This event is the culmination of 10 qualifying matches that started back last October on the banks of the Kennet and Avon Canal with my tem being consistently down an angler, however, after some storming results earlier this year we had been able to claw back the deficit and finish 2nd in Gp 2 of the AAF. The team for the two days was to be myself, Chris (Pastehead) Perry and Dave (Koshidaman) Burford and fortunately Chris had been on the venue all week formulating a plan that would hopefully see us crowned as Army Team Champs at the end of the 2 days.
Dave was team captain so took charge of the draw, Kingfisher 15 was my peg for the day, and I knew what to do as Pez had given me a full and concise briefing.
As you can see the lake is a rectangle dug in the ground with pegs laid down every 10m, the contours of the lake were perfect for a short pole attack and that was the plan. I was to fish pellet at 2+2, pellet on the bomb/method at 25m and then corn down the edge, I set about setting up my kit. The pellet rig was a 0.4g hand made special on 0.15mm main to 0.13mm bottom and a 16 B911, this was rigged ion yellow Reflex elastic and plumbed up to dead depth at 10 and 2 o’clock. I had my Force 10ft bomb rod set up with a bomb rig consisting of a 0.19mm bottom to a 14 QM1 for fishing pellet and a pellet wag set up as well for the long line. Down the edge it was a standard margin rig of 0.19 to 0.17 and a 3 (175) attached to the end on green hollow, this had a Frenzee 0.3g FP 800 float for indication. Bait was 2mm, 4mm and 8mm fishery pellet, Corn, Hemp, a few jelly pellet and a bit of meat.
At the all in I shipped out onto my 10 o’clock line and fed a kinder pot of pellet, within a minute I had carp no.1 on its way to the keep net, then next put in a skimmer, and the next and the next and the next. I was catching them quick but at 4oz average I was going nowhere fast so I tried the 2 o’clock line with the same result of a carp 1st put in then skimmers by the ton. I tried to get my head down on this line for an hour but the skimmers were too small and with carp being caught around me I needed some in the net. I cast out the bomb and this gave me my next 2 carp but I saw carp swirling and intermittently tried the pellet wag as well. Over the next 3 hours I rotated between Pellet wag, bomb and the 5m lines for a total of 6 carp and lots of skimmers for around 20-25lb. I had been priming the margins for 2 hours when I finally noticed some colouring up and in the last 45 minutes I caught 2 carp and a skimmer to double my total weight.
At the end of the match I was distraught as I could not fathom what had gone so wrong, I weighed 21kg for 9th in section but luckily the other two had fared better with a section win and a 5th giving us 15 points at the end of day 1 and we were still well in contention.
If I was to fish the match again, I would set up a paste rig on the 2+2 for a change as the skimmers were eating pellets up to 10mm! I would leave the pellet wag in the bag, it gave me 1 fish but I spent too much time on it and finally I would be more careful when dropping my rig in down the edge as I spooked a carp from my margin with 3 minutes to go. The edge fish averaged double figures so that would have been good points.
No comments:
Post a Comment