Withy Teams of 4, 02/03/2013

Again I had been selected to fish Selwood Lake, and when John returned from the draw with peg 4 I thought that it would either have a few carp or it would be a bad day in the office.

The peg has an island around 25m away and a long margin to the left that is around 3-4ft deep and acres of open water in front so it is usually a good draw.

I set up a 30g scoop feeder to fish to the island on my standard 10ft bomb rod, 0.20mm mainline, a 0.18mm bottom to an 18 PR36 and a bait band. Feed for this was mixed 2 and 4mm coarse pellet softened and hookbait was either a hard 6mm pellet or a grain of corn.

I set up a deep margin rig for down to my left that would also double up as a dobbing rig in the early stages of the match, this was a 4X12 Big H Border float on 0.18 to a 0.14mm bottom and a size 1 Tubertini 175, this was set on Blue Cenex elastic through 1 section and I fished bread, corn and maggot on this rig. For the silvers I decided to fish pellet as I thought that this would give me the best chance of the odd rogue carp and I found two spots that were the same depth, 1 at 6m and the other at 14m. The rig for this changed a couple of times through the day but the best was a 0.2g ‘Dino Floats’ Duke, with 0.16 mainline and a 0.10 bottom with a size 18 Tubertini 808. This was set on pink Cenex elastic that is soft enough for the skimmers and also powerful; enough to control the odd carp, on these lines I fed 2mm and 4mm pellet softened through a tiny kinder pot.

At the start of the match I set my margin rig 8 inches off the deck and proceeded to look in every nook and cranny as far as I could reach to my left with bread, I did not even get a touch, so I then started to feed my pellet lines and trickled a bit of bait down the edge. Whilst this was settling I cast the feeder a couple of times to the island with no indications to speak off so at the hour mark I moved on to my pellet lines starting at 6m again with no bites and then going out to 14m where after 1 ¾ hours I had my first indication. This was when I decided to change to the rig I mentioned earlier and I got a quick run of skimmers, 3 to be precise before having to re feed the line and start to rotate around to look for a bite.

This set the tone for the rest of the match; I managed a lone roach from the margin, a couple of bits from the short line, a liner on the feeder and around a dozen skimmers and a couple of roach from on the long line. This gave me a grand total of 9lb and a handful of ounces and last on the lake, even Les beat me off the next peg with a flukey carp!!

The team did not do as badly as me so we are still in with a chance.

So that was my last match for a while as duty calls I hope that you all have tight lines this summer and I will try to put up a few educational bits on here whilst on my extended holiday.