Coking Farm Evening match, Rush Lake

This was my third visit to Coking on evening matches and the attendance this time was only 8 but with the strong wind and rain it was not too surprising, at the draw I pulled out peg 2 and this gave me 20m to drive my van to my peg. On looking at it I decided that a simple method to the island and meat down the edge was to be how I would approach the evening and with my method groundbait already mixed it took me next to no time to get set up. My margin rig was a Frenzee pf800 on 0.19mm main and a 0.15mm bottom to a size ‘2’ 175. This was rigged on a 2+1 as I found 2.5 feet of water on both sides of my margin and I had it all on Red Vespe elastic as usual. My method rig was my standard 30g inline method free running on the 8lb mainline with a 0.19mm bottom and 14QM1 attached to the mainline with a quick change bead. The cast was only about 30yds to the tree opposite and I fancied it for a few fish so I used my 10ft Drennan carp feeder and a 2508 Daiwa TDM.

At the all in I fed a pot of bait on both sides of my swim and cast the feeder about a meter short of the tree, it took 20 minutes for my first fish and in this time the guy to my right had landed two but to cut a long and breezy evening short the fish came in 1’s and 2’s usually after changing either the hookbait or how close to tree I was casting. I ended up with 9 carp but had lost another 5 that had come off due to hookpulls halfway across. I was not the only one to suffer this and I can only put it down to the fish not feeding properly on the evening.

In the end all my fish had come on the method and I only had 3 rudd to show for my efforts down the edge, I finished with 33lb10oz and this was enough for 5^th out of 8!! The guy to my right had 10 carp for 38lb but the two pegs to his right took 1^st and second with 40lb+ bags. Always Todber next week!!