This started the day before the match with the team
selection and practice day, we all met up at the fishery’s café and the banter
was in full flow very early in the morning, for the day I was sat on peg 4 of
new lake, this gave me an island at 10m in front and fortunately no-one pegged
to my right, I thought I was in for a good day.
I plumbed up at 3ft of water towards the far bank (a la Ringer) to fish
pellet, I plumbed up a 5m line to fish caster or maggot down the track, a
margin line towards the platform to my right and a method rod just in
case. I had Pez sat to my left and we
decided to go a quid just for a giggle
I started off on 4mm expander pellet over 4mm pellet across and loose
fed maggot on the 5m line and in the first hour I got to watch Pez have a few
decent F1’s to my 1 ide and tiny f1 on pellet, I had an early look down the
edge and was rewarded with 2 decent f1’s on corn but I was going nowhere fast.
Again across for not a lot and Pez was still catching the odd fish so I went
for a walk to the van to cut some meat to try out.
As I got back to my peg the time was about half 2 and we
had 2 hours left of the practice match
so I started kinder cupping hemp, meat and corn down the edge and feeding
caster on the track line. I managed a couple of fish in quick order on meat but
they soon backed off so I potted in some more hemp corn and meat and then went
out onto the track line where I had a couple of ide and a couple of better
f1’s. This was how I worked it until the
end then trying to get a couple of fish from each line and then rotating but it
was never really good but I had a few.
We did the team brief as we walked around and it was
obvious that even though we had loads of room each the fish had not really been
having it, I think that Kev had top weight with about 70lb from extension pool
but the important match saw Pez weigh in 20kg and I managed 16Kg ish. So Pez took
the quid off me without gloating and handed it straight to Kev.
The guys went out for a curry when we got back but I was
already feeling a bit peeky and had no money so I decided on an early night,
come the morning I was feeling better but with a foggy start and traffic on the
way to the fishery Grant and I decided to bug out and get an early breakfast on
the way. Subway was the restaurant of choice and we were soon joined by Kev and
Pez so general mickey taking was again soon in full swing. Once at the fishery it was time to pay my
pools for the day to Grant and then I took a gamble and moved my van so that I
could un load it next to Extension lake, Gaz was running a little late so a
small flap occurred when he turned up to get bait to everyone, I also ‘borrowed’
quarter of a pint of micros off Gus, just in case.
It turned out that I was on the Fosters Team Army A team,
and that Gaz had drawn me Extension 29, this meant nothing to me until I was informed
that Grant and Jas had been sat on either side of it the day before and that
they had both struggled, but that was yesterday.
I had Craig to my right on peg 30 for company and 28 was
blank to my left, this was handy as the point of the island in the picture had
around 4 people aiming at it, so I decided to set up a pellet line at 3ft off
to the left hand side of the swim. I also plumbed up a 2+2 line at exactly 5ft
and then found an area with slightly less silt by feeling the plummet around,
it was hard to find anywhere better so in the end I settled on a slightly
flatter area with a good reflection to aim at. There was a culvert between
Craig and myself that we both plumbed up into (wish I had taken a photo of
that), and that was about 3ft deep and finally I plumbed up another line for
the margin rig to the left of the swim. Bait
was 2mm, 4mm pellet, caster, maggot, corn, hemp, meat and a little groundbait
so all bases were covered and Craig and myself went a quid before the all in as
we were in the same section and it would have been rude not to.
On the all in I was trying mainly to prepare the swim for
the last couple of hours as due to the high pressure, East wind and foggy
morning I didn’t think that a lot would happen for a while, so imagine my
surprise when Craig shipped out and came back with a decent F1 within 4 minutes
and this was followed by 4 more in the first 40 minutes, in this time all I managed
was a stocky and a lost looking F1!! I was starting to panic a little so had a quick
look on my left hand margin where I had been loose feeding maggot, and this
gave me 1 roach before going dead, oops!
Craig had been catching in fits and starts on his long
line and the guy to his right was catching a few down his edges, after 3 hours
I had managed 4 f1’s (1 from the culvert), a couple of roach and a couple of stocky carp so I was in
big trouble. It was at this point when I was looking around that I noticed a
guy 4 pegs up to my left catch 2 fish shallow on the bounce and as I looked to my right in
front of Craig and the guy on 31 there must have been 300lb of F1’s basking in
the surface layers. With nothing to lose I got off my box and pulled out a new
top kit loaded with double No.5 elastic and attached a shallow rig, I put on a
new hooklength with a 16 911 F1 to 0.10mm line baited it with double red maggot
and shipped it out to my long pole line, I loose fed 10 or so casters over the
top and the elastic came out as a decent F1 fell for the trap. I had 3 more
quickly before I decided that I could catch them quicker, I swapped the elastic
up to a Vespe Pink Hollow elastic and swapped the rig to a MW pea with a 0.12mm
hooklength and a size 16 B911. I shipped
this out and slapped away loose feeding caster over the top and the rest was
history. By stepping up I could hook the fish, feed then just ship back and
scoop it without worrying about hook pulls or breakages. I pulled out of 1 fish
in the last 2 hours and changed the hooklength straight away to prevent it
happening twice (now there’s a top tip), this saw me land 20 F1’s in the last
90 minutes and they were not easy by any stretch of the imagination as I had to
constantly alter depth and where in the swim I was fishing to keep the fish
coming. Some came to slapping, some came on the dangle, some came to lowering
the rig through tight loose feed, you get the picture. The all out was called as I was desperately trying
to land a fish to go out and get another and it was going to be close between
myself and the guy on peg 31 as he had a good couple of hours in the middle of
the match but fortunately he never saw the fish in front of him so he never
went shallow, Craig gave shallow a go but couldn't make it work which again was
another good thing for me.
As the scales came round it turned out that my section
went around from me being the end peg and then the other 5 pegs to my right,
Craig weighed first due to the direction of the scales with a mid 30lb weight
then I put 68lb on them so that was the quid won, all I had to do was beat the
other 4 anglers in my section who would be the last 4 to weigh. I needn't have worried as peg 31 put a mid 50lb weight onto the scales and this saw me win the
section and come 2nd in the match behind a 77lb net of shallow
caught F1’s ( the guy 4 up to my left).
We were all totting up score in our heads and Gaz was
pretty confident that we had done it as we had 4 section wins, 2 seconds a
third and a fifth/sixth. Back in on the results and the top 3 were:
1 Army A
2 Navy (on count-back or weight can’t remember which)
3 RAF
The highlight of the results for many was when I
questioned the results but it turned out that even though I was second overall
I didn't receive a pay-out as I ‘forgot’ to pay into the super pools and that
was that really, team photo was taken, well-done and goodbyes were said and
then it was back on the road and back to the grind in London.
What would I have done different?
Not a lot really:
I am still learning on F1 fishing and all the literature
out there was a good starter before I got there but I must keep reminding
myself that fish don’t always play to your set plan.
I need to work on my margin fishing more as I feel as
though I would have been better off fishing for carp like I normally do rather
than fannying around down the edge looking for F1’s.
After the matches I had a good long hard look at the
tackle I was using so be prepared to see a change in floats soon due to several
reasons.
