It was another epic journey up north for this one but
fortunately I had booked into the accomadation so had somewhere comfortable to
rest my weary bones. The first night was
meeting up with a few of the guys down the local and trying to extract any
information I could from them, I had also picked my bait up from Gaz so that
was sorted ready for the morning.
The venue for the next two days was Forest lane fishery
and as I arrived on the Friday morning I was met by a few friendly faces, the
breakfast was fantastic and quickly dispatched. Then it was off for a walk
around the venue, I fancied a few areas on Don especially after a briefing from
Mark, he was going to be my partner for the pair’s event so was keen on getting
me clued into the venue. I went around the Furlong and Oaklands as well and
again fancied them for a few fish as they were moving everywhere on the lakes.
Back at the draw and it was the individual competition first, I pulled peg 11
on Don out of the bag and pushed my kit into the back of the peg, I had an
island at about 14.5 m in front of me and also due to the pegging there were
about 3 pegs blank to the next guy to my left on the other side of the corner.
I was spoilt for choice but decided to fish pellet to a
bare bank on the island, chopped worm and caster at 6 sections in line with a
tuft on the island, a barbel line on a top 2 to my left and finally I plumbed
up under the pallet to my left at 6 sections again. I wasn’t ready for the all in as I had spent
a while faffing around and I wasn’t really in the game to start off, still as
soon as I was ready I fed a pot of Bombay mix on the chopped worm line and then
shipped out to the island. As I was expecting mainly goldfish I had set up a
5-11 MW rattie on 0.16mm mainline and a 0.12mm hooklength. A size 16 B911 was
balanced to yellow colmic hollow and a 4mm expander hid the hook and was fished
over softened 2m pellet, it took about a minute and the float buried with a
skimmer of just under a pound coming easily to the net. Then the fun and games started as I was
getting a few indications but no real bites so I after a small goldfish I came
off the line to try and find something better. I went onto the chopped worm
line and had a couple of fish quite quick, I decided to fish the first pot out
and managed about 10 small fish before I felt as though I needed to top it up
so I pot a Frenzee soft pot on the end of the top kit and started to feed some
of the worm mix. This actually had a
detrimental effect to the swim in hindsight and I started to struggle, it was
at this point though that I had a few liners so I set up a shallow rig and potted
in the mix again, 3 minutes later I had a small carp in the net, I tried it
again but that was it.
Knowing that the fish were coming up though changed my
plan and I quickly set up a shallow rig to fish a worm head at 13m to the left
of the island, it was again set on yellow Colmic hollow elastic with the same
lines as the pellet rig, the hook was a 20 Guru pellet wag and the float was a
MW pea. I started to loose feed caster and had another look on my chopped worm
line and the inside barbel line whilst building the swim, but after another
lack lustre 20 minutes I went on the shallow rig. It wasn’t frantic but I was
soon getting the odd bite, this included a carp of about 8-10lb on a 0.12mm
bottom. A rain shower passed through and I lost a big fish around an aerator over
to my left so I decided to rest the swim by going down my left hand edge for a
few minutes to see if anything had moved in under the platform.
Nothing was the answer and I had been using a pole
protector butt in my no.6 section to protect the section if I did have to ship
back quickly, and all of a sudden this was stuck fast. I was distraught as now my best swim was out
of reach and I could see carp moving through the swim, try as I might I could
not budge the stuck sections.
I kept looking down the edge and on the barbel line,
started to feed shallow as far as I could reach with the pole but the fish
would not come towards me, in the last hour and a half I had only a couple of
small fish and was not a happy chappy.
The scales came around quickly and I put 11Kg odd on them
beating 1 in my section, the guy to my left had 12kg, then it was 14kg and 16kg
for the section win, so 2 more carp. I was not best pleased, it got worst as
well when as I was packing my kit into the van I found a nice pile of dog mess
under my trainer!!!
It took a while but three of us got the section undone in
the end but it may have cost me the section at least and with the match being
won with 24kg who knows as it was getting stronger all the time. The food was
good at the venue and the night was spent chatting in the bar with Mark and
Grant.
Day 2 the Army pairs.
Was teamed up with
Mark for this match and we had been chatting about it for months on various
media, the draw came and I put Mark on Oaklands 3 and I had Furlong peg 4, this
meant nothing to us and we just went about our jobs for the day, we knew that
we would both need a section win to stand a chance of winning.
Looking at my peg my approach was going to be simple with
pellet across, a choppy line at ¾ towards the left side of the swim as there
was an aerator there and a blank peg, a choppy line next to the aerator and finally
the maggot line on a top kit.
This time I was ready for the all in and as the call went
out I fed a small ball of choppy mix on the ¾ line and then shipped across with
the pellet rig, this time my rigs
looked like:
Line
|
Far bank pellet
|
3/4 choppy
|
Aerator worm
|
Maggot
|
Shallow
|
Float
|
MW F1 Pear 12-11
|
0.3 g MB Diamond
|
0.7g Frenzee FP500
|
0.6g prototype
|
0.2g Drennan Clear Dibber
|
Mainline
|
0.16mm
|
0.16mm
|
0.16mm
|
0.18mm
|
0.16mm
|
Hooklength
|
0.12mm
|
0.12mm
|
0.12mm
|
0.14mm
|
0.12mm
|
Hook
|
B911 16
|
B911 16
|
B911 16
|
T175 size 2
|
20 Guru PW
|
Elastic
|
Pink Vespe hollow
|
White Hydro
|
Yellow Colmic Hollow
|
Blue Colmic Hollow
|
Yellow Colmic Hollow
|
It didn’t take long to get a response and I was soon
netting carp number 1 and he was followed in short order by another 4 within
the first 30 minutes or so, but it was soon obvious that they would not stay
there all day and I started to vary the feeding, this didn’t help so I moved
onto the ¾ line.
This was a good choice as again I had another quick run
of fish, Barbel this time at around 3 to the pound they were all demented and great
fun to play on the light tackle but again that swim was soon on the wane.
My day progressed and the best line was the ¾ line, the
inside maggot rig gave me 1 barbel, the aerator line gave me a few small barbel
but in the last hour I hoked a better fish and it snagged me on the aerator and
as I pulled for a break I moved it so it covered the area that I had been
feeding!
I had a go feeding caster into the shallow water across
and dapping a rig over it for 1 small carp and a couple of barbel but my best
line by far was the ¾ worm line as even at the whistle I put the net under a
1lb carp from it, which was handy as Boris on the end peg had been catching
small tench and barbel consistently for the last 3 hours and Bouldy on the peg
to my left had managed to snag a few small carp fishing pellet into the very
shallow water across.
The scales took a while this time and Bouldy had 9kg, I
had 11.250, Martin had 8 or so to my right and Boris had snuck 10kg of small
fish in, so I managed a section win, Mark beat everyone on the lake bar the guy
opposite that turned out to be in his section so he had a second. The chat at the results was that we would be
second as Gaz and Scott both had a section win to win it and the other pair on
3points, Craig and skins had a slightly lower total weight for third.
And so it turned out, I had a section win and second on
the lake, Mark had section second and second on the lake and our score was
enough for us to be the runners up on the day.
Gaz and Scott won it with a perfect score but it was a
good end to a trying couple of days, thanks to Gaz and his team for running the
event as it really is a thankless task, I am on withy next so I may need a check
practice to sort some things out.
What would I do different
1. I
am going to try some candle wax on my pole sections to prevent them from
sticking together.
2. I
need to work on my chopped worm and caster fishing and also need to look at my
edge fishing as I feel I am doing something wrong at the moment.
3. I
feel that If I had put in a second chopped worm line on the Furlong day in the
other direction at the same depth then I may have had more weight and then
would not have needed the aerator line that was more hassle.
4. I
would put my short line slightly further out next time as it was not working on
just a top kit.
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