Masters Cup 2015, Cudmore fishery

This was the one event of the week that I was not looking forward to as the venue has been in the doldrums of late and I didn’t fancy scratching for nothing in an individual match.  Anyway, breakfast at Maccy D’s, done, short trip to venue, done, get jiffed to help on the boards, done.  This turned out to be a good thing however, as Chas drew me the first peg out of the bag, peg 7 on Panama, the peg that had won the lake the day before, so not too bad then.  I didn’t even need my trolly as it was a short walk from the car to the swim.

Upon getting to it there was a nice edge to my right and a decent far bank that would be in easy reach so I decided that it would be an easy day. Paste short, Margin to my right with paste over groundbait and finally caster shallow across.

I was ready for the all in and I shipped out to my 2+2 line with paste on the hook and waited whilst loose feeding caster across the far side, I was on this line for 40 minutes and managed 3 F1’s in this time, but the bubbling had stopped so I went across on the caster.  I had an Ide of about 6oz’s straight away on banded maggot but then had to start working on the depths to try and find the fish. It was a slow start on the shallow line but the wind changed direction and a scum line came into my swim. Although this made presentation tricky the carp moved in and I managed around 12 over the next couple of hours usually as a quick spurt of fish and then they would back off.  All the time I was feeding my short line and I started feeding the edge 3hours in, just in case, and it was lucky that I did as the sun came out and the fish suddenly became harder to catch and draw into the swim.

I tried resting the shallow line by looking on the other 2 but the carp were done on that line and the Ide were conspicuous by their absence. The last 2 hours of the match were hard work but I put a couple of fish into the net from the paste line and the right hand edge, I couldn’t help but feel that another line was needed but it was too late now.

Paul, Neil and Boris to my right all had a few fish in the final stages and I honestly thought that they had run me close, although they all thought that I had romped it.

The scales came down and Paul had 23, Neil 21 Boris 19 and I had 25Kg, this gave me a section and Lake Win, so I was in with a shot at the trophy providing that no one had done better on Drumble as that was the lake I had wanted to draw due to the size of fish.

Alas History will show that Lance had managed two lumps in the last 20 minutes from Drumble and that was enough for him to win the Masters Cup by a kilo and a bit, I was second, pipping Steve by 50 grams! (Sorry)

What would I do different?

I feel at the end that I needed another line, possibly a pellet or corn line somewhere else in the swim would have given me another fish, I am also not convinced that paste down the edge was the right choice on that lake on that day, Neil and Boris both had a few fish in the last hours when I struggled for bites.

Didn’t know that at the time though and I still won the lake so not too bad.

Tackle used:

Pole, Paste edge and Short:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow Edge, Blue Colmic hollow Short (Smaller Carp)

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.18mm Cenex

Hook: 5 Tubertini 175, size 4 on short line

Float: Margin, KC Carpa Margin Paste 4X10, Short Dino Paste 0.2g

Shallow:

Elastic: White Hydro

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.12mm Cenex

Hook: 20 Guru Pellet waggler with a bait band

Float: Drennan Crystal dibber 0.2g

Commercial National, Heronbrook and Cudmore Fisheries, 16/8/14

We had decided that we would enter this event as Fosters Team Army and we had a half decent team for the event even with a few people having to swap for a variety of reasons. A few of us spent the night in Stafford so went out for a curry the night before and we were all discussing the best way to approach the venues. I knew that I would be on Cudmore and the common concensus was that I would need chopped worm and caster to catch everything that swims, and then make up the rest on the day. Gaz and myself went down nice and early in the morning to get to the front of the queue. We both managed a breakfast before the main rush and then settled down for the day ahead, the draw saw me on A13 and this was Arena lake, now most people approach has changed to this lake since the international events have been on it and I was told to start on the method then look for worm fish before coming in  down the edge in the closing stages. Ok I thought lets see how this will pan out.

As I was setting up there were numbers of fish slurping in the surface film so I was fancying it a bit, but I decided to set up the following as quietly as possible:

A method rod for across,

A shallow rig for 13-14.5m,

A worm rig for 7m,

A paste rig for 7m,

An edge rig that was plumed to 11.5m to my right for a groundbait line and 2+2 to my left for a meat line,

And finally a dobbing rig to try and mug a fish early.

This and all my bait prep did not take long so I was soon walking around chatting to the rest of the team at Cudmore, I had time for a brew and it was a thoroughly chilled out time leading up to the match, I was sat on my box ready for the all-in and as it was called I shipped out with a worm rich ball of groundbait for the worm line and half a pot of hemp, pellet and paste for the other short line. I then tried to dob one of the carp that had been lingering but they soon disappeared so out went the method, I was quite surprised when the tip started to bounce on the first cast and a small skimmer was soon panned. Happy that I had not blanked out went the feeder again and this time I couldn’t sink the line before the tip went round and a small tench ended up in the keepnet. This had been a really good start but this is when the wheels fell off as all I could get on the method were tiny skimmers, so I had a look on the worm line and caught tiny perch, the paste and shallow lines seemed fishless so I was stuck and kept trying to put a few small skimmer sinto the net. This seemed like a bad plan when a few carp started coming in around me and they seemed to be shallow across so I got off my box and quickly set up a bomb rod to fish a zig in the far margin, this still saw no action with two and a half hours left to push I started to feed my margins more heavily trying to make something happen. After thirty minutes and around 3 hours into the match my meat margin rig buried and carp number 1 was soon in the net, it was around 2Kg so worth at least two of some of the other fish that I had seen get caught.  It was however, a false dawn and the next hour and a half saw me start to rotate on the carp lines mainly concentrating on the margins and the paste line as these were where I thought I could claw something back.

With half an hour to go I was proved right as I shipped onto te paste line and the float buried after 45 seconds with carp number 2 on, this was followed by number 3 and then in the last 10 minutes I managed another 2 for a grand total of 5 carp come the all-out. As it turned out this was not too bad and Simon Fry who I had for company to my left managed to weigh in 8Kg, I managed 14Kg, the guy to my right had 16Kg and it transpired that there were a few 15-17Kg weights so one more fish could have seen me win my sub section of 5.

Back at the clubhouse the general consensus was not good, Gaz had managed 14points, I had 10 and the rest of the team all had single digits.

As you can see we ended up 15 out of 19 teams on the day and once again Drennan Barnsley Blacks walked away with the trophy.

Two weeks to recover and then the Inter Corps so we shall have to see what I can get up to in the meantime, I fancy a river carp or 2.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENT:

I would have had a bomb and pellet wag set up just in case.

I would fish to my strengths more rather than following the trends.

I would have fed the method line with 8mm pellet to try and attract a few better fish onto it.