Todber Christmas Match, Wadmill, 18/12/2011

I had been looking forward to this match for a couple of months and come the morning of the match, bait was ready, rods were made up and I even had a few rigs ready. What was not ready was me, I thought the draw was at 9 o’clock and had aimed off to get there for around half eight, I was spot on with the time I picked Dave up and that we arrived but the draw was going on when we got there. Not the best start!

There were a few areas that I would have been happy to draw and they were all in open water, in fact experience has told me that the best area In the winter on Wadmill is between the 3^rd and 4^th island on the right hand bank from the car park, but any open water would have done me for my type of fishing. The draw gods were against me however, and I drew peg 14, this put slap bang in the middle of the 4^th island and I was not sure that many carp would be in that area.

As you can see from the photo, the island was around 20m away but I knew that the margins are reasonably shallow in that area so I decided to fish a small groundbait method around 3 meters from the far bank, I also thought that I would fish a short pole line on front of the reeds to my left so that I had somewhere to go if it all went wrong. There had been a decent frost in the morning and as I was setting up there was cat ice all the way across my peg, I thought that this may slow the fishing and took a proper gamble by concentrating on Carp and skimmers on the method rather than taking a safer option of perhaps fishing for silvers.

I set up a 10ft Force Commercial bomb with a small inline method feeder on 8lb mainline and had a 0.16mm Cenex hooklength 4 inches long with a size 16 Guru QM1 hook. This would have a sweet fishmeal groundbait around the feeder and a single dead red maggot on the hook to try and catch anything swimming. My pole rig was a 0.7g Frenzee FP500 on 0.18-0.14mm Cenex with an 18 B911hook, this was rigged on blue Reflex elastic to start and plumbed up to be fishing 2inches overdepth on 6m of my Z9 pole. I decided to feed hemp, corn and 6mm tiger nut pellet on the short pole line to try and attract in a fish at a time.

The all in sounded and I was ready for it, half a cup of bait went in on the short pole line, and then I cast the method across towards the island. The next few minutes amazed me as anglers all around me continued to pile in bait all over their swims as though it was the middle of summer, I had thought about recasting every 10 minutes but all the bait going in saw me revise this to 20 minutes minimum as I wanted to create a safe area in front of me for the carp to swim in freely.

The first three hours passed with only 3 small skimmers and a roach to show for patience on the tip, most of the guys to my left had caught carp from the open water, the peg 2 to my left had caught 5 by this time and lost a few more on the method, even the guy to my right had lost a carp on the bomb but he was casting towards the point of the island. At this point I decided to change my pole rig slightly and I plumbed up a swim at 11.5m just to the right of centre of the peg down wind, I then fed 4 balls of groundbait laced with dead maggot and a few pellets before going back out on the tip for 20mins. By this time I had tried casting a bomb to the extremities of my swim, the short pole and also popped up baits to try and tempt a carp so plan z was in order. I shipped my rig onto the new spot with double dead maggot and I caught a couple of small roach quite quick but thought it could be quicker. I cast the feeder out again after putting out a cup of loose groundbait at 11.5m and also 2 balls on my short pole line again with dead maggot in. I changed my hooklength down to a 0.12mm and also changed the elastic to a pink reflex so that I should not bump the small fish. I went back out at to 11.5m and found that lifting and dropping the bait gave me a quick run of skimmers and small roach, this also worked at 6m but it was still slow. The last 10 minutes saw me cast out the tip and pack up the rest of my kit around it, it did not move!

I finished with 3lb 13oz, this was enough for 25^th out of 35, importantly I beat Pez who was sat on the opposite bank in the gap between the 3^rd and 4^th island, and Dave who was sat to my right and had lost a carp around halfway through the match. It was still a giggle just a shame that the fishing was not as expected with 53lb winning the match from 2 pegs to my left, then a couple of 30lb weights. All the top 3 came from gaps in the islands I believe, I hate being right!!

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas.

AT WL Rd 6, Bristol Avon, Melksham

The meet for the match was at the spencer club and Barry drew the team peg 5 and put me on G section, this was along the forest stretch in Melksham so I did not have far to travel at all. On getting to my peg I was directly upstream of a busy footbridge, and I was reliably informed that the last match had seen the section winner on my peg. I looked at the water and decided to fish a bread line on the pole, a stick under the bridge and I would also set up a tip rod if it was hard.

I set up 2 pole rigs both Drennan Carbo floats on 0.12mm to 0.08mm Cenex line and 20 B511’s with No.5 elastic through both top kits. One float was 0.75g shotted with no. 8’s as a bulk the other had an Olivetti and required 1.5g. I then set up an 8 no.6 to trot under the bridge down the inside with caster and also a tip rod that was 0.20 slow sinking match line straight through to a size 10 Carbon feeder hook, this I had set up as a link ledger with 2 swan shot.

At the all in I fed a small ball of licky onto the pole line and went over the top with the gram and a half rig, I did not have a touch even after changing to the lighter rig, changing depth and lightening the hooklength. I chucked the tip under the bridge with half a lobworm looking for a chub, tried the stick for 30 minutes and up until the last 15 mins all I had to show was a small perch that I had mugged of the end of my keepnet when it swam past. I also caught 2 roach on bread that I had continued to feed religiously for the duration of the day from on the bread line in the last 15 mins but that was it.

I finished with 7oz; this was enough for 5^th out of 7 anglers in my section and the results for the day saw that the team, even with 2 section winners and a section second had not done well and we were 6^th on the day and 5^th in the league.

AAF Winter Challenge, Witherington Farm

This is the Army’s annual Christmas match and so with that in mind Chris and myself were late to help John unload all the prizes from his van (Tractors), so scales organised, prizes sorted tables commandeered the draw went ahead. Everybody had to draw their peg from in a Christmas cracker, laugh at the joke wear the hat etc, anyway, I was drawn peg 78 on Inner snake, and I knew that at the weekend not alot had come from the area in which I was sat so I expected the worst when I was setting up.

To that end I decided on 2 5m lines at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, then 2 margin lines and I also set up a rig to fish across but due to the wind I was unsure if it would get used. The 5m rig was a 0.5g Frenzee FP500 float on 0.16mm Cenex to a 0.12mm bottom and an 18 Tubertini 808 Hook, this was set on pink Browning reflex elastic through a tension puller kit. My Margin rig was a 0.4g Drennan Carp 7 on 0.18mm Mainline to a 0.12mm bottom and an 18 B911; this was rigged on yellow reflex elastic, again through a tension puller kit. My far side rig was again on pink Cenex and had the same line and hook as the track rig, the main difference was the float as it was a 4X14 Preston PB Carp5.

My side tray was full of pellet, corn, meat, expanders, maggots (alive and dead) and groundbait and at the all in I fed all my lines frugally and started to fish on the 5m lines, even here was tricky to fish due to the stiff cross wind and after 30 minutes I chucked a method feeder across the canal on my bomb rod. I received a couple of small liners and after 25minutes (still first cast) the tip went round with carp no.1 on the end, I had 2 more in quick succession and then it went quiet again. I found that over the next couple of hours if I sat on a cast long enough the tip would go round with either a carp or skimmer on the end. My rig was a small inline method feeder running on a 12” twisted loop, this was stopped on the line with a Korum quick change bead, and my hooklength was 0.16mm Cenex to a size 16 QM1 hook. I was fishing a single dead red on the hook and barely covering the feeder in groundbait so that the hookbait would be the only solid food there. I kept on looking over all my pole lines and only dropped a small roach on my LH Margin line, the rest of the time was taken up casting out the tip and waiting for an indication.

I finished with 6 carp and 3 skimmers for 21lb 10oz; this was enough for a section win and another second in the match with Mayo Jnr catching 28lb from Cottage. It was a cold boring day but I learnt a fair bit about method fishing in the winter. Back to the river at the weekend though, no methods there!

AT winter League Round 5, K&A Canal 4/12/11

This was a round that after last week I was looking forward to as the canal was clear and cold and I believe that this plays into my strengths BREAD. To this end I had packed bread and a bit of worm and caster, so this would be my plan for the day. Barry drew me out B7 and this saw me off to another part of canal that I have never fished before, Wolfhall. On getting to my peg I had a reed bed in front of me at around 13m and I earmarked both edges for worm lines and then I could use the front for a desperation bread line, I set up the same rigs as last week and also a lobworm rig that consisted of 0.18mm to 0.14mm Cenex, a size 10 hook, a buoyant stumpy float and a short length of medium hollow elastic down my top kit. The plan was that if the float went under whatever was on the end would end up in the keepnet. My bread rigs were again the 0.12mm to 0.08mm and size 20 B511’s on pencil floats and no.5 or no.3 elastic. I did however, have a little time before the all in so I also set up a 3.5m whip to fish over the inside bread line, this had 0.12mm mainline to a 0.09bottom and an 18 B511, the float was a 0.5g Drennan Pinkie. The all in came and I fed a small ball of licky on the inside line and also lobworm on one side of the reeds and dendys on the other, I shipped out the short pole and missed a bite straight away before landing 2 roach on the bounce, this was enough for me to try the whip. Although, it was not frantic I was able to put short runs of roach into the net over the first hour and I ended up with 33 roach in the net, the swim had slowed so I tried the worm lines to no avail. The golden hour had finished and although I was only a peg away from the end peg I could not put together any decent runs of roach, possible due to pike but I will never know for sure. For the remainder of the match I rotated around my worm lines and two bread lines at 4m and 13m for a total of around 90 fish, I only had 1 bite on the worm lines all day and can only think that I should have fed them then fished them sooner rather than leaving them for an hour so all the bait could get eaten!

The final round is on the Bristol Avon at Chippenham and Melksham so that should be fun.

Withy TO4 031211

I was on Selwood again as ‘Someone had to’ but I was more than happy with this as the more time I can spend on the lake the better I will know it. John came back from the draw with peg 15, this was one of my preferred pegs but due to the weather I felt as though I would not be able to fish it how I would want. The peg gave me an island at 17.5m but due to pegs 14 and 16 both being in that was about it, so I decided to fish a skimmer line at an easy to fish distance, a corn line as close to the island as I could reach with my pole and a 5m line. My skimmer line was set on Pink Reflex elastic and comprised of a 4X14 float on 0.16mm mainline to a 0.12mm bottom and an 18, 808. This was plumbed up from 9 to 14.5m all across my swim and I managed to find a shallow depression at 11.5m just to the left of my swim; this was earmarked for my skimmer line. I found the same depth at 5m and at 16m so the same rig was used for both, a 4X14 Drennan Carp 2 on 0.18mm Cenex mainline to a 0.14mm bottom and terminated in an 18 B911, this was set on yellow Reflex elastic as I was hoping for mainly carp on this rig. As I had a bit of time before the all in I also pulled a bomb rod out of the bag just in case, this was a 10ft Force Commercial Bomb with a Black Magic 030 loaded with 0.22mm slow sink match line, a simple running rig incorporating a snap link swivel to attach a variety of hooklengths and a 3/4oz Hybrid distance pear lead.

My bait was simple enough, some hemp, corn, 6mm and 8mm meat, dead maggot, expanders and mixed softened 3 and 4mm carp pellet. At the all in I fed a small ball of pellet on my 11.5m line, a quarter cup of hemp and some corn on my 5m line then a pinch of hemp and corn on the 16m line which is where I started, due to the strengthening wind I decided to do all my feeding through a dedicated cupping kit rather than have kinder cups on the end of my top kits. I did not get so much as an indication on any of my lines for around 2 hours and a strengthening wind saw me abandon my 16m line so to try and snag a bite I started using a tiny pellet cone on the bomb and cast it close to the island, this gave me a small carp but then nothing else followed.

After 4 ½ hours I had caught 1 small carp and as I was rotating through my swims for the last time when I looked on my 14.5m line the float went under with a skimmer on the end, this was closely followed by 5 more of his mates before they disappeared again. The all out was called and I had ended up with 1 carp and 6 skimmers for 8lb odd and enough for 5^th in a section of 10. I had been beaten by predominantly skimmer weights by guys fishing dead maggot over pellet (one for the memory bank) but peg 11 again won the lake with 5 fish for 20lb odd. If I could have done it again I would have fished a small method feeder to the island with dead red to try and snag a few more fish rather that concentrating on big baits for the lumpy carp. Always next month!!

Angling Trust Winter League Practice,27/11/2011

This was an important match for me as I had not done as well as I would have liked in the previous round so I needed a confidence boost. After the customary bap at the football club I drew  a peg on the roadside stretch, and on getting to my peg I was told that I would be up against it as the pegs to my left were historically better.

I decided to fish a bread line at 5 and 13m then to try a worm line tight across to the far bank foliage at 14.5m to my left. My bread rigs were a 4X14 and 0.6g pencil float both on 0.12mm mainline to 0.08mm bottoms and 20 B511, the inside rig was set on no.5 Cenex elastic and the far rig was on no.3. The worm rig was a 4X12 Carpa Chimp on 0.18mm mainline to a o.14mm Cenex bottom and a 16 Drennan wide gape match hook, this was set on a medium hollow elastic rigged through only 1 section of my Z9. If I hooked 1 it wasn’t coming off or snagging me in the far bank foliage!

At the all in I fed a small ball of licky bread at 5m and went straight over the top with a 4mm punch on my hook, bites came instantly and in the first hour I had around 30 roach in the net but they were very small so I fed my worm line and had a look after 10 minutes. I had indications instantly across and after about a minute I was rewarded with a roach but then I hooked something alot bigger. It was long, thin, and green and had big teeth so the pike was not attached for long, I fed the worm line with another 10 worms and went back onto my 5m bread line. This had slowed drastically but I was able to keep the odd fish trickling in until I looked on the worm line again, this saw me latch into another big fish but this time a 2lb 3oz Perch was safely transferred to the keepnet.

This was the end of the big fish action across and for the rest of the match I rotated through my 3 lines picking up odd roach on the bread lines but they were very small until in the last 30 minutes I re fed my 5m line and went straight over the top with nearly instant success and a run of slightly bigger roach saw me up until the all out.

I finished with 5lb 8oz and this was only good enough for 5^th in my 7 peg section, but I had learnt alot and gained a bit of confidence in my worm fishing. Next week I will try to put it into practice.

AAF Gp2 Mt2 Bristol Avon, Chippenham, 16/11/2011

So it was back to my old stomping ground in Chippenham on the Avon, and after the previous round I was looking for a better result so that I might be able to get my mojo back and start to get back up the leader board again. My day started at 4am with an alarm clock going off in my ear as I had to pick Chris up at 0445 so that we could get on the river early and peg it for the day’s festivities. We had a good run and arrived at Riverside drive at around 0620, it was still pitch black so the pegging was done by headlamps and torches, we had 39 pegs to place and a couple of areas to avoid, namely the straight known as the dead stretch and also the peg that I nearly blanked off earlier in the year. That said we ran A section all the way through Riverside drive and a couple down on Westinghouse drain, putting nearly every peg in due to the lack of flow, B section then started at the shallows in the trees and although we missed out a few pegs towards the end of the line of trees ( we could see the weed and bottom all the way to the far side with pants torches) it still finished well before the Sailing club on some half decent pegs. Finally C section was started at the blue bridge and we ran it downstream into the park trying to leave out as many big gaps as possible to keep it as fair as possible. Pegging the match length let me see which numbers that Ian would need to pull out for us later that morning and the perfect draw would have been A1, A7, A11, B4 or B11-13 and anywhere in C section, as I thought that these pegs would give the team the best chance of a top 3 in each section. Eventually Chris and I got to the draw location, had a breakfast and then the work began. Ian came through the draw and the team had the following, Chris A9, Ian B13 and I was on C1, it looked good on paper with Chris being on probably the favoured peg but both mine and Ian’s could produce with chublet in Ian’s from the far bank and the same for me under the tree cover.

I dropped Chris off at Riverside Drive and then found some roadside parking barely 100m from my peg (Result); I pushed my barrow down the path to my peg and was happy with what greeted me. In the half light when we had been pegging it I had not really looked at the peg but now I was happy with marginal shelf weed and far bank cover it looked good for a few pounds and I decided that even with the lack of colour and flow my target weight would be 3Kg.

 

So I started setting up rigs and decided on fishing a single pole line down the middle at 13m with bread, wag and mag across under the trees and also put a worm line in just past the weed downstream for a perch. I set up a 0.75g Carbo on 0.12mm Cenex with a 0.08mm hooklength of the same material and a 20 B511, this was shotted with a bulk of no.8 shot 18 inches from the hook and 3 no.10s spread under the bulk, this was rigged on no.5 Cenex elastic through 3 sections. My second rig for the middle was a 1.25g DS 14 H with the same line, elastic and hook as the other rig but this time the shotting pattern was an ollivette 2 feet from the hook and 5 no.12 droppers. My waggler rig consisted of a 14ft Browning Zitan match rod, Black Magic reel loaded with 3lb Maxima mainline, a 3BB Browning loaded insert waggler attached by a caraluso waggler adapter, a 0.10mm Cenex hooklength and a size 20 Drennan wide gape match hook. I also set up a worm rig and plumbed it up but that’s about it so I won’t go into it.

I called the all in (Even though I was not ready) and then shipped out a ball of bread feed onto my 13m line, the Carbo rig closely followed it and I had a bite first drop in that I missed, and the second that again I missed. Already frustrated I came down a punch size to 4mm and started to hit the odd bite, Roach at around 10 to the pound and a couple a bit bigger started to come in and at the end of the first hour I had 16 roach in the net for around a Kilo. The bites had slowed so I re fed with a small nugget of bread and threw the waggler across for 5 minutes; this gave me 3 small perch so I went back onto the pole line. It was around this time that disaster struck!

The story is as follows: a month ago I went fishing at Nutford on the Dorset Stour, the field was full of cows but I decided to fish anyway. Whilst I was getting a bucket of water to make my groundbait up with I had a very inquisitive cow stamp all over my kit and it managed to hit my rod bag without me noticing. I fished for the day using the pole up to 11.5m and did not notice anything wrong with it; however, the cow had split the 14.5 and 13m sections and also put long hairline fractures into the 10 and 11.5m sections. I replaced the two bottom sections last month but thought the little cracks would be ok!

Back to Chippenham I was missing a few bite so I decided to work really hard at hitting them, but I got a little carried away on one and the 11.5m section broke in 2 right on the crack that the cow had put into it. I was not a happy bunny. I telescoped the sections through and carried on but I needed a break so walked my section taking a few photos for the newsletter. On my walk I saw people struggling to catch bleak, or anything and it transpired that the whole river was fishing desperately hard so I was doing alright, Pete Coleman however, was catching the odd better perch and I saw him landing one of about a pound as I walked past. I needed to get back to my peg and get my head down so I did, it was still hard but the fish turned on a little in the last hour and I caught 3 chublet for 12oz and also a few Roach on the pole line saw me add around a pound in the last 30 minutes.

The scales came round quick and it really had been hard, my 33 fish weighed in at 2.230kg so a good day had been had however, Pete had emptied his swim of perch and his 8 fish came in at 3.240kg so he had done me by a clear 2lb!! At the results this proved to be enough for 1^st and 2^nd in the match for the pair of us as well, so the stretch had fished really hard, at the end people were moaning about the pegging but I was fine with that as it certainly was interesting. Congratulations again to Pete and the next round is on the Kennet and Avon Canal at Bishops Cannings so more bread fishing for me.

Pete Coleman and his match winning bag.

Jefferies Cup, River Nene

This was my first visit to the Nene and I had been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks, rigs and hooklengths were tied ready and the rest of my kit was well prepped. I drew a peg about 3 pegs upstream of a small footbridge, an area that I was told would normally be run to by the guys fishing, ‘Normally?’ I replied, and soon found out why.

It was 13m wide and around 4 feet deep so perfect for a bit of bread fishing, especially since the river was so clear, I set up a 0.75g Drennan carbo on 0.12mm Cenex mainline and a 0.08mm bottom of the same material, with a 20 B511, all set on a top 4 rig with no.5 Cenex elastic through 3 sections. I also set up a strung styl hemp rig and a worm rig but enough about them as neither produced a bite. At the all in I fed a small ball of licky bread at 5m in front of me and 4 balls of groundbait at 11m downstream at 2 o’clock, before shipping out a 4mm punch onto my 5m line.
Basically nothing happened, I re-fed with ting nuggets of bread to try and attract the roach onto that line but it did not work, started a worm line but nothing on that and I had no indications on my groundbait line. The RAF angler to my right had caught about a dozen roach in the first 2 hours so I needed to catch something to save face and I got off my box and ‘adapted’ a hemp rig into a light bread rig. 0.10mm mainline, 0.07mm Cenex bottom with a 20 B511 all set on no.3 Cenex elastic. The float was a slim 0.2g pattern with a hollow bristle and I plumbed this up on a line under the tree in front of me at about 10m fed a tiny pinch of loose licky (as there was next to no flow) then went over the top with a 4mm punch. I had an almost instant response but missed my first couple of bites but a change to a 3mm punch sorted that out and I was soon putting skimmers into the net. Not bad I thought but the skimmers were around 20-25 to the pound with the odd slighty better roach thrown in for good measure, I found that you could not take too many fish from the line on the bounce as they would back off. I nurtured the swim as much as possible and at the end of the match I had done a good job of trying to catch up and thought I had possibly 2kg in the net, the scales however, told a different tale and the fish were alot smaller than I had thought (plus I did not count them) and I ended up with 2lb 6oz. This was enough for 5th in a 15peg section but I was not impressed with my first visit to the river, the section was won with a joint weight of 3lb 1.5oz so all I needed was another line perhaps that I could have caught on and it would have been enough.


Lessons learnt were to stick to my guns! I saw that the river was tap water clear and thought hat bread would be the way but still fed a groundbait line!! And, never give in as the last hour was the best as the light started to fade.

Withy To4, 5 Nov 2011

For this match it had been decided that I would be fishing Selwood lake, this meant that I was in for a tough day and that I needed to be drawn a decent peg, I wanted an island chuck as I felt that this would give me the best chance of catching my target weight. Keith returned from the draw with peg 11, this was not really what I wanted as I had no island chuck and was basically forced into fishing towards the corner. To make my life easier I set by box up facing down towards the corner to the right and plumbed up a number of swims along the bank. The starter rig for here consisted of a 0.18mm mainline to 0.16mm bottom and a size 2 Tubertini 175 hook. This was set on medium hollow elastic and had a short robust float attached to try and survive the far margins in which there were overhanging reeds and a platform to contend with. I also set up a dobbing rig for down and around the corner, this was 0.18mm mainline to 0.14mm bottom with a 16 B911 hook on yellow Reflex hollow elastic. The float was a 4X12 Big H border and the bait was 8mm punched bread. Finally I plumbed up a Drennan Carp 7 on 0.16 to 0.14mm line with an 18 B911 again on yellow Reflex elastic, at 2+2 straight in front of my platform where the depth was only 2 feet deep. The theory was that if fish were on that line I should be able to see them, and I was going to fish meat on this line for the resident skimmers and big carp.

I was set up with plenty of time to spare and watched the water before the all in, also chatting with the other anglers, it turned out that last time the lake had been won with 20 odd pounds! The average size of carp in the lake is around 7-8 lb so I only needed 3 or 4 for good points and now my target weight was halved to 20lb, shouldn’t be too hard.

The all in was called and I shipped my dobbing rig into various spots along the right margin for the first 30 minutes, I did not even get an indication until I had worked my way all the way to in front of the next platform, at 16m the float dipped and I was attached to fish no.1. At 3oz I was not really after roach, but had a couple more looks in that area for a couple more as I was now off the mark. I decided at this point to feed 2 of the spots that I had earmarked when plumbing up and put a small helping of hemp and corn on the left and pellet and meat on the right. The rest of the day was really a case of chopping and changing over the 2 lines to try and maximise my chance of catching a carp, this also saw me changing the way I fed the right swim a couple of times but all I had from there was a couple of roach. In fact there was not even a sign of a carp on the right hand swim but when a fish moved into the left swim they gave themselves away by bubbling freely.

I managed to land 2 carp from the left swim, one of 6lb and a baby at 3-4lb, I also lost two fish into the reeds and under the platform due to my elastic being too soft and stretchy, something that I will be looking to change in the future. The 5m line also showed fish moving across it all afternoon, I caught a couple of skimmers before the big carp moved in, I landed one at 9-10lb and spooked another couple from under my pole tip. It was either the pole or rig spooking them so I have bought a couple of smaller stumpier floats to try and prevent the fish spooking. The all out was called too soon as I had two carp feeding on my 5m line at the time but I had ended up with 3 carp and a few bits for a total weight of just over 19lb, this was enough for a section win with 2^nd catching 4 carp for 18lb but the weights were very tight and if I had not caught the roach and skimmers I would have been 3^rd or 4^th in section.

I learnt a few lessons, basically about how to feed on the day and to try and keep my loosefed meat tighter as when it was closely grouped the bites came quicker.

AT WL Round 3, K&A, 30/10/11

This round got moved from the river as Staverton had not fished well, so we were off to a stretch of canal that only a few people had practiced. Not a good start. A bacon butty and coffee despatched before the draw, and Barry drew me out a peg along the Beeches stretch of the canal. I got quite excited as I walked along the towpath looking at all the swims with far bank features and the word on the bank being that mine was a section full of bonus fish. I got to my peg and suddenly realised that I was about to have a bad day out of the 7 pegs in the section mine 2 had no real far bank features to speak of and mine was the worst of the two. Kevin Rowles on his walk to the end peg of my section (not where you want to see him) stopped to tell me that I would do well to beat the end pegs from my peg and then Barry tipped up and told me that I would be lucky to beat anybody from my peg.

This made my mind up and my plan for the day was to catch as many roach as possible and to look on a bonus line but not to concentrate on it like I thought that a few others would do. I set up a 5m bread rig, 0.6g float on 0.12mm main and a 0.08mm bottom to a 20 B511 and no.5 elastic through 3 sections. I also set up an on the drop rig for 11m and a deck rig for the same line, both on 0.1-0.07mm with 22 B590 hooks and no.2 and 3 elastic respectively. I set up a skimmer rig for the 11m line, a track worm rig and a far bank bread rig just in case it was harder than I would like but due to the ship back I would prefer to fish shorter.

At the all in I fed a Satsuma of licky at 5m and then 3balls of No.1 groundbait with a few squats and pinkies at 11m before dropping my bread rig in close. It took a couple of minutes but I soon had fish no.1 in the net but the problem was that the guys either side had both caught bonus fish in the first 10 minutes. I decided to try and ignore them and get my head down but after 40mins I had caught 25 roach for 2lb and the guy to my left had taken a hybrid and a big perch already and the guy to my right had caught a skimmer of about a pound. I was about to go over my 11m line when I looked up and witnessed a pike strike right on top of my feed so I fed a small ball of groundbait and also my worm lines and had another look inside. After 5 minutes I shipped out a half a dendrabena and looked on my 1^st worm line, nothing happened so I looked on my second, after about 80 secs the float slid away, I struck and bumped off what felt like a small perch. Next put in I had a small tommy ruffe so that was chucked up the bank in disgust and I looked on the 11m line. I was able to catch roach at about 80 to the pound quite quick but I started to have pike problems with them striking on my feed area. To overcome this I started a bread line at 14.5m and could catch quite quickly but I saw the guy 2 pegs to my left catch a small carp and a perch in quick succession so decided to start a worm line right over in about 14 inches of water. This backfired with only a small perch to show for my efforts and a destroyed bread line so for the last 45 minutes I got my head down on the 11m line. I found that every time there was a strike on that line then a small ball of groundbait brought them back within 10 minutes, still not quick enough. The all out could not come soon enough as the end pegs had smashed the section and the guy to my left had caught a few as well, I was on scales and Kev Rowles had nearly 30lb of carp and skimmers from the left end peg. The right end peg had caught 18lb+ for second and finally the guy to my right had 14lb ish. My 4lb 1.5oz was only enough for 6^th but I had been 1.5ozs away from 4^th!! I had taken the right plan for the peg but felt let down at the end to have been so close when competing against the pegs I was. Still at least I know what to do next time.

Lessons learnt were again don’t try to chase big fish if there are none there. Hare and the tortoise springs to mind!!

AT WL Prac, Bristol Avon

This was my first ever trip to this stretch apart from the odd walk along its banks with the dog a few years ago, I had always fancied a trip there and was pleasantly surprised when B15 stuck in my mitt at the draw. When I got to my peg I had around 20m of width with most of the flow across, there was a tree overhanging just downstream of my peg and I fancied it for a few perch. I set up my platform and soon noticed that there may be a problem in the form of the local rowing club as they were obviously training and boats were up and down like a fiddlers elbow. Unperturbed I carried on and after mixing my ground bait I started to set up my top kits, my plan was to fish a long pole line for Roach, a short line with chopped worm and also I set up a waggler to fish across and downstream of where I was sat. My first rig was a 1.5g float on 0.12 to a 0.08mm bottom and size 20 on no.5 elastic and the other 2 Roach rigs were all the same apart from the floats, with a 1g pencil and a 0.6g nevis also getting set up. The inside rig was a 0.7g FP500 float on 0.14mm main to a 0.12mm bottom and a 16 wide gape match, due to the amount of weed I had this set on 10 solid elastic and I also chucked a weed rake out to 13m in front and to 10m under the tree as the plummet would not settle properly. My long pole line was at 14.5m to avoid the weed and find some flow so at the all in I cupped 10 balls of groundbait containing pinkie, caster and hemp out to the spot. I went straight over the top with my heavy rig double bulked and was rewarded with 4 fish in 4 puts before it got a little harder, then it was a case of catching a couple of fish and then changing something. After about 2 hours I had 30 fish for around 4lb when the rowers stopped, the wind picked up and my swim turned into an unfishable layer of pond weed.

The only way that I could get to fish was with the waggler, so that I did for small roach, chublet and bleak for the rest of the match. Over the last 3 hours I caught about a pound of fish due to being unable to present bait and I caught best when I dragged my float under the pond weed.

My match finished with a credible 5lb 1oz unfortunately only good enough for 3^rd in section with a big 6 and a big 7lb weight both coming from further upstream to my right. I did however; beat the pegs to either side so that made me feel better considering the duckweed ruining my day. Always next week, the team had a reasonable day with a section win and a few other pickups.

AAF Gp2 Mt 1 K&A canal, Bishops Canning

My alarm went off at 4am for this match so that I had enough time to get to the venue and peg the match length. However, I still had enough time for a breakfast and also a quick dash with a couple more pegs that I needed to add to the end of the match length when a couple of extra people tipped up without booking in. I had peg B7 pulled out of the bag with my name on and I knew straight away that I would be up against it, I briefed Pez and Dave the best I could remember on their pegs and then travelled down to my peg.

The swim was a standard straight bit of canal, I had the bend to my right that usually contained a few better skimmers so I was hoping that perhaps one or two of them might stray as far as me, however, due to the recent frosts the colour had dropped out of the water drastically and I was in two minds as to even try for them. I set up a bread rig, 4ft deep at 4m, 0.12mm mainline to a 0.08mm bottom and a 20 B511 with a 0.6g pencil float and no.5 elastic through 3 sections. I also set up a deck squatt rig of a 0.1mm mainline, 0.07mm bottom and a 22 B590 with a 0.3g Classic 6 on no.3 elastic and an on the drop rig that consisted of the same line and hook but a slim browning float and no.2 elastic. I had a small overhanging bush at 14 m to my right so I set up a worm rig for that line on Pink Reflex elastic, 0.14mm mainline, 0.12mm bottom and a 16 wide gape match under a 0.5g FP500 float; this was also the same depth as under my keepnet so a second worm line was planned for there. I had a bit of time left after mixing my groundbait and prepping my caster, so I set up a skimmer rig and a bread rig for in the reeds on the far bank, the skimmer rig was 0.12mm mainline to a 0.1mm bottom and an 18 wide gape match under a 4X16 Chimp on No.5 elastic. The bread rig was the same as the close in rig but under a 4X12 float and no.3 elastic.

Before I knew it the all in was upon me and I potted in a Satsuma of licky with a bit of loose bread in on my 4m line, and then I shipped across to my 11.5m line with 4 balls of groundbait laced with squatt, dead pinkie and a few caster. I then dropped my bread rig in at 4m and awaited results, after 40 mins I had had 25 fish all on bread but had over fed the swim (again) so decided to try the squatt line, before I started on this line though I fed 10 worms and a pinch of caster under the tree. Back on the squatt line and I was straight into fish, however, at 25 to the pound I was going nowhere fast and decided to concentrate on catching a skimmer after the guys to either side of me had one. This proved to be the worst thing I could have done and over the last couple of hours I managed a couple of small perch on the worm lines and some small roach that hung themselves on big maggot.

The match was over before I knew it but not before the heavens opened and soaked us all, I had managed to catch 1.560Kg but this was only enough for 6^th out of my 11 man section. I had not been far off with only a pound needed for 3^rd in section but targeting the skimmers was not the way to go, as a team Dave and I had blown out but Pez continued his run with a 3^rd in section from a tricky area so not all was lost. Still next month it is the Bristol Avon at Chippenham!!!

AT Upper Thames WL, Rd 2 K&A Canal, 16/10/2011

As you can see from the picture I was the first recipient of the ‘infamous’ Pink Flamingo, this was for an indiscretion earlier in the year but I digress, back to the fishing. At the draw Barry came out with G4, this put me around the area that I had been on last week and the speculation around the team was that it was the peg that won it last match. On walking along the section I finally found my peg, 2 along from where I wanted and in front of next to no cover and the same problems with the lack of depth over to look forward to. As I thought that I would be off the fish so to speak it made my mind up for me that I would be concentrating on small fish for the day, I plumbed the same bread rig as last week at 4ft deep and then set up a deck squatt and an on the drop squatt rig both plumbed up at 13m in around 2ft of water. My reason for this was simple, hopefully the boats would not go that far over to get around the corner, sound in theory but only time would tell.

My squatt rigs were 0.1mm Cenex to 0.07mm Cenex and 22 B590 hooks on no.2 or 3 elastic, the deck rig was a 0.3g Classic 6 and the OTD was a 0.1g Browning slim. I also set up a worm rig and a shallow bread rig but I hoped that I would not need to use either. On the all in I cupped in a small ball of licky at 5m and 2 balls of groundbait with some loose squatt at 13m and I started on a 5mm punch on the short bread line. Same as last week it did not take long for my first fish and I soon had around 20 in the net, but then the first boat of the day came through and coloured the water up stopping the action almost immediately. I fed my worm line and then started to work the long line but it was hard work in the shallow water and we were not helped by the number of boats that were taking full advantage of the Indian summer. The 2 pegs to my left were easily running away with the section as they both had skimmers in the bag by the half way stage but I was steadily catching fish at around 20 to the pound so the weight was steadily growing. I had a couple of looks on my worm line and also across at 14.5m in the shallow water with bread but my best line was the 13m groundbait line. I finished with over 75 fish for 3lb 15oz and a 4^th in section so it was as expected. The team managed a 4^th on the day with some good results and some not so good ones but the best news for me was that the Flamingo found a new home.

Browning Sponsored Anglers Match, Colemans Cottage 12/10/2011

This was Browning Andover’s first trip to this event and we were all looking forward to it, none of us had seen the venue but funnily enough even though we had all set off at different times from different places we all meet up at the same services on the route across. I had left the house at 4am, picked John up at 5am; we had a couple of stops on the way there and still arrived with loads of time for a second breakfast before the draw. The draw was an interesting affair, but finally I ended up heading for peg 25 on Wood Lake, it was on the side of a point and I had a small bunch of lilies at about 15m, a small sparse bush to my left margin and a tuft of reeds in my right margin. I had not repaired my pole or had anybody look at it; however, I borrowed a few sections from Dave G but decided against using them unless I was struggling. I set my stall around the pellet feeder to the lilies, a 5m pellet line and corn down the edge, the thinking being that if I was going to catch one of these tactics should do it for me.

The pellet Rig was a Frenzee FP500 on 0.16mm to a 0.14mm bottom and an 18 B911 hook to start, this was set on yellow Reflex hollow elastic and a small kinder cup was put on the tip of my tension puller kit. My Corn rig was a 0.2g FP850 float on 0.18mm mainline and a 0.16mm bottom to a size 2 Tubertini 175. Finally my pellet feeder was set on a Force 10ft Carp Feeder and a Black Magic 030 Front drag reel, 8lb mainline and a 0.20mm hooklength with a 16 QM1 and micro bait band. For bait I had 1pt softened 2mm, 1pt softened 4mm carp pellets, 2pints Hemp, a tin of corn and a few expander pellets. At the all in I shipped out with my pellet rig and a 4mm expander on the hook, I tipped in a small nugget of pellet mixed together and awaited events. Within 2 minutes F1 no.1 was on its way to the net and this was followed by a string of skimmers, with lots of fizzing happening I decided to try scaling down my hooklength as the water was very clear and cut back on the feed. This worked to some extent with a couple of F1’s finding their way to the net but the guys around me were all catching proper carp so I needed to find a way to catch them to catch up. I cast out the pellet feeder to the lilies and fed some pellet and corn by hand down each edge, I had a couple of small F1’s on the tip but noticed fish mopping up all my feed down the edge. I had a look on the corn rig but they would not settle and the angle of the sun was causing them to spook too easily so I decided to rotate around my other lines for a while.

Up until the start of the forth hour I had around 30lb in the net with a couple of small carp succumbing to the pellet feeder and short pole but I was going nowhere fast, it was at this point I decided to concentrate on the margins as I had been watching fish mooching about for most of the afternoon. I tried the corn rig and had a quick fish but it did not feel right so I got off my box and set up a margin paste rig, this transformed my match and by getting into a rhythm of hooking a fish, feeding both sides then concentrating on the opposite side I was able to start to amass a weight.

By the end of the match I had arm ache as the fish were so fit but I ended up with a respectable 118lb, this put me 4^th overall on the day.

The day was finished off with getting to play with the new Z12 pole,  a small meeting, some food and a raffle that saw me win a new rod (When you’re on a roll!!) before the small 3hr drive home. Everybody had a great day and I cannot wait till next year.

AT WL Prac K&A 09/10/2011

This round was held along the Seend Park and Bowerhill stretch of the K&A around Melksham, with 60+ anglers booked in it would be a good day and a good indicator for the actual round next week. Breakfast was in the form of a bacon roll and a coffee at the draw and a good old chat was had with the rest of the team around tactics. I drew peg 63 and this was 4 from the end peg at the good end, just off the bream pegs. I thought I would be in for a good day and after negotiating the stile at the end of the field it was a short 5 minute stroll to my peg. I had a bramble dangling in on the far bank so thought that this would be a good place to start however, when I pulled my pole out of my bag I discovered that whilst I had been practicing on the Dorset Stour earlier in the week A Cow that I had thought missed my pole bag actually hadn’t!! I had an 8 inch crack along the 14.5m pole section that was straight through to the inside of the section and on inspecting the rest of the pole there was a lesser one on the 13m section aswell. This was a disaster as I now had only 11.5m of pole that I could happily use until I could get it checked out, this on top of the fact that I was supposed to be getting my Squatt of John from his local shop and he had turned up with ½ and ½ squatt and sawdust, I had let him sort it out.

So my plan was set for me, bread short, bread long worm down the track and pinkie on the wag if it was going to be one of those days. I set up a 0.6 DC14H on 0.12 Cenex with a 0.08mm bottom and a size 20 B511; this was balanced with No.5 elastic through 3 sections and plumbed up at 5 sections out. My next rig was a 4X12 KC Karpa F1, again on the same line as the  first rig but this time it was plumbed up at 11.5m so I set it on No.3 elastic to try and stop any fish I hooked from splashing too much. My worm rig consisted of a 0,5g Frenzee FP500 float on 0.14mm Cenex Line with a 0.12mm bottom and a size 16 Drennan Wide Gape Match hook, this was set on pink Reflex Hollow Elastic and was plumbed up down the track to my left and right. I did not set the waggler up at the start as I did not want it to distract me from the job at hand but it was already set up in a ready rod bag behind my peg.

At the all in I fed a Satsuma of Bread on my 5m line and started over the top of it straight away, this line was solid after only 5 minutes and after 30 minutes I had 30 fish in the net including a net skimmer, the size of fish had reduced drastically and the guy in the peg to my right was losing skimmers so I decided to reefed the inside and start a worm line. This had a negative effect on the inside line and even the small fish became hard to catch, boats suddenly became a problem with numbers of them chugging straight over the top of my worm line and the lock action moving whatever bait I had put in around loads. So I had a quick look on the worm and then fed my far bank bread line, no sooner as I had put the feed in but I had three boats line up for the bend to my right and this put all of them over my bread line in less than 3 feet of water!! And so the pattern was set with the boats and locks wiping out any feed I put in so I got off my box and put up my waggler rod.

I started loose feeding pinkies across towards the branch and proceeded to trot the float through the swim, it gave me a few fish but nowhere near enough to be competitive, so after an hour or so (plus losing my rig and teddy in the far bank) I added a half extension to my 11m section and re plumbed and fished bread on this new line.

It was solid with roach of 20- 25 to the pound but I was able to get a fish a put in and I stayed on this to the end. At the all out I had caught around 70 fish only 2 had seen the net so I would have been happy with 3 ½ - 4lb, the boats had been a nightmare as was not having enough pole, I would have gone across another section to get away from them if I could and I think this would have been worth another pound, I had 4lb 6oz and this was enough for 4^th in my section of 6. The pegs to my right all beat me with a 9lb, 22lb and 6lb respectively, both the pegs to my left had small 4lb weights so I think I was at the end of the skimmers. As a team we learnt alot, saw some fish and worked out a loose plan for next week so we shall have to wait and see.

AT WL Rd 1 River thames, 02/10/2011

This match coincided with the hottest October in donkeys and we were pegged along fields that were used as park land by the locals, the drive up was uneventful and I had John on board the fishing mobile again so I was really happy when we both drew at Lechlade. I had peg A1 which was just downstream of a building called the round house, the peg numbers had been drawn on Lollypop sticks so finding the swim was the first problem. I found a pleasure angler sat in mine so I asked if he would mind moving upstream slightly and he did laughing as he watched me try to figure out the best place to set up my box. I decided to sit in the water slightly but it left me sat in the left hand extremity of a cattle drink with a 4 foot concrete wall next to my left ear, there was A2 at the other end of the cattle drink 25 yds away but with the lack of flow that was plenty far enough. He had a wooden bridge just downstream of his peg with a rope swing, and there were signs of people all around us (empty cider bottles and general litter).

On plumbing up I found about 7 feet down the middle of the river and 6 feet under the far bank willows at 16m, so I set up the same rigs as last week for the middle line with a 1g Classic 2 for bagging, a 0.8g DS14 for trotting through and a Inter 1 for Hemp. I also set up a 1.5g modified Trio for fishing worm across and also a small waggler on a 4m whip and a waggler rod for down the peg. At the all in I fed 8 balls of ground bait on my 13m line and proceeded to start catching small dace quickly before the bleak appeared and my day mainly consisted of finding the best way to present the bait that the dace would take before the bleak. I found that by feeding a small ball of ground bait I could get a quick run of Dace before the Bleak would return and I would have to top up again. The worm line only produced a few small dace slower than on the Main line and I also spent some time looking for bleak on the whip. I found a size 18 hook best with a single pinkie and was feeding small nuggets of sloppy Super cup every cast on the whip line saw catching very quickly.

It would have been a nice day if it had not been for the people who decided that this was the area that they would waste their day in the sun swimming and jumping off the bridge.

It certainly made things interesting, and the fact that several people further downstream had problems with people stealing kit out of carryalls and holding top kits for ransom for money or water and basically being obnoxious really ruined my day. I ended up with 7lb 4oz that was enough for third in section but I hope that I never have to go there again when the sun shines!!!!!!!

Withy TO4, 01/10/2011

This was my first match in the TO4, and my team captain for Browning Andover Blue, John had decided that I could fish Cottage and that I would be doing the team draw after my current run of drawing form. After a decent bacon and egg butty and picking up my bait for Sunday I drew myself out peg 14, the rest of the team draw was not great either but I would see what we could do. I had the Island at about 20m away just to my right, a nice margin to my left and alot of open water. I set up a pellet feeder on my Force 10ft bomb rod with a 0.19mm hooklength and a 16 QM1 to present a 6mm pellet, this I clipped up tight to the island and I used a pellet feeder so that I could cast into all the reeds in the margins. I plumbed around the swim and found a depression at 13m, this I decided to make my main swim and plumbed up a pellet rig that consisted of a Tubertini Delta on 0.15mm mainline to a 0.13mm bottom and a 18 B911 on yellow reflex Elastic. I also set up a Paste rig consisting of a Big H paste float on 0.19mm to a 0.17mm bottom with a size 5 Tubertini 175 hook, this was set on Red Vespe Hollow to try and control the fish that I was hoping to catch. I also plumbed up a margin paste rig that consisted of a Modified float line and hook were the same as the long line paste rig but the elastic was Green Preston Hollo. Finally I set up a dobbing rig that could double up as a margin rig for hard pellet or corn/ meat; it consisted of a 0.2g Frenzee FP 800 on 0.17mm mainline with a 0.15mm bottom and a 16 Pr36 with a bait band on a hair rig.

At the all in I started straight on the long paste rig to try and mug an early fish as I had foul hooked one whilst setting my pellet float right, this however was a non starter and I found myself rotating through my pellet, paste rig and pellet feeder within the first hour to no avail. I had seen a couple of fish come in on a waggler along the bank so I was off my box and pulled the pellet wag out. In 30mins I had no bites and lost a float in the island so it was back to rotating and come hour 3 things were getting desperate. At this point I was getting the odd indication over my pellet line and fish were showing just beyond it whenever I kinder potted in so I set my dobbing rig at 12 inches with a changed hook and a 6mm expander pellet on the hook. I filled my kinder cup with pellet mix, dropped it from a height and then dropped the pellet into the swim a few times exploring around, 2 minutes later carp no.1 was on its way into the net. This happened again about 10 minutes later but then the fish backed off, I set the waggler back up but this time with a loaded insert waggler, it took another hour but carp no.3 was on its way into the net. Then it was back to rotating and feeding the margin but all I managed up until the last 30 mins were 2 foul hooked carp both from the long line so I decided to try and catch another carp shallow. It worked and I landed a near double with 2 minutes left on the clock and that was it for me. I ended up with 6 Carp, a skimmer and a roach for just over 34lb, but this was enough for 4^th on the lake so not a bad result, the team unfortunately did not do as well and we ended up well down. Still with plenty of rounds left we can easily claw it back.

AT WL Prac, River Thames

Unfortunately for me this match meant a 0500 start as I had to pick John up from Andover at 0630 and the draw was at 0800, we made it with time to spare even with a stop for breakfast. We paid our money and managed to have a chat with the rest of the team about the venue, the general consensus was that you would need roach for section points, bonus fish for individual glory and that there are a few bleak along the river. I was reliably informed that the best pegs were all of the Radcott down pegs and the bridge at Lechlade, so I stuck my mitt into the box and pulled out Radcott Down, peg 1!!!. I was a bit excited so I bundled John into the van and dropped him off at Lechlade (3.5 miles away) before driving back to unload my kit, I needn’t have worried as it only took about 15 minutes as the road in between was quite nice and I was able to follow Barry on the way there and Nick on the way back. It actually took me longer to walk to my peg as the car park next to the river had been locked, but I made it to my peg at just before 0900.

First job was to roughly plumb the peg so out came the Bolo rod and stick float, this showed me that at around 11m I had about 8ft, this continued across to about 14.5-16m where it started to shallow, it also got shallower the closer in you came and was around 5-6ft a rod length out. The depth was pretty constant as far down as I could cast so now I could set up my box and start a plan.

My plan was to fish a groundbait line at 11m; a worm line at 5m and a waggler across, Groundbait was a simple roach mix that I planned to put some damp leam in to add weight and cloud in the clear water. My first rig was my bagging/holding back rig, 1.5g on 0.11mm mainline to a 0.1mm bottom and an 18 B511; this was set on No.5 elastic through 3 sections of my Z9 and set touching bottom with the ollivette 15 inches from the hook and all the droppers as a second bulk at the top of the 6” hooklength. Rig 2 was my running through rig, with 8 ft of water and a strengthening wind I decided on a positive float so set up a 1g DS14H on 0.11 mainline to a 0.098mm bottom and a 20B511, again on No.5 through 3 sections. This rig was shotted with a bulk of no.8 shot and no 10 droppers, although they later changed to no.12’s. Finally I decided to set up an OTD Hemp rig so a 0.3G inter 2 was set up with 0.11mm mainline and a 0.08mm bottom to a 20B511, This was set on no.5 through 3 sections again and was shotted with spread styls throughout the full 8ft depth. My worm rig was a 0.5g float on 0.15mm mainline to a 0.13mm bottom, this was set on No.6 elastic through 3 sections as I had left all my proper elastic top kits at home, but since it was mainly a backup line I was not too worried. Finnally I set up a 14ft waggler rod with 2.5lb mainline to a 4bb Browning loaded waggler and a 0,1mm bottom with a 20 B611 for fishing Caster across.

At the all in I potted 10 balls of groundbait with Caster, hemp  and pinkie onto my 11m line and went straight over the top with my bagging rig, this gave me 4 roach until my first of many bleak appered, I tried changing to my running through rig with caster and also went back out with my bagging rig and 10 inches from olly to hook but all to no avail, bleak were proper smashing me up and I had no come back. I looked at the situation and decided to slip a grain of hemp onto my running through rig after just 40 minutes, third run through and bingo, my first hemp roach. For the next hour I caught roach between 2 and 6oz (usually the smaller ones) steadily but I decided to rest the swim and have a look on the inside line for some perch. I fed with about 6 worms and 20 caster  and caught small perch straight away, after 5 fish though the swim went quiet and some bubbles came up, I thought  it would be a cray but a slight bite and lift saw 20 feet of no.6 pouring across the river and a 3lb Tench was stuck on the end. I was amazed in the fact that the bite had been so slight but the fish was deep hooked so I took 2 inches off the depth, refed and looked for a few more roach on the long line. The rest had done the swim good and I had a quick run of net fish before the swingers came back, it was in this spell that Phil my bank runner tipped up and gave me the good news that the rest of the section was fishing hard, so just to keep on putting fish in the net. I rested the long pole line a few more times with 2 more Tench and a few perch and roach coming on the short line and only bleak showing on the waggler but come the end of the match I felt as though I would have 12-14lb depending on how big the Tench were. I was on scales for the 4 pegs below the bridge and my job was made even easier by only two of them having been drawn.

I weighed the guy on peg 3 first and he had 20lb 8oz made up of 2 Bream for 9lb, some half decent perch and some roach. I thought he had battered me until I lifted my net out of the water; 19lb 1oz was my final weight and consisted of 60 non bleak fish including 3 Tench. I was well chuffed as I thought that this would be enough for 2^nd, then at Lechlade car park Richie off the bridge had taken 21lb of skimmers , so third? No, another 20lb weight had come from up at Lechlade again skimmers so I came in 4^th out of the 53 odd anglers and would have been second in my section of 2!!!!

I learnt that hemp and tares are a good way around bleak, don’t forget your proper top kits even on the river and a few other bits about presentation and feeding. I caught my PB River Match weight and all I need to do now is repeat it in rd 1 of the winter league next week.

MFS Todber,18/09/11

It was time for another visit to Park Lake at Todber Manor with the Match Fishing Scene lads, guys had come from all over and there was a really good atmosphere at the draw. Pegs 10 and 38 were the places that everyone wanted as they were the end pegs, however, 32 was to be my destination for the day. This is a standard 14.5m wide straight on the lake with a small bush to my right about 2m away, my plan was simple, short pole and the method as the forecast was for strong winds and rain across the south. I mixed a couple of kilos of method mix and dampened some 2,3,4mm pellet to mix in, and then prepped my 6mm pellet, hemp and corn for the track. I also had a few tins of 6 and 8mm meat cut ready for the edge, just in case. I pulled my 8ft Force wand out of the ready bag with a 30g Kobra flatty feeder, my 10ft Force Bomb was set up with a small pellet feeder just as a change. For the pole I pulled out 6 sections and decided to fish on the end of the 5^th section as the depth was pretty even all over the swim. I set up a paste rig on 0.19 to 0.17mm and a ‘5’ Tubertini 175, this was set on Red Vespe and a corn/meat rig on green Preston hollow that consisted of 0.17mm mainline and a 0.15mm bottom to a size 2 175.

I was ready with bags of time to spare but for some reason I was still caught off guard by the all in, anyway, a pot of hemp and 6mm went down the track and then the method hit the clip against the far bank. After about a minute the tip wrapped round with carp no.1 on but that was the end of the good news as then for the next couple of hours no matter what I tried I lost too many fish on the tip, the main reason being that they were F1’s and they have very soft mouths in there. So I quickly set up 14.5m of pole as the wind had not picked up as promised, 3 put ins and 1 carp and 1 F1 saw it thrown up the bank as the wind arrived with a vengeance and made it very difficult to present a rig across.

I quickly tried the track rig and managed a couple of F1’s on corn so I gave it a big pot and decided to plumb up a margin rig, this ended up being my track rig as there was only 5 inches difference from the depth tight to the reeds and down the track. So my plan f for the last couple of hours was to be concentrating on paste down the track and meat/ corn down the edge. This kind of worked but it took too long to get working properly but when the carp finally turned up I was able to catch them at a decent pace. Down the edge again after a slow start with Tench and Perch on meat I took a few decent carp including my best at about 6lb, but it was too little too late. I had been listening to the guys to my right catching carp all day and so it was proved with the weigh in.

All four anglers to my right beat me 3 with ton+ weights and the last by 2lb, I did however, beat the 2 guys to my right but my total weight of 81lb ish was over a ton off first. I don’t think that I could have done much more the way I was set up and I kicked myself for going there with a pre conceived plan. Next time I will make sure that I have F1 rigs and bait with me so that I can catch something between hours 1 and 6!!  Anyway thanks to Mark for running a nice day again, next time can you book more sun though?

AAF Team Finals day 2, Oaks Sessay, 10/09/11

So it was crunch time, the match was being held on two lakes, Alders and Poplars, and I fancied a crack at the Ide on Alders so had my fingers crossed as Dave did the draw. Alders 4 was my peg and I quickly sorted out a gallon of maggot to take with me and ran to my peg. My peg was just over 14.5m to the far bank but with roots tight over I decided on putting my far bank paste line in about 18” of water 2 ft short of the far bank. My rig for this consisted of a modified Sconzone Float on 0.17mm line to a size 5 (175), this was rigged with red Vespe hollow through the top kit of my Z9 with a paste pot as close to the pole tip as I could manage. My main attack would be an Ide line and for this I plumbed up a 0.2g Handmade special to 3ft deep, this was rigged on 0.15mm main to a 0.11bottom and a 16 (808). To prevent me from bumping off the Ide I set this on Pink Vespe Hollow through a puller kit and this had an aerosol cap paste pot again fitted to the top kit to feed maggot. I plumbed uip both margins on a 2+1 line and found 2 areas the same depth, these would get the groundbait trick even though it was around 3 ½ ft deep down the edge and I also set up a paste rig to fish a 2+2 line at 11 o’clock (just in case). Bait was 2kg of margin groundbait, a tin of corn, a gallon of maggot, about ¾ pint 4mm wetted fishery pellet, 2 pints hemp and some paste mix.

At the all in again I watched as people cupped bait in all over the lake and I shipped out with my deck Ide rig, the cup was full of maggot and this happened 3 times in the first 5 minutes before I had my first fish a small roach. This was followed by another, then a small Ide and then the swim just came to life, I was catching Ide between 6oz and 2lb one a put in by feeding a pot of maggot and then dropping the rig in vertically on top of them, nearly every time the float would settle then dip under. This continued for 2 ½ to 3hours before I ran out of Maggot (a gallon!!!!!!) Kev in the swim to my right had taken 10 carp in the first hour but was now struggling; he asked if I had 20lb of Ide? My answer was that I had taken around 30lb of them in that period and had enjoyed it immensely, it was time for my back up plan so I fed the Margins with groundbait, the 2+2 line with hemp and pellet and then shipped across to the far side with paste hookbait and some hemp and pellet in the bottom of the pot. Within a minute I was getting liners and on my second put in I had a carp stretching my elastic well, this continued for the rest of the match and I was able to take around 20 carp to 6lb from my three carp lines until the end of the match. All bar 2 came from the far bank paste line and when we weighed in I had won the section with a weight of 45kg (nearly 20kg better than 2^nd) I still dread to think what my weight could have been if I had sat on the far bank paste line all day?

Once we returned to the cafe it transpired that we as a team had had two lake wins and a 10^th in section for 12 points, this added to the day before was a total of 27points. This score was enought to win the Army Team Championships and we missed out on the teams of 3 by 4 points coming a very close second considering 2 of the team only saw the venues on match day! This was an awesome result and I have to thank Pez and Dave Burford for fishing with me in the final, I have to thank Craig Bate and Dave Wallace for their efforts throughout the year at getting us qualified for the final. Next year apparently it is Heronbrook so we are going for 1 better and doing the double!

AAF Team Champs day 1, Woodlands Lakes 09/09/11

This event is the culmination of 10 qualifying matches that started back last October on the banks of the Kennet and Avon Canal with my tem being consistently down an angler, however, after some storming results earlier this year we had been able to claw back the deficit and finish 2^nd in Gp 2 of the AAF. The team for the two days was to be myself, Chris (Pastehead) Perry and Dave (Koshidaman) Burford and fortunately Chris had been on the venue all week formulating a plan that would hopefully see us crowned as Army Team Champs at the end of the 2 days.

Dave was team captain so took charge of the draw, Kingfisher 15 was my peg for the day, and I knew what to do as Pez had given me a full and concise briefing.

As you can see the lake is a rectangle dug in the ground with pegs laid down every 10m, the contours of the lake were perfect for a short pole attack and that was the plan. I was to fish pellet at 2+2, pellet on the bomb/method at 25m and then corn down the edge, I set about setting up my kit. The pellet rig was a 0.4g hand made special on 0.15mm main to 0.13mm bottom and a 16 B911, this was rigged ion yellow Reflex elastic and plumbed up to dead depth at 10 and 2 o’clock. I had my Force 10ft bomb rod set up with a bomb rig consisting of a 0.19mm bottom to a 14 QM1 for fishing pellet and a pellet wag set up as well for the long line. Down the edge it was a standard margin rig of 0.19 to 0.17 and a 3 (175) attached to the end on green hollow, this had a Frenzee 0.3g FP 800 float for indication. Bait was 2mm, 4mm and 8mm fishery pellet, Corn, Hemp, a few jelly pellet and a bit of meat.

At the all in I shipped out onto my 10 o’clock line and fed a kinder pot of pellet, within a minute I had carp no.1 on its way to the keep net, then next put in a skimmer, and the next  and the next and the next. I was catching them quick but at 4oz average I was going nowhere fast so I tried the 2 o’clock line with the same result of a carp 1^st put in then skimmers by the ton. I tried to get my head down on this line for an hour but the skimmers were too small and with carp being caught around me I needed some in the net. I cast out the bomb and this gave me my next 2 carp but I saw carp swirling and intermittently tried the pellet wag as well. Over the next 3 hours I rotated between Pellet wag, bomb and the 5m lines for a total of 6 carp and lots of skimmers for around 20-25lb. I had been priming the margins for 2 hours when I finally noticed some colouring up and in the last 45 minutes I caught 2 carp and a skimmer to double my total weight.

At the end of the match I was distraught as I could not fathom what had gone so wrong, I weighed 21kg for 9^th in section but luckily the other two had fared better with a section win and a 5^th giving us 15 points at the end of day 1 and we were still well in contention.

If I was to fish the match again, I would set up a paste rig on the 2+2 for a change as the skimmers were eating pellets up to 10mm! I would leave the pellet wag in the bag, it gave me 1 fish but I spent too much time on it and finally I would be more careful when dropping my rig in down the edge as I spooked a carp from my margin with 3 minutes to go. The edge fish averaged double figures so that would have been good points.

Match Fishing Subscriber Classic, 08/09/11

This was my first time on this event and I was impressed with the size and organisation, 178 anglers descended onto Makins over all 3 phases. At the draw I was after any of the lakes in Phase 1 as the fish are bigger and they are generally open water venues, or Reptile on phase 2 as I believe it held my best chance of a good result from there. After a 2^nd breakie that saw me putting the world to rights with a couple of RAF lads, my hand went into the bucket and I pulled out Snake 7 on Phase 2. I was not overly impressed but the thought of a day fishing a new lake was enough to see me off to my peg with a renewed enthusiasm.

As you can see I had a multitude of options, and what this does not show is that there was a blank peg on my right with a small bay and another point coming from the right at 14m to my right. My plan was simple, meat to the middle point as I could see some carp moving around that point, pellet to the left hand point and then I was going to fish down the edge to my right using the loose groundbait trick. I plumbed up about half a section along the right hand point, the meat rig to fish there was a 4X12 Big H float on 0.17mm mainline and a 0.15mm bottom to a 16 B911 on Green Vespe Elastic through my tension puller kit and a small cad pot mounted on the end of the kit. The pellet rig for the left line if it was hard was a 4X12 Big H Border float with a cut down bristle, this was rigged on 0.15mm main line to a 0.13mm bottom and an 18 B911, this was set on yellow Browning Reflex elastic in case skimmers became important again through a puller kit and with a small cad pot. The margin rig started off as a 0.3g Frenzee FP800 on 0.19mm mainline and 0.17mm bottom with a size 3 Tubertini 175 to fish double corn, this was all set on green preston hollow elastic as the fish seemed pretty much contained in the bay with few snags. As I had plemty of time before the all in I also set up a Standard paste rig to fish a 2+2 line at 10 oclock towards the guy pegged to my left and also a small method on my 8ft Force Carp Wand to fish to the gap in the islands. My bait was some 1mm and 3mm pellet mixed together, a pint of riddled meat, a kilo of green swimstim, some 6mm sinking expanders (Soaked overnight), 2 pints of hemp, 2 tins of corn, 8mm meat cubes and punched polony for the hook and finally a bit of paste mix.

At the all in I decided not to feed anywhere but the line I was fishing so I filled my cad pot up with 50/50 hemp and riddled meat, and shipped out an 8mm punch of polony to the right hand point. I did not have to wait long and within 2 minutes I got a liner. Next put in carp no.1 was on its way to the net, this was followed by no.2 then the liners started as the fish came up in the water for the riddled meat. I quickly set up a shallow rig with a cad pot and this resulted in an instant bite but then the carp backed off, the golden first hour was up. I fed half a pot of bait on the meat line to try and get the fish down and had a look on the pellet line; I had fed a small nugget of pellets about 10 mins before I went on it and started to get bites from skimmers straight away. I had 5 then my first carp from this line showed up, but again I was getting problems with the carp causing liners in the slightly deeper margins. I rested the lines, heavy potted and also tried shallow to no avail but I was landing a couple and with 2 hours to go I had 6 carp in the net. It was time to prime the margin, so out went 3 pots of groundbait and about 20 grains of corn and within 10 minutes the bottom was starting to colour up so I had a look. I foul hooked a carp almost instantly and then another so I decided to swap over to a paste rig down the edge. This was the turning point of my match and in the last hour I managed around 6 carp to 6lb from down the edge on paste. Before I knew it all out was called.

I had ended up with around 15 carp and a few silvers, I had taken a carp on every rig I had set up including the 2+2 paste and method, around the lake it had obviously fished hard and after the scales came around I was surprised to have ended up with 51lb dead. At the presentation it turned out that this had been enough for a section win so some cash and Dynamite Baits goodies were gratefully received and then it was off on the marathon journey to York via Peterborough. If I could do it again I would probably fish paste across on my pellet line and I would have spent longer on the method to the bar, especially as it turned out that I was 8lb short of winning the Phase and 10lb short of 4^th place, either one of those would have seen me in the Drennan Knockout cup 2012! Wait till next year.