Coking Farm Evening Match

This was another evening match at Coking Farm however, this time we were on Rush lake, the carp in here tend to run a bit bigger than in Meadow so fewer fish would be needed for a bigger weight. I drew peg 13 that had an island chuck and a reedy margin to my left so I fancied a few fish from both of those areas and set up a method for the island and a meat rig for down the edge. The method was on my 10ft Carp feeder rod and a small Preston 30g inline method running on 8lb sensor stopped by a quick change bead. The hooklength was 4 inches of 0.19mm powerline to a 14 QM1 with a bait band to mount Boilies or pellet. The edge rig was a 4X14 Duro 10 on .19mm to a .15mm bottom and a 16 B911, this was plumbed next to the reeds in just over 2 feet of water and had Red Vespe in the top kit.

At the all in I fed a full pot of hemp and about 30 8mm cubes of meat down the edge before casting about 4m short of the island and I started to count to 120. At 80 the tip went round and I was attached to fish no.1, it turned out to be a mirror about 6lb so was a good start. During the first hour I had 6 carp to 8lb all from the method line but it had gone strangely quiet so I decided to clip up a couple of meters further out but before casting I had a look down the edge. I had a quick bite that resulted in a slightly smaller carp but then lots of activity from silvers so I fed a big pot of bait and went back out on the method. This pattern continued with me taking another 5 carp, a bream and a roach over the last 2 hours but I knew that this would not be anywhere near enough to win even thought the lake had fished hard as I had watched the guy on peg 20 take nearly twice as many carp as me! The weigh in however, was interesting as his 20 odd carp went 90 odd pound and my 11 went 59lb so my fish were alot bigger but it was still only enough  for second on the evening with 48lb coming third.

I felt as though I had fished a better match than the last evening one, even though I had most of my meat trying to float away (so I need to look at how I store it). I believe that I approached my swim correctly but next time I would fish paste down the edge as I believe that it would have been a better choice on the day. Next stop is the K&A for the final round of the teams of 4 so I need to get my squatt rigs out!!