AAF Gp2 Witherington Farm, 12 Jun 13

It was off to Witherington Farm today for an AAF Group match, normally I do not like fishing the snake at withy as I think that it can be really peggy and also really hard as it has had a few problems with predators in recent times, but I had been informed by John that I was fishing for Nomads so I had to give it a good shot.  There was a good bit of banter at the draw, and it was good to see a few familiar faces again, but it was soon to business, the team consisted of myself, John Dewbery and Ivan Oakey so I had a lot to live up to fishing with 2 local experts. Ivan did the draw and gave me peg 40, no I am rubbish at remembering the peg numbers on the snake so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be the peg that Dave George was sat on last year for the Gp2 vs Andover MG match. I had been pegged next to him then so had an idea how to approach the peg.

As you can see I had loads of room and a bridge to aim at, with the weather saying that it was going to be wet and windy the first item of tackle out of the bag was an 8 ft wand set up with a method feeder, once that was done I plumbed up a paste rig for 5m, pellet rig for 13m and I also set up a shallow rig (Just in case) and a margin rig. Bait was also simple with 2mm pellet and groundbait for the feeder, 4mm softened pellet and maggot for the long pole, hemp and corn for the paste line and meat for down the edge.

At the all in I did my normal trick of just shipping out a paste rig to 5 meters and waiting for a mug carp, except that this time the fish had not read the script and I did not get a sniff on it. I thought that it was odd but continued any way, then found that the lake on a whole was fishing hard, I managed to snare a few skimmers at 13m in the first couple of hours but was going nowhere fast.

It was at this time that I spotted a carp turn over next to the reed on the far bank, I had been trying to avoid having to go over there with the pole the wind was stiffening from left to right, but I bit the bullet and shipped my shallow rig the 16 meters across to the far side, I slapped the pellet on the surface 3 times and the elastic poured out of the pole tip. That’s the way to do it I thought, but alas, that was it for that line apart from another small carp that I mugged from the left hand side of the reed bed about 15 minutes later. So it was back to trying to find the fish, it was at this point that I noticed Freddie further up the bank to my right netting a lump on the method. I decided to give it 30 minutes casting towards the bridge again, except that I changed the hookbait from a banded pellet to dead maggot. This also was a non-starter with a quick small carp and then a couple of see through skimmers, I was starting to get desperate so a new plan was hatched.

I was confident that if I could attract the carp over my feed then at some point they would start feeding, so I picked up the catty and started feeding half pouches of 4 mm softened feed pellet over my 13 m line, I also re plumbed the paste rig to fish over this line. The change worked and although it was not hectic I managed to land around 6 carp in the final hour and a half, including one on the whistle that was quite handy.

Again the margins had not produced for me and I can only think that it was because I had not gone in tight enough, the rustiness of a couple of months away was still showing in a couple of decisions I made, I regret not casting the method to the bare bank on the right of the reeds as I feel in hindsight that the carp would have been easier to catch in the shallower water. I also need to measure my pole so I know exactly where 16m is as I could not reach the far bank with 16 m of pole, only the reeds this would have negated the need to cast the method as I would have fed a line there.

I still managed to weigh in just over 13KG and this was enough for 4^th in section (although I picked up for third as someone did not pay into section pools!) I was beaten by Freddie and his method caught lumps, he had 17KG, there was a 15KG and then Griff in the peg to my left who would have smashed it up if he had not run out of maggot had 14KG. The point of interest was that Griff was big potting maggot in down the track and catching skimmers well with the odd small carp, I was struggling to get bites over 4mm pellet with a 4mm expander but I have since been shown that a 4mm pellet when softened grows to 6mm so you need to fish a 6mm expander over the top!!?! You live and learn.