Hidden Gem 1

So after the resounding failure of the last river session I decided to go somewhere new that I might be able to get amongst some better sized fish and after half a days’ worth of searching and thinking my next venue was found.

I arrived late morning as it is on a day ticket and I had a good look around, it is only small at approximately and acre and a half and there seemed to be a few fish as cruising around I could make out the shapes of some carp and bream through the translucent water. There were also numerous snags and weed beds that were pushing towards the surface and it was at the windward end of the lake looking at a gap between two fallen trees that I decided my first rod would go, so I pulled a rod from the bag and had a quick plumb around trying to figure out what the bottom was and also how many snags were in the vicinity. I had a pleasant surprise in that the bottom felt pretty flat and that there was a clear gap between the two boughs, I also found another couple of spots further to the left that looked good for a bait.

Rods out a bit of bait over the pair and the house was up quickly, I was having to fish locked up due to the snags and within an hour I had my first bit of interest, I had to walk backwards to extract it from the snags but it behaved and was soon nestled in the folds of the landing net.

After a self take the rod was soon back out on the spot courtesy of a bit of pole elastic, a bit more grub followed in the form of 15 and 18mm source and live system boiles, to get a bit of variety on the go over there and 2 hours later my right hand rod was away again, I got the fish close to my bank when the other rod.. also close to the snags suddenly locked up tight and it was a double take. This was not a good situation so I opened the bale arm on the first rod so that I could at least get the fish on the second rod away from the snags, I did and it came in quickly, I checked the first fish and it had just buried itself into some weed about 5m out in front of me. Scooping the fish I hooked second into the net I picked up the first rod and the carp just lifted out of the weedbed nodded twice and then found itself in the net with its mate.

I let them have a rest, and I managed to calm down, before I set up the camera etc ready for more photos.

Again they were both about 10-11lb so once they were back in the water and the traps reset I was able to have a brew and a calm down, I was using short stiff hinged rigs on both rods to keep the hookbait above any leaf debris that may have been under the trees and it seemed to be working especially when the alarm sounded again as I was starting my tea and carp number 4 ended up in the back of the landing net. It was taken on the same rigs as earlier but as the afternoon sun had warmed up the far bank I had tried a zig to ambush a cruiser or two to no avail.

The night was incredibly dark with no moon and the lake being small and surrounded by thick woods, a fox barking scared the crap out of me just after dusk, so I was on tenterhooks all night. I don’t think it helped knowing that if a rod went I would have to be on it in seconds so sleep was light and broken all night but I got another couple of chapters read of my book.

My alarm was set for 5 so that I could watch the dawn and see if any of the reputed biggies would show themselves, the answer was no but as soon as the sun hit my left hand spot the rod was away and carp number 5 was in the bag. No photos this time as I had the settings wrong on the camera.

This fish and a number of indications led me to try a bottom bait so I set up a simple fluorocarbon hooklength with a size 8 hook and sent it back to the same spot, a couple of hours later it was away with carp number 6.

Again it was a low double and again it had interrupted some food, ah well, this was my last action as the fish backed off away from me and try as I might I could not get a bait to them although I could see a few cruising about along the tree line. I tried a zig for a little while but then decided to go for an explore, I packed up and walked along the far bank as far as I could, got up a couple of trees but due to the water clarity I couldn’t see a great deal.  Should be a nice little winter water though and it may still hold a few surprises.

What would I do different?

Next time I am going to try PVA bags on at least one rod, I was fishing big carp rigs to try and reduce the numbers of bites but it would be good to see if there are small nuisance fish to worry about.

I will also take a marker rod and give the whole pond a good plumb up if possible to see if I can find any clues as to where the biggies live?

Chasing Shadows pt1

As I have alluded to in previous posts I have decided to try and track down a river carp from the Bristol Avon, hence the title as I am currently working on hearsay and myth.

My latest trip saw me get to the river for around 10 in the morning, and as soon as I crossed the footbridge I spotted a possible problem, there were a number of volunteers cutting massive gaps in the bankside vegetation with strimmers and lawn mowers in preparation for a boat race in a couple of weeks. This would have been a problem if I didn’t think that the fish were subjected to worst on a daily basis so I had a bit of a chat and was able to move into the swim that I had been prebaiting.

This was a nice plan and I soon had my rods up against the far bank weed with a trickling of live system over the top and I was confident for about an hour and a half then the carp gremlins started their little dance in the back of my mind.  I was wondering about the location that I had chosen as just about everyone I was talking to was saying that all the carp came from by the foot bridge or further down by the weir, I was battling the gremlins when a large fish rolled about 8m out in front of me….. Well I didn’t need a second invite and I quickly put a large pva bag of boilies and pellet with a 15mm hookbait over the top and decided that I would give at another hour at least before going for a look about.

I believe that the fish that rolled was probably a bream as within minutes I had small fish pecking and pulling at the rig, if there were carp there the small fish wouldn’t be so time for a move.  I decided to follow quite a strong recommendation from a guy that I was chatting to, he told me that lots of carp copuld usually be seen from the footbridge just upstream and that people fed the ducks bread from the bridge, always worth following where the ducks get fed and as I was packing down half a loaf got chucked at some mallards from the bridge.

No sooner than I had 2 baits in the water and the house up but the heaven opened as you can see above, I was quite happy though as I had a bait under the far bank canopy and a bait just upstream in a gap in the weed. I had leaded about briefly and not found any snags so I was happy with where I was set.

People continued past and conversations along the lines of “I did 2 nights here earlier this year and didn’t catch a thing.” Started to get banded at me and it transpired that for the early part of the season there are usually a few carp anglers along the stretch I started to see that it would not be as easy as first I thought.

The gremlins were in full flow again when a bizarre incident happened a little girl and her mum came along for a quick chat and the next thing that I knew the girl was winding my upstream rod in, still in the rest. Mum apologized, I thought nothing of it until I lifted the rod and found it snagged fast in some unseen obstacle. I was not happy.

To prevent temptation I moved downstream in darkness to a spot off the path where I knew the carpers would have been baiting, two rigs were swung 2/3 of the way across and about 100 baits followed them.  I was desperate for a sign of a fish and bite off anything would have been welcome, so the hookbaits were reduced to 15mm live system on both rods and pellet was in the pva bag. The night passed without incident apart from the party in the play park behind me... Sounded like fun. It didn’t take me long to get settled due to the fact that I decided against setting up the bivvy Less to pack up in a hurry.

I had agreed to meet up with Tony at Withy in the morning and as the fishing was hard this was not a chore, so just after dawn I was on my toes again driving across Wiltshire. I had to stop off at home to swap boilies for pellets and also to pick up a couple of secret weapons but I was at the fishery for just about 8am, Tony was due in about an hour so I did a quick lap of the lake, paid for my ticket, another lap of the lake and I found numbers of fish bubbling up and clouding the water in the furthest corner from the Cafe, so I moved in there.

The set up was a PVA method on each rod and no sooner than Tony had arrived and got set up in the peg to my right but I landed two skimmers and lost 2 decent carp, I was not impressed and decided to change the rigs about a bit, I had been fishing size 12 MWG but as I was still on my 2.75lb TC Scope carp rods I needed a little more metal to play the fish with as I hadn’t caught anything on them yet. The rigs were changed to 1oz inline leads, 10lb florocarbon hooklengths and size 10 hooks baited with 11-15mm pellet and small pva bags to stop the hookbait from pulling into any silt on the deck.

Tony was catching straight away and I got a bacon, sausage and egg butty delivered in reply to his bagging, this enraged him and also allowed me to have a quick look around the lake as the fish had obviously been spooked in from of me.

I found them on his other side so did a quick hop with my kit, the rest of the day saw me figure out that I could catch small carp at about a rodlength out infront of me all day, I also had a small snooze and got some more of my book read. Tony caught a few on the method and some skimmers on the pole, I stayed until dusk but only managed 5 carp and nothing over 10lb. Still it was quieter than the river.

 What would I do different?

On the river I would find the fish before fishing for them even if it means walking around all day.

Withy will see me going with the same tackle this winter but I am going to try and avoid small pellet as they attracted skimmers and smaller carp, I also think that the bigger fish tend to live in certain areas on the lake so I am going to start concentrating on them.

Commercial National, Heronbrook and Cudmore Fisheries, 16/8/14

We had decided that we would enter this event as Fosters Team Army and we had a half decent team for the event even with a few people having to swap for a variety of reasons. A few of us spent the night in Stafford so went out for a curry the night before and we were all discussing the best way to approach the venues. I knew that I would be on Cudmore and the common concensus was that I would need chopped worm and caster to catch everything that swims, and then make up the rest on the day. Gaz and myself went down nice and early in the morning to get to the front of the queue. We both managed a breakfast before the main rush and then settled down for the day ahead, the draw saw me on A13 and this was Arena lake, now most people approach has changed to this lake since the international events have been on it and I was told to start on the method then look for worm fish before coming in  down the edge in the closing stages. Ok I thought lets see how this will pan out.

As I was setting up there were numbers of fish slurping in the surface film so I was fancying it a bit, but I decided to set up the following as quietly as possible:

A method rod for across,

A shallow rig for 13-14.5m,

A worm rig for 7m,

A paste rig for 7m,

An edge rig that was plumed to 11.5m to my right for a groundbait line and 2+2 to my left for a meat line,

And finally a dobbing rig to try and mug a fish early.

This and all my bait prep did not take long so I was soon walking around chatting to the rest of the team at Cudmore, I had time for a brew and it was a thoroughly chilled out time leading up to the match, I was sat on my box ready for the all-in and as it was called I shipped out with a worm rich ball of groundbait for the worm line and half a pot of hemp, pellet and paste for the other short line. I then tried to dob one of the carp that had been lingering but they soon disappeared so out went the method, I was quite surprised when the tip started to bounce on the first cast and a small skimmer was soon panned. Happy that I had not blanked out went the feeder again and this time I couldn’t sink the line before the tip went round and a small tench ended up in the keepnet. This had been a really good start but this is when the wheels fell off as all I could get on the method were tiny skimmers, so I had a look on the worm line and caught tiny perch, the paste and shallow lines seemed fishless so I was stuck and kept trying to put a few small skimmer sinto the net. This seemed like a bad plan when a few carp started coming in around me and they seemed to be shallow across so I got off my box and quickly set up a bomb rod to fish a zig in the far margin, this still saw no action with two and a half hours left to push I started to feed my margins more heavily trying to make something happen. After thirty minutes and around 3 hours into the match my meat margin rig buried and carp number 1 was soon in the net, it was around 2Kg so worth at least two of some of the other fish that I had seen get caught.  It was however, a false dawn and the next hour and a half saw me start to rotate on the carp lines mainly concentrating on the margins and the paste line as these were where I thought I could claw something back.

With half an hour to go I was proved right as I shipped onto te paste line and the float buried after 45 seconds with carp number 2 on, this was followed by number 3 and then in the last 10 minutes I managed another 2 for a grand total of 5 carp come the all-out. As it turned out this was not too bad and Simon Fry who I had for company to my left managed to weigh in 8Kg, I managed 14Kg, the guy to my right had 16Kg and it transpired that there were a few 15-17Kg weights so one more fish could have seen me win my sub section of 5.

Back at the clubhouse the general consensus was not good, Gaz had managed 14points, I had 10 and the rest of the team all had single digits.

As you can see we ended up 15 out of 19 teams on the day and once again Drennan Barnsley Blacks walked away with the trophy.

Two weeks to recover and then the Inter Corps so we shall have to see what I can get up to in the meantime, I fancy a river carp or 2.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENT:

I would have had a bomb and pellet wag set up just in case.

I would fish to my strengths more rather than following the trends.

I would have fed the method line with 8mm pellet to try and attract a few better fish onto it. 

A new chapter?

As you are probably aware if you read this at all often I am a bit of a sucker for a spot of carping, well I have decided that over my summer leave I am going to catch a river carp from the Bristol Avon.

If any of you have tried this before you will know that the most important thing is location, followed by location and finally location, for instance the stretch of river that I was looking at concentrating on has a weir at both ends 4.5 miles apart, now that’s a lot of river for them to be hiding in and considering at best you can only see a couple of hundred meters at a time location is hard.

I was at the river for dawn as I thought that this would give me the best chance of seeing a fish or at least some signs of fish, I didn’t count on the extra colour in the water though and I had found a hurdle straight away, I only had a foot of visibility, not ideal for fish spotting. So carrying my rods, chair, tackle and some bait I started walking downstream checking out all the likely looking nooks and crannies. After about 30 minutes I got fed up of carrying my kit so I hid it in a bush (just in case the cows nicked it), and carried on down the river. Every now and again a spot would take my fancy and I would check the depth and bottom make up with the 1 rod I was now carrying and a bare lead, but even though all these places looked really fishy there was no guarantee that there was a carp within a mile of me.

In the end I got bored of walking and timed the 30 minutes back to my kit, I had seen some lovely areas but livestock, power lines and weed would make them tricky to fish so I decided to put a bit of bait into a spot I had found some fizzing in and give it an hour looking for liners or other signs.

Told you there were bubbles

 I gave it an hour and then decided to move on as I was being descended upon by a herd of young bullocks, discretion the better part of valor and all that, anyway I decided to move to a new stretch and after a 30 minute walk back to the van a 20 minute drive not including a stop off at Maccy D’s I was parked up and getting my kit out again. This time I left the chair in the van as the bait bucket would double up as a chair and started walking downstream again, I crossed bridges, forded streams and took on a bit of jungle warfare until I found my next spot, again visibility was a problem but there were signs of anglers and there was a nice looking feature on the far bank, good enough for an hour I thought.

As I sent the two rods over to the far side I found the bottom was clear probably due to the overhead trees but there were small fish topping frequently so fish wanted to live here.

I got bored quite quick as there were very few signs of anything happening again, lots of small fish but they probably wouldn’t be able to eat an 18mm Live System bollie so I contemplated a move (again).

Me contemplating another move

Now for the technical bit, as I was fishing for what I thought would be large uncaught or at least un landed fish my hardware looked a bit like this:

10ft 2.75lb TC Nash Scope rods

Shimano 5500 XTB Reels

15lb ESP Syncro XT line

3ft of ESP leadcore with an esp leadclip and a quick change link on a swivel in the clip.

1 oz lead (more of this later)

8 inches of Fox Cortex to a size 6 ESP curve shank hook, see below for the actual rig.

As you can see it gave a really aggressive hooking arrangement and all the gear was strong enough to moor a barge to, I looked at the rig in the margins and it blended in well so that was not the reason for the lack of action, so it was on my heels again and off to a stretch of river renowned for its carp.

Within 15 minutes I was sat behind a very tasty looking gap in the far bank trees and a quick lead about told me all that I needed to know.

Both of the rods were sent out but due to some weed closer in I decided against the lead core and took it off, then about 100 baits followed the rods out and the wait started. My watch said that the time was one in the afternoon and I had to be away in around 3 hours and for the first 2 hours not a lot happened. At about three, I heard some commotion in the rowing club to my right and thought that I was going to get my usual visit off 10-20 kayaks, so to stop any problems I decided to recast and run a flying back lead down each rod. This would have worked if it was not for the weed down the inside and down the middle of the river so after snagging the first rod up and breaking off it was time to go home.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENT:

Next time I will make sure that I can spend the evening at the very least at the venue as in my experience nearly all my river carp have come during the hours of darkness, and if you don’t get one they tend to show in the early evening.

Secondly PREBAIT.

I am going to have to wait until after the weekend for my next shot as I am on the commercial national at Cudmore fisheries.

Division 1 National, River Trent, 9/8/14

This week saw us back in Grantham doing our final preparation for the Div 1, this as usual consisted of a team meeting and then something to eat, lots of chat about all things fishy and then a broken night’s sleep.

The morning came and the draw team deployed out nice and early leaving the rest of us to play with our bait eat breakfast and then join them at the draw venue, we had decided to all park together so that it would be easier after the draw and then we descended upon the venue.  It was as usual filled with the buzz that only the national brings and I bumped into a few friendly faces such as Buzzer, Ditch and Gary and the banter started in full swing, especially as a few of them had already heard about my day loosing barbel after barbel the week before.

The time was soon upon us and Gaz did the honours as team captain, the sections were spread out between Hams Bridge and Laugherton so there was plenty of room for the 420 anglers. Gaz called out the names and I ended up on E34 which put me onto the famous Holme Marsh stretch of river, we wished each other luck and then bugged out in true military fashion from the car park.

The drive was pretty uneventful and I was soon driving across a field full of massive bullocks to get to the river, in the middle distance to my right were the famous buoys where we had been a couple of weeks before when Scott caught his bream, and I was hoping for good things. However, fate had a different idea, at the gate to get in I had been chatting to the steward and he took a sharp intake of breath and said that there might be a few roach on a maggot feeder but other than that it would be hard. Yeah right I thought and carried on anyway, you have to take a lot of this with a pinch of salt as the river behaves differently with 40 odd angler on a short stretch and it might also have been tactics to make me worry.

When I got to my peg I was met with an area that I have fished before, I drew it on the RAF challenge before the last national so I knew that it was going to be a tough day, made worst by the downstream hurricane.

 

I remembered my sign

I waded my box out into the margins and proceeded to sort out my kit and bait for the day, I set up two feeder rods, one for 2/3 of the way across just short of some weed that I found by pulling a lead around and the other tight to the far bank reeds if I needed it.  Also set up the pole to fish a comfortable 9m, on here I set up a 1g and 2g rig as it was only 4 feet deep but the flow was very powerful so I needed some weight down the line to let me control the float. It didn't take me long to get set up and the rest of the time was spent trying to set a pole roller so that it would not blow over and mixing my two different groundbait mixes.

It was also just my Luck that Gary from Devizes was on the peg to my left, so I had someone to shout at through the wind, we even decided to go a quid. I was ready for the all-in and fed 4 balls of groundbait on the pole line rich in hemp and caster, then started on the feeder. It was tricky to see the bites in the wind and it quickly transpired that I had the wrong tip in the rod so I was up the bank swapping it out for a stiffer one. 5 minutes later I had a hook in the water again and straight away managed to put a couple of small roach and dace into the net. The guy 3 to my left had a bream so I spent the rest of the first hour on a large hookbait looking for a bonus. It never came and I was quickly trying the pole line, now I straight away I was getting a bite every run through but hitting them was a nightmare and when I did the fish still had yolk sacks so I started topping up with small balls of feed rich groundbait, changing the depth and trying all permutations of hook baits to no avail. I even tried blasting a maggot feeder to the far reed line with no indications so I plugged away back on the pole line along with the odd look on the feeder for the remainder of the match, I found that I would get a quick run of fish for every small ball of groundbait that I fed, I would also get 1 or 2 roach every time I looked on the feeder line and these were of a better stamp at about an ounce a piece.  But in all it was grim, even Grant and Ian couldn't cheer me up as they walked the bank to pass on information, the only plus side was that the two guys downstream of me and a few upstream were also struggling.

As the all-out was called I felt deflated as after all the preparation and practice I thought I had been beaten by the draw bag, I packed up slowly, reasonably confident of a kilo even though I had a chublet of ¾ of an ounce jump to freedom out of the keepnet. This seemed to be a theme of what people around me thought they had, the guy with the bream had 1.9Kg, Gary snuck a couple of better roach out on a maggot feeder for 1.3kg and I managed 1.0kg for 11points. This was sure that this would be enough for the teams lowest points but unfortunately I was wrong on that front as well. However we did manage to finish 24^th and this was enough to beat a few good teams including GBMV, Swindon ISIS and Browning Hotrods.

The mood at the presentation was mixed but as we all said our farewells we were happy overall with what we had achieved, and looking forward we always had the Commercial national next week.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENT:

I have chatted with a mate and he said that these are the best bits of blogs and good reference so here we go, I don’t feel that I had all my options covered, I should have set up a waggler even though the wind was awful I would have been able to get some bait out on to a 13-16m line and I could have fished it there. I should have also listened to the local and dropped a maggot feeder onto the tip rod after the first hour’s lack of bream, as this would have been better for the roach that I was catching on that line. I don’t think I could have done much more on the pole line apart from possibly putting an 8m whip over it, ah well, I had better start practicing whip fishing before the next Trent national.

Division 1 practice week

It is that time of year again and the Angling Trust Division 1 national was calling, I am in a lucky position in that I get a weeks’ worth of practice partially funded by the Army Angling Federation and also through Fosters of Birmingham.  The team met up on the Sunday night looking forward to the week ahead, it was decided that I would be practicing the float on day 1 and that we were off to Newark Dyke so I was quite happy.

After a late first night we arrived at the venue, I was given permanent peg 9, this saw me in an area opposite the weir so I actually had some flow unlike some of the others.  I fancied it as a waggler peg so this was the first rod out of the bag, I set up a 3AA straight wag to run through just off bottom at about 14-16m out. I thought that I had better set it up quite positive to see if the fish were line shy so I used a 0.10mm bottom to a size 18 and had several number 8 shot down the line as it was only about 9ft deep and a steady flow.

Second rod was a big stick and that is the last time I shall mention that, I also had to start on the feeder so that was set up with a 0.20mm bottom to a size 14 Carbon feeder hook, I decided to fish a maggot feeder so a variety were placed on my side tray to cover all flow eventualities.  Finally I set up a 3m whip for bleak down the inside if it was really hard, this was terminated in a 0.07mm bottom to a 20 Colmic 957 and had a MB special whip float on it, the plan was to feed Browning Friture little and often and then drop a pinkie through it from time to time.

The all in was called and out went the maggot feeder, it took a little while to get going but at the end of the first hour I had managed a couple of dace and perch to my name but I was itching to get over the waggler line. This as it transpired however was not to be a good day for the waggler and it seemed as though every small fish in the Trent was in the top couple of feet, I varied feeding and rigs and eventually settled on a small 2aa insert waggler on a shorter rod and a closed face reel for the speed. This would see me getting a bite every chuck the knack was hitting them and landing them as a lot were falling off or resulting in missed bites as the fish were so small.  I tried to feed them into whip distance but that did not work and although I caught a lot of fish they weighed next to FA, in fact at the weigh in I had the lowest weight of the day with 2lb 5oz, not the best of starts.

Day 2 saw us off to North Clifton and I was to fish the feeder, I was lucky in that as I was setting up I got some guidance from a local expert and he suggested fishing at around 54 turns of my Ultegra XTC 5500 so at around 55 meters! This wasn’t a problem as I had the right rods for the job and a light and heavy rod were both set up on Trent loops the differences being length of hooklengths and weights of feeders.

Nearly straight after the all-in I was getting fish and by chopping and changing weight of feeder, hookbait and length of tail I was able to keep fish coming through all states of the tide.

I didn’t manage anything massive but I put a respectable 6 1/2lb ish onto the scales, I wasn’t last this time and had had a really pleasant day, although due to a sunken island in front of me at 30yds covered in weed I did lose a few fish including a couple of better ones in the last 10 minutes. I used a Kamasan Black cap feeder with a hole cut in the bottom so that I could stuff it with particles and cap it with groundbait, these retrieved smoother that open ended feeders in the flow and cast very well for their size. I also used window feeders when the flow was not too bad and these cast like bullets!!! REALLY GOOD.

Day 3 and it was back to the non-tidal for a day’s feeder fishing, I was placed on peg 1 at Holme Marsh and this was an interesting swim with streamer weed extending out 30yards before a large gravel bar and then another weedbed 10 yards later, it is also just upstream of a weir so you can cast right onto the sill of the weir. Again advice was to fish on the gravel about 10yds upstream of the sill, so I rodded this off to start and fished a little further upstream, the first hour saw me catch a gudgeon and a small perch so I bowed to the local advice and started casting closer to the sill.

Third cast on the new spot saw Bream number 1 on its way to the net, this was closely followed by number 2 about 10 minutes late and then the swim went quiet.  I thought that I had spooked the fish but the truth was a little different and after an hour of recasting I decided to go for a quick walk to see what was happening. The main consensus was not a lot and everyone bar Scott on peg 7 was struggling, Scott had managed 6 when I saw him and was still getting the odd indication, photos taken it was back to fishing.

I cast out with 3 maggots on a size 12 Carbon feeder hook to a 0.20mm hooklength and before I knew it I was catching the rod butt before it hit me in the face, The hooklength parted and I was left dumbstruck, so I had a spare already tied so out it went this time with 2 small bits of worm to try and get a skimmer. Three casts later and the rod lurched violently and barbel number 2 smashed me up in an instant, I was not a happy chappy now so I geared up and out went a 0.24mm hooklength to a size 10 Choddy hook. This was baited with 2 grains of corn and I started the wait again, I had company in the form of Mark now and we were having a chat about the best way to get them out when the rod went over again, this time I lost the fish as I was clipped up.  I unclipped, used a small stop knot on the line as a distance marker and proceeded to build the swim again, sticking with the heavy gear, however, this didn’t feel right and going into the last 35 minutes I decided to scale down again to try and get a bite, 0.20 and a size 12 was quickly destroyed by another fish so I tried 0.24mm to a 12 Carbon feeder, this worked in that I hit the bite and the fish started running for the far bank, I had it on for 10 seconds before the hook pulled out of the knot as the line was too thick for the diameter of the metal.

I managed to tie another hooklength but the all-out was called soon after, Scott had managed 10 bream for 31lb, my 2 skimmers went 5 1/2lb (with a smattering of bits on the whip), along the stretch there were tales of woe with lost barbel and bream but the weights were in the ounces for 3 of the guys and Launce had only managed a solitary skimmer and a few bits for a couple of pounds.  We were all quite disappointed as we had hoped that the stretch would have fished better, but there was always the next day….

Day 4 and it was our turn for float fishing the tidal at Laugherton, I was sat on peg 39 and had decided on concentrating on the pole would be the way ahead, I set my box up quite low down the bank (more of that later), mixed my groundbait and proceeded to pull some sections out of my rod bag. Except there was a problem, it transpired that I had left all my No.4’s and 5’s at home and that I would have struggle with just 1 number 4 for the day.

As I deemed it a problem I set up a 1.5g float for the long line, a 5g flatty for the inside and a 2.5m whip for next to my keepnet if it was rock hard, a few of the guys had a laugh at my stupidity and before we knew it the all-in was called.  I fed 6 balls of groundbait through the cup and within 10 minutes the tide had turned and it was running the other way, so I re fed 2 balls and proceed to scratch a few small dace and perch out of the long line, I concentrated on the long line as the tide came in as it was fishing quite well then at the top,( having moved my box up a step and taken the rigs out of the bottom tray so that the water lapping at it would not ruin them) I fed the worm line with 2 medium droppers of grub.

Back long and the fishing was harder but by working hard I was able to keep a few fish coming right through the tide even with a woefully inadequate float on, I had the odd look on the flatty for a couple of small indications but with an hour to go I decided to push the peg and try for a barbel on the flatty. 3 droppers of hemp, caster and pellet were put in and I took another couple of small fish long before concentrating on the flatty.  I managed a bite off an 8oz skimmer and a missed indication before the all-out and learnt a fair bit about the river.

I think that I managed 5lb odd and this was a good result on the day, I should have had a 3-4g float set up for the long line so that will be getting sorted before the national. Rikki managed to land the first proper barbel of the week in the shape of a little 3lber and Gaz from the peg to my left managed double figures on the tip, well there had been fish rolling in front of me all day so I was miffed to be on the float really.

The last day was the Combined Services Challenge, 20 odd teams over A and B section so it would be a good indication for the national next week in those areas.  Gaz drew me C16 and this turned out to be close to where I had fished the national a few years ago, so I had half an idea what to expect.  I was getting settled in having abused the RAF and Old lags to my left when I noticed who had pitched up on the peg to my right, Alan Scotthorne, again.  Ah well all I had to do was keep up with him and I would be having a good day.

Honest that's Alan Scotthorne

After the battering I took there a few years ago my plan was simple, start on the feeder and try for a bream or two then switch to the pole and a waggler line to keep putting something into the net for the rest of the match, first job was the groundbait. The base mix was a bag each of Sensas Lake and Browning No.1, this was then split down dry in half, to the feeder bucket I added a pint of brown crumb and half a bag of Browning Betain feeder and to the pole bucket I added some black dye and roughly 3 pints of soil to add weight to the mix and reduce the food content.  Both mixes were then drilled and wetted before being left to stand until 30 minutes before the all in when I finished them off.

I set the rods and top kit up and decided on just one as I still didn’t have spare number 4’s and it had a 1g rig on as there was 8ft at a sensible pace at 11.5m, the all in sounded and I cupped in  4 balls of groundbait onto the pole line before casting the feeder 2/3 of the way over the river. The first hour was a non-event for both myself and Mr Scotthorne on the next peg, we both had a few roach to show for on the tip, so bang on the hour mark I ran a single maggot over the groundbait line and was rewarded with the first of many flurries of roach. All the time up until now I had been feeding a waggler line but as the fish were close I decided to bin it, this may have been a mistake but at the time I was trying to concentrate the fish on one line, and I had started loose feeding hemp over the top.

Every time the line faded I would feed a couple of small balls laced with caster and hemp and I found that caster was getting better roach almost one a run down, I had heard the guys to my left talking about all the bream and skimmers that were coming in and Alan had switched to a waggler down from me and was catching steadily.

I felt as though I was doing all right and tried a grain of hemp with just under 2 hours left, I did not look back with a bite most runs through on hemp and the odd fish on tares, the biggest was about 8oz and they were of a good stamp, but then disaster, I had a hook pull with 30 minutes to go and instead of putting on a duplicate rig I tried a light 0.3g hemp rig. It was a big mistake and even though I was still getting the odd bite they were taking longer and the stamp of fish reduced as I was struggling to control the bait with the flow and wind.

The all out was called and I thought that it may have been close between Alan and myself, I thought I had 12-15lb of roach and from what I had seen he would not be far away, well how wrong was I?

The first three pegs struggled to beat double figures, then Alan had 24lb of roach!!  My net went 14lb 15oz then there were the bream weights to my left that included a 30lb + weight, another 20lb and a few high doubles. Further up the fishing got worst with most struggling for mid singles so it transpired that I had managed to get 6^th in section, so not too bad.

It turned out that the guy with 30lb won the match and that Mr Scotthorne had 2^nd overall as well, we didn’t find out where the team finished, said our farewells and then departed on our journeys home until the national next week.