Withy TO4, 01/10/2011

This was my first match in the TO4, and my team captain for Browning Andover Blue, John had decided that I could fish Cottage and that I would be doing the team draw after my current run of drawing form. After a decent bacon and egg butty and picking up my bait for Sunday I drew myself out peg 14, the rest of the team draw was not great either but I would see what we could do. I had the Island at about 20m away just to my right, a nice margin to my left and alot of open water. I set up a pellet feeder on my Force 10ft bomb rod with a 0.19mm hooklength and a 16 QM1 to present a 6mm pellet, this I clipped up tight to the island and I used a pellet feeder so that I could cast into all the reeds in the margins. I plumbed around the swim and found a depression at 13m, this I decided to make my main swim and plumbed up a pellet rig that consisted of a Tubertini Delta on 0.15mm mainline to a 0.13mm bottom and a 18 B911 on yellow reflex Elastic. I also set up a Paste rig consisting of a Big H paste float on 0.19mm to a 0.17mm bottom with a size 5 Tubertini 175 hook, this was set on Red Vespe Hollow to try and control the fish that I was hoping to catch. I also plumbed up a margin paste rig that consisted of a Modified float line and hook were the same as the long line paste rig but the elastic was Green Preston Hollo. Finally I set up a dobbing rig that could double up as a margin rig for hard pellet or corn/ meat; it consisted of a 0.2g Frenzee FP 800 on 0.17mm mainline with a 0.15mm bottom and a 16 Pr36 with a bait band on a hair rig.

At the all in I started straight on the long paste rig to try and mug an early fish as I had foul hooked one whilst setting my pellet float right, this however was a non starter and I found myself rotating through my pellet, paste rig and pellet feeder within the first hour to no avail. I had seen a couple of fish come in on a waggler along the bank so I was off my box and pulled the pellet wag out. In 30mins I had no bites and lost a float in the island so it was back to rotating and come hour 3 things were getting desperate. At this point I was getting the odd indication over my pellet line and fish were showing just beyond it whenever I kinder potted in so I set my dobbing rig at 12 inches with a changed hook and a 6mm expander pellet on the hook. I filled my kinder cup with pellet mix, dropped it from a height and then dropped the pellet into the swim a few times exploring around, 2 minutes later carp no.1 was on its way into the net. This happened again about 10 minutes later but then the fish backed off, I set the waggler back up but this time with a loaded insert waggler, it took another hour but carp no.3 was on its way into the net. Then it was back to rotating and feeding the margin but all I managed up until the last 30 mins were 2 foul hooked carp both from the long line so I decided to try and catch another carp shallow. It worked and I landed a near double with 2 minutes left on the clock and that was it for me. I ended up with 6 Carp, a skimmer and a roach for just over 34lb, but this was enough for 4^th on the lake so not a bad result, the team unfortunately did not do as well and we ended up well down. Still with plenty of rounds left we can easily claw it back.