Coking Farm Evening Match, Meadow Lake.

It was time for me to try my luck at an evening match and Meadow Lake at Coking farm was the place to be, peg 27 was my destination for the evening. This gave me an island 30m to my 11 o’clock and then loads of open water. My plan consisted of a paste line at 2+2 where I would loose feed 6mm pellet and pot in hemp with my paste with a method chuck as a backup. I set up 2 rigs for the pole, a 4X14 Big ‘h’ paste rig on 0.19mm mainline to 0.17 and a 12 B911. And a 4X14 Duro 7 on 0.17m main to 0.15mm and a 16 B911, both rigs were set up on Red Vespe E2 hollow elastic.

At the all in I shipped out on the pole and dropped my paste and a pinch of hemp in before feeding 30 pellet by hand over the top, I received a couple of liners over the opening 20 mins and in this time Craig on the next peg had taken 2 carp. This saw me try a pellet to get a bite and first put in I had a carp of 3lb that was soon followed by a roach, I put a pot of hemp and pellet in on the pole line and chucked out the method.

My method set up was my Drennan 10ft carp feeder with a 2508 Daiwa Whisker loaded with 8lb sensor mono, a 12” twisted loop had a small Guru inline method feeder stopped by a Korum quick change bead. My hooklength was 4 inches of 0.19mm to a 14 Guru QM1 with a bait band on the hair, this allows me to use boilies, pellet and meat as hookbait all on the same rig. A 10mm white boilie was encased in my pellet mix and the feeder was dispatched out to the island margins, over the next 30 minutes I had 3 more carp but was now 3 fish behind Craig to my left and 5 fish behind the guy opposite.

This tempted me to try my paste line again and I had a quick run of carp to 6lb ish saw my hopes raise before another quite spell dashed them again. With an half an hour to go, and only 9 fish in the net I decided to sit it out on the method till the end as I was now being beaten by 3 people who I could see. In the last 15mins I had a flurry of fish that saw my total increase to 13 Carp and I decided then that I may have made a mistake by setting the pole up. The scales were on me first and my bag of carp went 43lb 8oz, Craig on the next peg had just over 60lb but was beaten into 3^rd by a 69lb and 85lb. My net was enough to squeak 4t from the guy to my right who had a good second hour but I should have just fished one line and taken the consequences if it had not worked. The method would have been the right tactic for the night but it was a lesson learnt in speed fishing as the last 4 fish were all landed in double quick time and scooped under the rod end. Now I can’t wait till the next one!