My prep for this match was mainly based around tying a
few hooklengths and mixing some groundbait for myself and a couple of other
members of the team, I had also spent some time chatting to a few of the guys
about tactics that would work on the lakes that we were using for the
match. I turned up in good time, picked
up my bait, ate my cracking breakfast and then sat chatting with a few of the
lads, we sorted bait and I even got pinged by Kev to help with the boards as
due to the numbers we had some creative pegging over 4 sections. I was drawn
peg 3 on Selwood and as I was sat in the café I was well happy as I had assumed
that they would have done the same pegging as for the teams of 4.
Unfortunately I couldn’t have been much more wrong and I
had Pete to my left on perm peg 2:
Rocky to my right on perm peg 4:
And no-one in the far corner:
So with the three of us aiming for the same water any
further out than 16m the duel began, I decided to fish a small groundbait
feeder at about 18m, checking with the both of them if they were happy that I
cast there, then a 13m pole line towards my left and I put in a throwaway line
on a top 2+1 where I found a little bit of depth. I had a small moan (well it lasted all day
near enough) went to the café for a brew and then returned to settle down for
the all-in.
I fed 3 small balls of groundbait with 20 dead reds and
about the same of caster on the 13m line and then cast out the feeder, not a
lot happened for the first hour but then Rocky managed a couple of small
skimmers on the wag over so I got off my box and set up a 2AA Dave Harrell
sensilite waggler to fish over the groundbait line. This had an instant response and I nicked two
quick fish and then it died, as I expected, a quick look on the long pole saw
me loose a pound perch (I may have swore and thrown my top kit away!! Ok I
did!) So I chucked the tip out again more in hope than expecting anything.
The stopwatch was set for 10 minutes but I needed have
worried as I had a couple of indications then a skimmer of about a pound
followed by another. Again a quiet
period and then another couple of fish later in the day was enough to raise my
interest level by a notch but another lap around my lines was fruitless and I
packed everything up apart from the tip before the end. Somehow I missed 4 or 5 proper wrap rounds on
a single dead red on a Kammy 911(f1) size 18, I swapped up to a 16 but received
no indications grrr.
The scales showed that Bri with acres of room on perm peg
10 had 8 kilos for the section and match, Ivan on perm peg 16 had 2nd
with 6 kilos and he had fished a tidy match, then it was Pete to my left and Rocky
to my right, then Gaz on PP1 and myself with 1.970kg, that perch cost me dear
as it would have got me 2 more points but being hemmed in was the worst as I am
sure that as I was casting the waggler three turns beyond it was well in front
of Pete.
The team came 4th on the day as Daz carried
Ben and myself, I would like to say that I enjoyed it but I cannot, it was a
nice day out with a great bunch of blokes and the banter was great but I cannot
seem to switch of when it is a match and enjoy it when it isn’t going my way.
Thanks anyway to Kev and his team for organising the day,
I know how hard it is.
Coming up I have no matches until middle of next month so
I can try to get rid of some gremlins before then, I foresee a rematch with
some Cotswold Carp and I will be taking the Azi Anglers out and about as well.
What would I do different?
1. Practice
the venue
2. I
think that the feeder was the right tactic but after the first dropped
indication I should have set up a method or scoop feeder to see if that was any
better on the hooking front.
3. Stick
to non-silvers only matches.
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