So it was the middle weekend of the month and that means the Sunday Series at Orchard Lakes beckoned again. All the usual faces were at the draw and the talk was about a couple of big weights that had started to come short the previous day, a bacon butty and coffee were dispatched (cheers Pez), before I pulled peg 27 out of the bag. I knew from previous experience that I was already against the two end pegs in my section (30 + 24) and that with one of the local experts (Nathan) sat on the flyer that is peg 33, I just needed to get my head down and try to get a decent weight without trying anything silly. With this in mind I set up a far bank rig on 0.15mm main to a 0.13mm bottom and an 18 B911 under a 4X12 Big H Border float, due to the varied size of fish I decided on green Vespe E2 Hollow elastic. I plumbed up my standard Corn rig with the same line, hook and elastic as the far bank rig but with my now faithful 0.4g Drennan Carp 6, this was on a 2+1 in 4 feet of water on the slope and finally I plumbed up a margin rig. Due to the fact that the area I was sat in was known for some better fish I set a 4X10 Duro 10 on 0.17 to a 0.15mm bottom and a 16 B911, this was all attached to red Vespe E2 Hollow as I was hoping for some of the lumps and needed to subdue them easily. This was set to fish tight in on my left and right hand side at 2+1 in about a foot of water on both sides, I even got my weed cutter out and had time to do some pruning before the start.
At the all in a pot of hemp and Corn was deposited on my shelf line and I went across with a 4mm expander on the hook and my usual mix of 2 + 4mm pellet in the toss pot, I had to wait a whole 30 seconds before Carp number 1 was on its way into the net and this continued with lots of small fish for the first hour. It then seemed as though the far bank swim was starting to fade so I tried my corn line, this resulted in an instant bite but then nothing so back to the far bank. I swapped hookbaits from pellet, meat and corn to try and put fish consistently into the net and I started another line about 3m to the right behind the rushes that were in the middle of my swim. This was more difficult to fish due to the overhanging branches but gave me somewhere to try when it was slowing on my main line.
With 2 hours to go I started throwing meat down the margins on both sides and the response took about 30 minutes before I was willing to try and catch one, first put in to my left saw the float dip and 15m of elastic disappear up the lake on the strike. 5 minutes later an Orchard lump was in the net, I refed and tried the right swim again with almost instant results and over the last 90 minutes I took about 15 Carp from 2-8lb. Every time I hooked a fish I would feed 20 cubes of meat and then fish the other margin until I had a bite, and then repeat for the other side with feed rest fish. The all out came around all too soon and I realised that I had fished hard all match as most of my bait was gone but all my water and food was still intact (Starving!!) I demolished them and had a chat with the guys either side to find that the venue had fished very hard (for Orchard) with most people admitting to 50-60lb. I knew know that I had done well as my last 90 minutes had seen around that weight go into my net so after a few weighs it turned out that my 119lb 12oz was enough for the section and third overall. Nathan had won it with 140lb from peg 33 and Daryl (another Regular) had taken 124lb from the other end of the same section. All in all another enjoyable day at Orchard and another ton already and it is only March. Next Match is either an Open or the AAF Gp2 Match 6 at Todber.
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