Land Command Championship, Heronbrook, 30/05/14

There were 68 or so anglers booked in for this match so we were spread over Match, Island and meadow, with my substantial breakfast dispatched and a £1 wager made with Chas it was time for the match brief and the draw.  It was whilst waiting that I was informed that Chas had pulled peg 1 on Match out of the bag so I needed a good peg to compete with him, 19 on Meadow was not it……

To give myself the best chance I set up a pellet rig for across, paste rig for down the track at 2+2, a margin rig to fish meat left and right and finally a tip rod to ping a pellet feeder around with. At the all-in I fed my track and edge lines before shipping out with my pellet rig, it consisted of a 10-11 MW F1 Pear on 0.16-0.10 and a 16 T808. I was using a mix of 2mm pellet and F1 Dark groundbait in the toss pot and I was caught by surprise when the float buried first put in, I lost that one but 5 minutes later my Pink reflex elastic was getting well stretched by a small carp. That one in the net I had to wait for a little while for my next bite and it was a very good carp, unfortunately I will never know how big as the hook pulled after about 5 minutes and I was left cursing. So to prevent any more losses I upped the hooklength to 0.12 and the elastic to yellow Reflex, and didn’t get another bite over that line for the next 45 minutes, so I had a look on the paste line early.

My rig for the paste line was a 0.2g Dino Paste float on 0.20-0.18mm line and a T175 in size 5, elastic was green Reflex as usual. I started to get indications almost straight away and managed a small F1 but it was nowhere quick enough and with most people around me catching small carp I needed to do something to get a few in the net.  I tried the pellet feeder, edge, paste and across both on the deck and shallow over the next 2 hours with only another 3 small F1’s on the paste line to show for my efforts.  I was on the brink of packing up when I thought that I would have a quick look again down on my right hand margin, I had been feeding it religiously all day with 6mm meat and hemp so it would have to give me something.

I toss potted in a pinch of hemp and 8 bits of meat before slowly lowering my rig in on top of the feed, 20 seconds later a liner that moved the float so I lifted it back into position, dropped it down and it dinked under. It didn’t take long to get the 6lber into the net as I was again on green Reflex to 0.20 mainline, 0.18mm bottom and a size 3 T175.  I shipped back down the edge and lowered my float back in again with a toss pot full of grub and another carp quickly slipped up and so started a manic hour and a quarter that saw me putting carp upto about 13lb into the net almost one a bang. Mick the edge to my right couldn’t understand it as I plundered the fish from between us but I think that it was where I had over 3ft of depth tight to the reeds that was allowing the fish to regroup quickly.  I was just starting to enjoy myself when the fish left me with 30 minutes to go and I struggled for another carp from that line before the all out.  I knew that I had done well but what the scale revealed blew me away, I was the last person in my section to get weighed and 31kg was winning when it got to me. I was confident that I had over 30kg and I was proved right when my first net went 25kg and there was about 20kg in the other one for 45KG and a handful of grams.  This even beat the other section on Meadow that should have been the better one so I was looking good for getting my quid off Chas.

Overall I was relegated to second as Colin W managed 48kg from Match, so well done Colin, I am still rueing those two lost fish at the start of the match.  All I need to do now is catch up with Chas for my quid, anyway after this photo it was time for a quick meeting, prize giving and then the 3 hour drive home so that I can fish the final round of the Withy Tof4 tomorrow, here’s to hoping for another good day.

Sensas Teams of 4, K&A, 25/5/14

I really was not ready for this match and I was not looking forward to it as the forecast of sun and wind on a bank holiday weekend I knew it was going to be a difficult day.

I got to the draw venue nice and early as I was picking up bait and had no other timings and started waiting for the rest of the Browning Andover ‘team’, which consisted of Nic, Dave, myself and Nick the Greek. Talk at the draw was about the day ahead and looking towards the boats, bikes and wind and all I was hoping for was a half decent peg and not dropping the proverbial.  Buzzer tipped up with my bait and it didn’t really look enough, probably due to all the commercials of late.

Nick did the draw and it seemed alright as far as B7 sounds, but it turned out to be in the infamous wide’s:

As you can see I decided to put the pole down the towpath and this had involved quite a bit of pruning on the inside, but I hoped that it would be worth it, it was 13 and a little bit to the front of the tree so I decided that my main line would be at 13m to give me a little room should I hook something special.  I also pushed a rig up the left and right hand side of the tree and plumbed up there and instantly I was finding that due to my lack of prep I was missing things. Namely tippex and any decent worm rigs for the shallow water that I was finding, I managed to bodgeone1 and it was a 4X12 cut down chimp on 0.16-0.12 and a 14hook. This I rigged on yellow Cenex so that should I hook a proper one I would be able to deal with it.

That was my man rig dealt with so for the backups I set up a 2m and 3m whip, one to fish next to the reeds the other for the inside of the track where I would fish squatt and slop (I had a pint to get through), both these were MB special Whip floats on 0.10 – 0.07mm bottoms and 22 hooks.

I also set up a waggler but I only chucked it when I needed something to do whilst waiting for the swim to settle and so that’s enough of that.

I was ready for the all in and as it was called I potted in 6 chopped dendys and 20 caster onto the front of the tree, fed a small nugget of groundbait onto both whip lines and then shipped out to the tree line. The tow picked up immediately as a boat went through the lock 300yds to my left and as the float trotted through it dinked under and a small skimmer was soon getting netted.  It was followed up by a couple of others before I had to re feed, and start again as the first of many boats wiped out my worm feed. And to be honest this was how my match progressed, catch a few fish, get wiped out by 1,2,3 or 4 boats then reefed and try to catch a few more small skimmers from the tree.

I managed a few fish on the whip lines as processions of boats went past but I couldn’t get them lined up enough to compete on that line so I had to concentrate across.  I tried experimenting how I fed but it was a struggle for most and we were all very happy for the end.

I ended up with 6lb 13oz and this was enough for 6^th in section with a 17lb, 8-18 and no less than 3 people all on 8-1. I was frustrated as I believe that if I had had a few more rigs I would have done better, as I lost my only short body shallow water worm rig after about 2hrs when I went a bit too close to the tree.

The team had Dave on 13points, me on 11, Nic on 9 and Nick the greek on 3poiints for team 9^th on the day. This put us 11^th out of 16 in the end, always next year.

AAF Gp2, Match 7, Viaduct, 14/5/14

I had been looking forward to this match for a while and Tony was the same as we both had done a few hours at work to let us get away for this one.  Tony was at mine for the customary lift at nearly dark o’clock and we were in the road with time to spare, but this was no ordinary journey and I managed to narrowly miss a car that was overtaking me VERY quickly. In the quote for the Glimmerman, there was nothing but road, then a glimmer, then a chuffing omega went tanking past as I was hitting a bottleneck in traffic.

So that was me in a good mood for a start, that was then compounded by a chunk of wood in the carriageway that I had to hit, mood improved …….not.

We arrived in one piece for breakfast at McDonalds and the talk was of how well the place had been fishing with numerous tons from Cary at the weekend, so that was where I wanted to draw. We moved on for the draw, paid in chatted around all the other and folks I had not seen for a while and before I knew it the draw was upon us.  Kev gave the brief and then team captains were called in one by one, I was doing the draw due to my recent drawing form, and we were about 4^th in the queue. Our team for the day was Tony, Rocky and myself and the pegs were 110, 100 and 128 respectively, due to a split section over the back to back pegs between Cary and Campbell, team wise it was a very good draw, individually I was not impressed as I didn’t feel it was a good peg at the moment. My mood improved…..not.

I got my kit to my peg and I apologise now to everyone who thought that I had spat the dummy because I was in a foul mood for some reason, anyway, I looked at the peg and the tree to the left was now overhanging substantially so much so that to fish the areas of the peg that used to produce on the wag you would lose a few floats in the tree, so that line was binned. My mood was stinking now, all the carp in front of me were getting ready to spawn, and I would be stuck on the pole of casting the wag/bomb towards the right hand side of my peg.  I had a small word with myself when I got the chance and decided on a line up the spit, an up and down line in open water and a 5m line.

I plumbed up the spit line first and found that in front of a clear bit of bank at 13m the depth was quite constant and the bottom was reasonably hard so a 0.2g MB WAC ‘O’ was set up on 0.20-0.18mm and a size 3 T175, elastic was green reflex as I was hoping for a few from here.

I spent quite a while trying to find what I was looking for on the long and short line and fortunately it was the same depth in both spots I decided on so one rig would do it, again I was feeling for a harder bottom than the surrounding areas and found two nice patches so a 4X10 MW Carp Slim was set up on 0.18-0.14 and a T175 size 2, this time the elastic was a lighter blue reflex as I was also hoping for backup skimmers on this line.

My last two rigs were a shallow rig for the long line and a dobbing rig, but I couldn’t buy a bite on either so I won’t go into detail. My bait tray was a simple affair with 8mm meat, 10mm meat, hemp and 8mm pellet, in hindsight I think that I would have been better off with 6mm meat but that is to try another day, I think that in future I will cut my meat after I have drawn that way I won’t have to take tons of frozen meat to the lakes that then sits in the cool bag.

I managed a quite a bit before the all in, I annoyed Tony for 10 minutes, ate a hot pasty and helped the guy on 132 set up a bomb rig so that it was fishery safe. Anyway, all in was called and out went my dobbing rig to try and mug an early one. 10 minutes later my mugging rig was up the bank and I fed the spit line and the long line both with half a pot of hemp and meat, then going straight out onto the long line where I instantly hooked and lost a carp, this was followed by a lull in which I should have twigged but I started to try shallow with meat on the long line and also kinderpotting meat on the same line with the same result, chuff all. So I pot in a quarter pot of meat and went on the spit, instantly hooking and landing my first carp, this was followed by roach bites.

I refed the spit and went long again hooking a fish that I lost, this time I re fed and went straight on it for a fish, I still didn’t twig though and set up a pellet wag to chase the fish I could see cruising, most of the guys around me had had fish on the bomb (that I didn’t get out the bag), but I was going to make the wag work… after an hour it was chucked up the bank and I had a look short for a quick fish, but at 8lb it was well worthwhile. Now I could go on about how I ended up having to put half a pot of bait in for every fish from the spit and long, and that it took me until about 2 hrs to go to figure this out, or that I fed 6 tins of 8mm meat and got plagued by small roach whittling my hookbaits down to nothing within minutes unless a carp was in the swim.  I tried 8mm hard pellet to overcome the small fish but all this did was let me watch a float dip constantly with nothing on the end for longer before re baiting.

All day I got to watch Tony getting beaten up by the carp under the brambles that he was fishing to, John Dewberry had a steady last few hours taking good fish short on meat with the breeze in his face and Mick Craddock on 74 had picked up another net after 2 hours so had a few. As the all-out was called I had about 10 carp for what I thought would be 50 odd pound, as the scales came round (with Adam Waklin helping out) it had obviously been a struggle everywhere, this still didn’t make me feel better though, even when my fish went 62lb odd, the guy on the other side of the spit had 69 and Eddy on 119 (The other side of the lake with a nice breeze and corner, excuse over) had managed 88lb for a section win. So I was third in section, Rocky was about the same and Tony took a quid of me with 78lb for 4^th in the match and 2^nd in his section behind John, who went on to win it with 126lb ish. Second overall was Mick on 74 with 108lb.

The team was second on the day so all we need to do now is get all three of us on the bank for another couple of matches to see if we can qualify for the finals.

On a final note get better soon Gary as I missed your dulcet tones for the last couple of hours.

Withy TO4, 10/5/14

I had been looking forward to this match as I had been spending quite a bit of time at the venue and was starting to feel in tune with it, but as I was to find out every day is a school day.  My day started out with getting rid of a duty mobile that then saw me getting to the fishery for about 0815, not helped by an early morning phone call on the duty phone.

Welcomes done, hooks stocked up on and money paid we were ready for the draw, that I volunteered to do, it was reasonable on paper, I was on peg 7 Selwood, Ian had 9 on Cottage, John and Keith were both moaning as usual about their swims on the snake (I can’t remember the numbers).

So to my peg and the weather forecast was right with a strong wind cutting diagonally across me right to left and slightly in my face I was in for a rough day.  Peg 7 is a renowned margin peg with a platform 10m to my right that usually has a few fish under, so knowing how the fish in this lake like platforms I made a decision to get the Ultra Power out of the bag, the margin rig was 0.20mm mainline, 0.18mm bottom, size 3 T175 and Pink Vespe 22 hollow!!!!  If I hooked it I wanted it in the net and had been assured by a friend that this is the stuff on days like this.  I had a 0.3g float on to try and overcome the strengthening wind as even at 10m it was getting hard to hold the pole still at times, bottom was quite flat but it was 3 ½ feet deep which did not bode well for a hit and hold swim.  It was also too deep for the normal tactic of a small ball of groundbait so I went with 6mm meat, corn and hemp on the margin line.

My next swim and my banker was a small groundbait feeder that I clipped up a few feet short of the island for the skimmers, I started with a completely free running feeder but ended up with a slightly different rig:

By having the feeder sliding on a short twisted section and another longer section of twisted line under the feeder I had very few tangles (you will always get a few with 0.12mm) and the bites were proper most of the time as the fish hooked themselves.

I also set up a rig to fish at 6 sections in front of me and a method rod for the island chuck so I was ready about 30 minutes before the all in.  As the whistle sounded I tried the method to the island trick, but the first cast was short due to a gust of wind, the second landed well enough but came back covered in reeds that had been torn off the island by spawning fish and the third chuck saw it up the bank behind me. I fed the RH margin and the 6 section lines before casting the skimmer feeder out, and that was it for 5 hours as I struggled to catch any real numbers of fish on the tip, just 3-4 and then they would disappear for 20 minutes then I would get another couple and they would back off again.  I tried the 6 section line and managed a skimmer but I could not present properly on that line so it git chucked up the bank next to the method, the margin produced a puppy after a couple of hours and in the last hour I really concentrated on it hooking 4 landing 2 from under the platform, The first lost fish I pulled the wrong way and got cut off, the second was a foul hooker during a gust of wind.

The last 30 minutes was the most eventful with me taking a small storm straight in the grid whilst waiting for a bite.

I ended up helping out with the weigh in and had managed 4^th on the lake beaten by Mayo to my right who caught a few on the method off the island, as did the other two above me but I cannot remember who it was, weights were 60odd, 50 odd, mayo on 42, and me on 32lb.

The team fared well with the other 3 all getting top two in section and Nic Mac managed third overall but as duty was calling I had to go back to work at the double and continue to sit next to a mobile. We are currently third in the league with a match to go, here’s fingers crossed for a good day at the end of the month, but first I am off to viaduct on Wednesday, better pack a few keepnets with the weights that have been coming out of late ;-)

04/05/14 MFS withy day 2

Today it was off to the inner snake for me, peg 56 to be precise and all I got from the moment I drew it was that I was on a flyer and should win the section and possibly the match with ease,

I had the reeds opposite that were at 14.5m, and it was 4 feet deep against them so fishing on the deck was probably not the best plan with every big carp once again cruising around the lake, so it was a MW Cookie on 0.18 mainline and a 0.12mm hooklength, an 18 PR36 with a bait band and yellow Reflex, the plan for this was that I would fish somewhere else for an hour whilst pinging 4mm hard pellet at the corner, hopefully drawing fish in from further down the lake.  My next rig was a skimmer line, after considerable plumbing up I decided at 13m in line with a tree in the distance, as this was at the base of the far shelf and reasonably flat. The rig for here was the usual 4X12 MW Carbon F1 slim, 0.16mm mainline, 0.10mm hooklength and a 16 B911 F1. This was again set on yellow hydro as I have found this elastic to be perfect for commercial skimmers especially when teamed with a large fine wire hook. You will still get fish dropping off but you will definitely land more skimmers and bonus fish tend to pull less as well. Finally I set up a paste rig to start at 5m and also to fish into the gap under the bridge at 14.5m to my right down the edge, this was 0.20mm to 0.18mm and a size 5 T175, the elastic was green Reflex.

As the all-in was called I fed 3 balls of groundbait onto the skimmer line and then shipped out the paste rig to 5m, on my 4^th put in the float lifted sharply and my first fish was on, a skimmer of about a pound. However, that was the only bite I had on the paste all day, I went out onto the shallow line early and managed a pound and a half F1, a couple of goldfish and a small foul hoked carp when I went tight to the reeds, the tactic didn’t feel right. So after an hour and a bit it was time to go skimmer bashing, once again I found feeding to be key and I had to work really hard to keep the fish coming, I had the odd look down the edge on paste and also on the shallow line but it really wasn’t the day for it, so with nothing to lose I changed the edge rig to a meat rig and started to feed some 8mm meat down under the trees.

It took a little while but near enough bang on an hour to go the float dipped on the edge line and I extracted carp number 1 from the snags, he was closely followed by another 2 and I thought I had it sussed, but the swim went dead again and it was a case of resting it and bagging some skimmers before having another look down the edge for another 2 carp in the last 10 minutes.

It had been another interesting day, but as usual I had seen loads of fish getting caught on the outer snake but was not sure how my section had fished to my left. Fortunately I was on the scales so I could find out, Shedful on the end had 42lb, Sconee on the next peg had 43lb 15oz for the section win, unfortunately the middle of the section struggled and I managed 39lb for third in section.  I was quite disappointed in that I was 1 carp short of the section win but the weekend on the whole had been a great laugh.  I managed to come 12^th out of the 23 anglers, Rolly won it with a perfect score of 2 points so well done there mate.  I am looking forward to next year as it will be going on again and providing I am around I will be there.

Thanks again to Nick, Ian and co for running the weekend, and congratulations for raising £11000 for charity over the years.

3/05/14 MFS withy day 1, Barnmoor

This was my first time on this event and I had been warned that it was a bit of a giggle, I managed to get to the fishery in time for a breakfast and found a few friendly faces scattered around, I was going to be on Barnmoor for the day so I was hoping for an island chuck as the sun was out and the carp would be up in the water.  Once Sconee arrived we did the draw and peg 1 was going to be my home for the day, I was not too happy as it was at the wrong end of the lake and I didn’t have an island chuck, so the plan was simple.

Just to the left of the swim there was a small shelf that I plumbed up at the base of, the rig was yellow Hydro, a 4X14 MW F1 slim Carbon, 0.16mm Cenex mainline, 0.10mm Cenex hooklength to a size 16 B911 F1. I was going to feed groundbait, pellet and dead maggot on that line, my next line was down the edge to my left in front of an empty platform and paste was the plan for here. The rig was a MB Jakey Marmeow on 0.20mm mainline and a 0.18mm Cenex hooklength, the hook was a size 5 Tubertini 175 and elastic was green Reflex.  Due to the number of carp cruising it would be rude not to have a mugging rig set up, a 0.5g Drennan Carp 4 dibber, 0.18mm mainline, 0.16mm hooklength and a 16 PR36 hook. Elastic this time was Blue Reflex due to the size of the fish cruising around in front of me.

The all in was called and I fed half a pot of hemp and meat at 4m under the tree to my right, 3 balls of groundbait onto the skimmer line and finally I fed half a pot of hemp and pellet down on the edge line. I went straight under the tree at 4m to no avail so after 10 minutes of not a lot I shipped out onto the skimmer line with double dead red. It wasn’t solid from the start but I got a few indications straight away closely followed by a few small skimmers, then as I started to chop and change through hookbaits I managed a couple of bigger skimmers to around the 2lb mark, but, I couldn’t keep them coming in any numbers.  The guys to my right seemed to be getting bigger and more fish leaving myself and Sconee on peg 18 with not a lot to play with, there were carp cruising down our end of the lake but try as I might I was unable to mug one, I think I need some more practice at it.

I was starting to enjoy all the banter flying around the lake, namely as I wasn’t taking the brunt of it but unfortunately due to the weather the fishing was proper rats:

The In desperation with about an hour and a half to go I started up a new line at 16m that I fed with hemp and meat in an attempt to get one of the cruising carps head down, there had been a few carp out around by the island and the peg that I had practiced on last week seemed to be doing the business. The rig for here was a 4X10 MW carp slim, 0.18 to 0.14mm line, a size 2 T175 and yellow Reflex elastic.  I rotated between the skimmer, new meat and margin line for the last hour for a handful of skimmers and thankfully that was it the match was over.

Being on peg 1 I had also picked up the scales and for Sconee and myself it was a tale of woe, he had about 18lb and I had 21lb, Bez had done well off 13 for around 35lb, 17lb 1oz of which was 1 carp taken on the wag, Lewy had also caught well against the aerator for second and finally the Bard had managed nearly 40 pound from the island, including a gib prac. (Big carp backwards!!).

Still the snake tomorrow so let’s see what that brings.