This was day 2 of another weekend of angling, fortunately
with them both being on commercials prep the night before was kept to a minimum,
now this seemed good the night before but came back to bite me, more of that
later. Another proper breakfast was duly dispatched (I think I am going to have
to run a bit more!!) and the banter was in full flow before and during the
draw, the team captains of John (AAF Gp2) and Barry (Browning Andover MG) did the
draw and I was pulled out of the bag on peg 41 fishing against none other than
Fisho Finalist, Dave George!!
I rather fancied the draw and had decided on the way to
my peg that I would be concentrating on paste today as I thought it would be
the way to go, The main reason for my optimism was the fact that the wind had
been blowing down that end of the lake for a few days and the carp were in
residence. I started to get set up and I had the bridge into the inner snake
sat between myself and Dave, so I set up a method rod to cast along the far
bank as it was a little breezy and this guarantees perfect presentation, this
is where my night off from prep bit me though. Firstly I had left my favourite
Method groundbait at home and secondly I had to set my rod up on the bank which
is normally done at home so I don’t have to take ages setting it up.
I carried on and after I had messed around with the
method rod it was time for my paste rigs, I set up a standard 4 X14 Big H paste
float for the 4ft deep 5m line and then it was a self cocking Big H paste for
my margin rig. Both were set up on 0.20mm mainline and 0.18mm bottoms to size 5
Tubertini 175, the long line was rigged on blue browning Reflex elastic and the
margin rig was on a strong hollow elastic through a heavy tension puller kit.
That was me, I also set up a shallow rig and a deck rig
for across but I did not see myself using this too much as the wind was awkward
and swirling across me. So at the all in I was ready and whilst everybody else
was cupping in pots of bait I shipped my paste rig out to the 5m line and
tipped out a large lump of paste with some hemp and pellet under it, nothing
first put in but on the second I had a positive indication that saw me slipping
the net under a 3lb carp, another followed a few minutes later and I had 3 in
the net after 30 minutes whilst Dave had not had a fish. It was at this point
that I started to get fizzing and indications off small fish so I decided that
the time was right to put a bit of feed in at 13m on my long paste line and so
I started to rotate across the swims with paste hookbaits looking for the odd
fish. I tried the method cast towards the bridge a couple of times and I could not
get a positive indication on an 8mm pellet to a 14 hook so I dropped down to a
4mm pellet to a 16 on 0.16mm line. I cast the feeder across and whilst I was
not looking I nearly lost the rod into the lake and the fish made good its
escape through a Lilly bed.
About half way through the fish started showing towards
the bridge so I decided to try my luck with a shallow rig and a 6m pellet, I
hooked a proper fish very quickly and by using a short length of Blue Cenex
hollow elastic through a no.1 section I soon had a 10lber tamed and in the net.
I shipped back across and was seen off by the next couple of fish so I decided
to feed the edge with my small amount of groundbait. This saw a quick run of 3
fish from down the edge all decent fish and I thought that at this time I had
about 50lb in the net so I decided to chuck a third net in after topping up a
couple of lines. ( The third net was for a bit of sportsmanship and also
because the pegs are a long way off the water and the last thing I wanted to do
was hurt myself or loose fish due to pulling too much up the bank.)
This however was the kiss of death and after
putting this net in I did not have another indication for nearly an hour and
only managed another 3 fish in total until the end of the match. During this
time, Dave had a great run and managed to put 8 Carp into the net, he did
however loose lots more; all he was doing was concentrating on his short line
with meat over pellet. The all out could ot come quick enough and I knew that
Dave ad caught enough to beat me, he reckoned he had 6 Carp (I had counted 15)
andthat I had smashed him, the scales however, showed that he is rubbish at
counting fish and estimating weight, my bag went 69lb 4oz and Dave managed to
squeek it with 72lb 8oz, I was not a happy bunny. But I had not lost too many
fish apart from the one on the rod and another on the long shallow rig that
powered into snags before I had a chance. On the day however the AAF was
victorious with an impressive 8 section wins so we won the trophy back. Another
good result was Neil Gaff from the other side of Dave managing 3rd
overall.
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