Orchard Lakes Open

Another open at Orchard and this time I was hoping for a decent result again, Peg 19 along the back arm was where I would be sat for the day. It gave me 14.5m across to the far bank under a few sparse branches and a blank peg to my right. I decided to fish pellet across and corn on a 2+2 in 4 feet of water, there was also a chance that the margins might work so I plumbed up a rig to fish off the reeds next to my keepnets on the left of my swim. The across rig consisted of a 0.3 Inter 2 plumbed to fish in 3 feet of water on a 0.15mm main line and a 0.13mm bottom to a 16 B911, this was set on green Vespe E2 hollow and had a small kinder cup on the top kit to feed softened pellet and expander on the hook. The Corn rig was a 0.4g Drennan Carp 6 same line as the across rig but a size 18 B911 and double 8 elastic, this was set to fish on quite a severe slop at 4 foot deep. Finally I set up a margin rig of a 4X14 Preston Duro 10 on 0.17mm main with a 16 B911 on a 0.15mm bottom, this was to fish meat or maggot in the margin.

At the all in I potted in half a cup of hemp and corn on my 2+2 line and then shipped across to the far bank with a 4mm expander on the hook, it took about a minute before the first fish was in the net and this was followed by another 5 before the guy in the next peg started catching alot quicker than me by fishing tighter over towards the far bank. This led to the end of my nice days fishing as I started a line about a foot off the far bank in 2 ½ foot of water that was under a couple of branches and various other bits of crud. I thought that I would be able to fish it easily as long as the breeze stayed steady (how often does that happen?) and it was my best swim of the day however over the 5 hours I lost numerous foul hooked fish through over feeding and 7 rigs got trashed due to the breeze and branches. I suffered due to my pole being sticky with corn juice, my corn line should have been further down the shelf as I could see the fish bubbling in the track, and I tried paste on the corn line but the paste drew in skimmers and tench!!!

In the last 10 mins I had a look on my margin and took a small carp and had a few more indications but my best line had definitely been the far bank, I ended up with 58lb 8oz, beating the end peg to my left but well off the pace as it was won with 90 odd pounds from the far end peg and the same came off the peg to my right. He had steadily been catching off the far bank all day on pellet and the far end peg had his fish on paste and corn along the margin (with the wind hacking in). Well done gents.