would see where I would go from there.
This time I was almost ready for the all in, unlike Gary, and I was soon sat on the method for no indications in the first 30 minutes, a swap to the cage feeder was no better and I found an early foe in the form of a light breeze into our bank that was making hitting the clip accurately difficult when it gusted.  The banter was in full flow along the bank which was handy as unless you were Mark the fishing certainly wasn’t.  Mark had a great start to the match with about 10 bream in nearly as many casts. For the rest of us though it was a bit slower but they soon started to get caught and I soon had two in the net both taken on double dead red on the cage feeder. John and Gary were also catching odd fish but I was slipping behind so I decided to change to the method, this had the desired effect with two quick fish that were both of a very good average size, but I was soon left scratching my head again.
It was quite obvious that it was not just me struggling with the breeze as almost everyone along our bank had cracked off once, (some more than that hey John!) and it was at this point that I decided to concentrate on the method for the remainder of the match as it was easier to accurately hit the mark. I swapped my 14ft rod to the method to make it easier and added 5 turns of line to the cast.
The result although not instant was promising with another 3 fish coming at between 7 and 9 minutes after the feeder had hit the bottom, I also found that a 6mm yellow dumbbell was getting me all my bites, but Gary had been catching well and John was close on 8 smaller fish and some back up silvers.  With about an hour to go I decided to go balls out and try to snag a carp, they had been boshing at range so I unclipped the feeder and unleashed it.
In this time John had a few more bream 6-7 and Gary had about the same to give him 20 bream plus backup silvers, I unfortunately managed only 1 bream in the last hour and didn’t see hid or hair of the carp I was after, I had wasted the best part of the day on a pipedream and knew it.  The all out was called and I decided that no matter what I was staying on to try and get a carp.  As the scales came down John was the first of our little pocket to weigh and he had managed 32lb, my 8 bream went 24lb!! I would have only needed three more of my stamp fish to put John in trouble!  Gary had 50lb dead, and this was enough to give him 3rd in the match as well.  I paid the double nugget to john….Grudgingly.

Thankyou Mark for an excellent couple of days on the bank, I look forward to trying to do it again next year, well done to Steve for winning with 80lb, and Rob for 2nd with 61lb.

What would I do different?
Although I think I had the right idea I should have fished a line at 60 meter to start as this would have been easier to cast to and I could have worked on my accuracy and building the swim.  Once again chasing the fish didn’t work, Gary plugged away on the same line as for most of the day and John regretted trying longer.  So the moral is again pick an easy distance and stick to it the bream will come.

Tackle used:
Feeder Cage:
Rod: Browning Black Viper 14ft Feeder rod, 3 and 4oz quiver.
Reel: Shimano CI4 Ultegra 5500
Line: 0.205mm Colmic feeder line 0.13mm hooklength
Hook: 16 QM1
Feeder: 40g small Kevin Leech feeder later swapping to a Large 42g Guru Hybrid feeder with Black elastic

Feeder method:
Rod: Browning Black Viper 13ft (S) Feeder rod, 4oz quiver.
Reel: Shimano CI4 Ultegra 5500
Line: 8lb sensor to 0.19mm hooklength
Hook: 14 QM1
Feeder: Large 42g Guru Hybrid feeder with Black elastic





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