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.

Army HQ individual open and Pairs, 29-30/5/15

It was another epic journey up north for this one but fortunately I had booked into the accomadation so had somewhere comfortable to rest my weary bones.  The first night was meeting up with a few of the guys down the local and trying to extract any information I could from them, I had also picked my bait up from Gaz so that was sorted ready for the morning.

The venue for the next two days was Forest lane fishery and as I arrived on the Friday morning I was met by a few friendly faces, the breakfast was fantastic and quickly dispatched. Then it was off for a walk around the venue, I fancied a few areas on Don especially after a briefing from Mark, he was going to be my partner for the pair’s event so was keen on getting me clued into the venue. I went around the Furlong and Oaklands as well and again fancied them for a few fish as they were moving everywhere on the lakes. Back at the draw and it was the individual competition first, I pulled peg 11 on Don out of the bag and pushed my kit into the back of the peg, I had an island at about 14.5 m in front of me and also due to the pegging there were about 3 pegs blank to the next guy to my left on the other side of the corner.

I was spoilt for choice but decided to fish pellet to a bare bank on the island, chopped worm and caster at 6 sections in line with a tuft on the island, a barbel line on a top 2 to my left and finally I plumbed up under the pallet to my left at 6 sections again.  I wasn’t ready for the all in as I had spent a while faffing around and I wasn’t really in the game to start off, still as soon as I was ready I fed a pot of Bombay mix on the chopped worm line and then shipped out to the island. As I was expecting mainly goldfish I had set up a 5-11 MW rattie on 0.16mm mainline and a 0.12mm hooklength. A size 16 B911 was balanced to yellow colmic hollow and a 4mm expander hid the hook and was fished over softened 2m pellet, it took about a minute and the float buried with a skimmer of just under a pound coming easily to the net.  Then the fun and games started as I was getting a few indications but no real bites so I after a small goldfish I came off the line to try and find something better. I went onto the chopped worm line and had a couple of fish quite quick, I decided to fish the first pot out and managed about 10 small fish before I felt as though I needed to top it up so I pot a Frenzee soft pot on the end of the top kit and started to feed some of the worm mix.  This actually had a detrimental effect to the swim in hindsight and I started to struggle, it was at this point though that I had a few liners so I set up a shallow rig and potted in the mix again, 3 minutes later I had a small carp in the net, I tried it again but that was it.

Knowing that the fish were coming up though changed my plan and I quickly set up a shallow rig to fish a worm head at 13m to the left of the island, it was again set on yellow Colmic hollow elastic with the same lines as the pellet rig, the hook was a 20 Guru pellet wag and the float was a MW pea. I started to loose feed caster and had another look on my chopped worm line and the inside barbel line whilst building the swim, but after another lack lustre 20 minutes I went on the shallow rig. It wasn’t frantic but I was soon getting the odd bite, this included a carp of about 8-10lb on a 0.12mm bottom. A rain shower passed through and I lost a big fish around an aerator over to my left so I decided to rest the swim by going down my left hand edge for a few minutes to see if anything had moved in under the platform.

Nothing was the answer and I had been using a pole protector butt in my no.6 section to protect the section if I did have to ship back quickly, and all of a sudden this was stuck fast.  I was distraught as now my best swim was out of reach and I could see carp moving through the swim, try as I might I could not budge the stuck sections.

I kept looking down the edge and on the barbel line, started to feed shallow as far as I could reach with the pole but the fish would not come towards me, in the last hour and a half I had only a couple of small fish and was not a happy chappy.

The scales came around quickly and I put 11Kg odd on them beating 1 in my section, the guy to my left had 12kg, then it was 14kg and 16kg for the section win, so 2 more carp. I was not best pleased, it got worst as well when as I was packing my kit into the van I found a nice pile of dog mess under my trainer!!!

It took a while but three of us got the section undone in the end but it may have cost me the section at least and with the match being won with 24kg who knows as it was getting stronger all the time. The food was good at the venue and the night was spent chatting in the bar with Mark and Grant.

Day 2 the Army pairs.

 Was teamed up with Mark for this match and we had been chatting about it for months on various media, the draw came and I put Mark on Oaklands 3 and I had Furlong peg 4, this meant nothing to us and we just went about our jobs for the day, we knew that we would both need a section win to stand a chance of winning.

Looking at my peg my approach was going to be simple with pellet across, a choppy line at ¾ towards the left side of the swim as there was an aerator there and a blank peg, a choppy line next to the aerator and finally the maggot line on a top kit.

This time I was ready for the all in and as the call went out I fed a small ball of choppy mix on the ¾ line and then shipped across with the pellet rig, this  time my rigs looked like:

Line	Far bank pellet	3/4 choppy	Aerator worm	Maggot	Shallow
Float	MW F1 Pear 12-11	0.3 g MB Diamond	0.7g Frenzee FP500	0.6g prototype	0.2g Drennan Clear Dibber
Mainline	0.16mm	0.16mm	0.16mm	0.18mm	0.16mm
Hooklength	0.12mm	0.12mm	0.12mm	0.14mm	0.12mm
Hook	B911 16	B911 16	B911 16	T175 size 2	20 Guru PW
Elastic	Pink Vespe hollow	White Hydro	Yellow Colmic Hollow	Blue Colmic Hollow	Yellow Colmic Hollow

It didn’t take long to get a response and I was soon netting carp number 1 and he was followed in short order by another 4 within the first 30 minutes or so, but it was soon obvious that they would not stay there all day and I started to vary the feeding, this didn’t help so I moved onto the ¾ line.

This was a good choice as again I had another quick run of fish, Barbel this time at around 3 to the pound they were all demented and great fun to play on the light tackle but again that swim was soon on the wane.

My day progressed and the best line was the ¾ line, the inside maggot rig gave me 1 barbel, the aerator line gave me a few small barbel but in the last hour I hoked a better fish and it snagged me on the aerator and as I pulled for a break I moved it so it covered the area that I had been feeding!

I had a go feeding caster into the shallow water across and dapping a rig over it for 1 small carp and a couple of barbel but my best line by far was the ¾ worm line as even at the whistle I put the net under a 1lb carp from it, which was handy as Boris on the end peg had been catching small tench and barbel consistently for the last 3 hours and Bouldy on the peg to my left had managed to snag a few small carp fishing pellet into the very shallow water across.

The scales took a while this time and Bouldy had 9kg, I had 11.250, Martin had 8 or so to my right and Boris had snuck 10kg of small fish in, so I managed a section win, Mark beat everyone on the lake bar the guy opposite that turned out to be in his section so he had a second.  The chat at the results was that we would be second as Gaz and Scott both had a section win to win it and the other pair on 3points, Craig and skins had a slightly lower total weight for third.

And so it turned out, I had a section win and second on the lake, Mark had section second and second on the lake and our score was enough for us to be the runners up on the day.

Gaz and Scott won it with a perfect score but it was a good end to a trying couple of days, thanks to Gaz and his team for running the event as it really is a thankless task, I am on withy next so I may need a check practice to sort some things out.

What would I do different

1.       I am going to try some candle wax on my pole sections to prevent them from sticking together.

2.       I need to work on my chopped worm and caster fishing and also need to look at my edge fishing as I feel I am doing something wrong at the moment.

3.       I feel that If I had put in a second chopped worm line on the Furlong day in the other direction at the same depth then I may have had more weight and then would not have needed the aerator line that was more hassle.

4.       I would put my short line slightly further out next time as it was not working on just a top kit.