Day 1, Oaklands peg 5
The brief was simple, two short lines and do what you
want long, in short it never really happened for me, I fished a meat feeder
towards the middle of the lake, pellet and meat short (I only had room for 1
short line as Martin and I were pegged on adjacent pegs and they were quite
tight) and finally I fished caster shallow at 13m.
The feeder was slow but I had a few barbel and small carp
on it through the day, the meat short didn’t work and I only managed a few small chub on the shallow caster line. I finished with 7kg and lowest weight of the
day but I tried a few things that didn’t work so that’s enough of that.
Day 2, The Don peg 8
Gaz must have felt sorry for me as he put me on a good
peg today, I fished maggot to the island at 14.5m, paste and chopped worm and
caster on 2 short lines, a method rod got set up, and finally margin rig. The
day itself was simple as I could only really catch on the island line and when
they were there the elastic would get ripped out within seconds. The heat caused a few problems like the
temperature of my pole and also the far bank vegetation started to which caused
me to get caught up in it a few times towards the end of the day.
I ended up with over 20KG of mostly barbel for third on
the day, narrowly beaten by Martin on the end peg and his last second lump from
down the edge.
Day 3, Furlong peg 11
I got to my peg and nearly cried as I had no far bank
cover at all and that is where most of the team plan was, I plumbed up two 2+2
lines, several spots along the far bank where I would fish maggot and pellet, a
track line and finally a top kit rig for between my keepnets. My best line by far was the top kit maggot
line and although I had only clicked 7.6kg I weighed in 17kg+ oops. Another hot day with temperatures into the
thirties by all accounts.
Day 4, Interservices Individual Championship, Furlong Peg
10.
I knew I would not win from here so again it was a day of
trying things out, the same rigs as the day before but this time I had fewer
barbel and more real carp, mostly from the far bank on worm. I weighed 11kg+ which was nowhere to be
honest but again I learnt a few things that we passed on that evening.
Day 5, Interservices Championship, Oaklands peg 14
This turned out to be a really good draw as it put me on
the windward end of the lake with no one between myself and the bank to my
right.
I set up a method,
long pole up and down, short pole and a top kit rig, I also set up a waggler as
there was little wind at times and I thought that this might have made the fish
a bit spooky. At the all in I cast out the method for 10 minutes next to the
aerator and had no indications so I tried my short lines for a couple of small
fish before going shallow. It was only
after about 20 minutes of the match but
I picked up a few bursts of carp, chub and goldfish buy varying the
depth but after a while the wind dropped off and the fish were visibly spooking
from the pole tip. It was at this point
that I tried the wag, and first or second cast I had a carp pulling line off
the drag as soon as the bait hit the water, I managed a few more small carp and
a couple of barbel by casting around the swim but the wind picked up so I went
back onto the pole.
Whilst untangling a rig I chucked the tip tight to the
bank along the of my peg and had to catch my rod 5 times as it was nearly
dragged in by 3 carp and a couple of small barbel, one thing I did have to do
was change the feeder that I had set up, I started on a 30g banjo with a size
16QM1 hook and I pulled out of 2 fish halfway in as they were tearing around,
so I scaled down to a 20g scoop feeder and didn’t lose another fish like that
for the rest of the day. I still pulled
out of a couple but that was more down to pulling too hard.
In the closing stages I tried my keepnet line, deck line
long and also put my keepnet rig over my long line and all of these also
produced fish but I could not string more than a couple of fish together on a
line and if I did it was rudd or micro carp. I was confident of a good weight though and I
even had another net delivered to my peg as I thought that the carp I had been
catching were more than I actually had, I landed my last fish on the method 30
seconds before the all out.
The scales were kind to me and I weighed on 29.030Kg
which was enough for a section win by 5kg but it was still a bitter taste as
all I needed was 30Kg for a new lake record and I had lost a couple of carp
before swapping feeders and a couple on the pole.
The good news was however that my section win along with
the other 5 saw Fosters Team Army win the Interservices Championship 2015.
What would I have done differently?
I needed to remember that it was selection and not really
a practice for the first 3 days as I spent too long staying off the methods
that were working around me.
Other than that it was a good week with a great bunch of
lads and a top result, roll on next year as the RAF have chosen a venue that a
few of us have fished before and done alright on.
