Browning Sponsored Open, Todber Manor

I had booked in for this match weeks ago and to be honest I was kind of looking forwards to it until I realised 2 things the night before, firstly nearly every peg would be in so it would be tricky unless you were on a handful of pegs that can produce when the venue is pressured, and the match was finishing at 3 o’clock, which meant that the last hour sprint was getting missed.  Since I was booked in however I turned up, and peg 42 stuck in my mitt at the draw.  It meant nothing to me as they have recently changed the pegging at Todber but I was soon looking at old peg 15 I think, I decided on an easy plan:

14.5m paste and shallow pellet,

2+2+half paste

And that was it,  as it turns out my plan should have been get back in van and bugger off but I tried paste across for 3 minutes until I foul hooked a tiny roach, then I fished 4mm pellet shallow for F1’s for 2 and a half hours for a total of about 20lb.  with half the match left I concentrated on the paste line to try and make something happen, it didn’t, total weight about 28lb.

What would I have done differently?

I should have gone home after the draw!! I was thinking about it but after paying £30 in pools I was having a days sitting there.

If I had stayed fishing shallow I would have caught more but I needed a miracle to do any good from that peg in all honesty.

The match was won with a 90lb + weight from somewhere on Park, I didn’t hang around for the results.

Emergency Services National, Barston Lake

I had been looking forward to this match for a while as I like Barston and if it was closer I would fish it more often, I was so excited that I struggled to sleep and I was feeling groggy as my alarm sounded at 0530 for my drive up to Solihull.  It was a good run and I was soon eating a fantastic breakfast at the Restaurant on the Lake, it didn’t take too long for the rest of the team to arrive and soon the talk was of tactics and where we wanted to draw.

Gaz handed me 112 at the draw and to be honest I couldn’t remember where this was but I had a pleasant surprise when I got to it.

It was a nice easy chuck to the island with the gear that I had with me and I decided to fish a 45g large hybrid feeder with pellet around it.  This was set up on my 14ft Black Viper feeder rod and I had that teamed up with an Ultegra 5500 Xtc absolutely brimmed with 8lb sensor.  I cast out first with a 2oz bomb to get an idea of the distance and also the lake bed and I had found some gravel which was where I decided that I would start.  Plan B was the pole at 13m to fish for the large head of skimmers and F1’s that can come on the pole line I set up two rigs to fish here, a 4X14 and a 0.6g floats both on 0.16mm mainline to 0.12mm bottom and a size 16 hook, Pink Vespe elastic balanced these rigs off and that was that.  Plan C  was a pellet wag and 10ft method rod for fishing at 25m or so and Plan D was paste at 6m.

The all in came along and I fed 3 balls of groundbait laced with chopped worm and caster at 13m (on a hard spot) half a pot of hemp and pellet at 6m and then I launched the method to the Island, I had a liner on the first cast but then the second and third had problems as my quiver tip was too light and tried to cause frap ups on the cast. To overcome this I put a heavier quiver tip into the rod but this saw me missing 3 minutes of fishing time, it cured the problem though and I was easily hitting the distance cast after cast.  The fish were not forthcoming though and apart from a wrap round that resulted in a broken hooklength and a 4oz skimmer I was struggling.

After an hour I decided to try the pole for an hour and I managed a small carp or skimmer a chuck for the hour but the draw of the island was too much and after a quick go on the pellet wag the method was soon flying back out towards the island.  This was a good call and over the next hour or so I had a decent carp and a string of F1’s one after another on the feeder,  however the last hour started to slow and turned into a bit of a struggle with only a couple of f1’s and skimmers on the tip to show for it.  I even tried the paste in the last few minutes but to no avail and I finished the match with a 4oz skimmer at 81 yards on the feeder.

The scales came round and gave me 38lb of carp and F1’s and 16lb of skimmers and small carp from on the pole line!!  It made me wonder what I could have done if I had just stayed on the pole line as I only needed another 11lb for a section win, as it was I won my half section for £20 and was 5^th in section beaten by the better pegs to my right. Oh and a few double figure fish were definitely the difference.

Teams on the day were Notts fire third I think, Navy and RM were second and the Prison service won the day, we had 2 decent results and three not so good ones but it was still a good day out.

What would I have done differently?

I didn’t need big bertha and could have got away with a lighter actioned rod for the cast to the island, this would have improved accuracy and also may have prevented the two lost fish that I had on the tip.

I should have also concentrated in the pole when the skimmers arrived on the feeder line as I had a decent weight of the small fish that would have boosted me quicker than winding similarly sized fish from next to the island.

Carbon stem floats for speed fishing!

Division 1 National, Gloucester Canal

Well what a difference a week makes and I was well prepared for the actual match day with feeder hooklengths, pole rigs and even a waggler rod in the bag ready to go, the Friday night saw the team meet up and get the bait and final bit sorted.  A quiet nioght this time but I still struggled to get to sleep, partially due to snoring and partially due to the nerves I get on a national as I have only ever had 1 good day on them and I have now fished 6 Div 1’s and a Div 2, still tomorrow was a new day!!

We were all at the draw in good time and parked reasonably well for a quick getaway, Gaz did the honours and passed me D5, I had no idea where this would put me but I knew that I was down from Rea bridge so in the vicinity of the cess pool of a peg that I had been sat on last week.  I was just hoping that I was closer to the bridge as there had been a few fish along there in the Individual national.  I got out of the car park easily, got to the car park without a hitch, met Gaz in the car park as he was in C section high numbers and then it started to dawn on me that I could be in the same area but I quickly ignored it and loaded up my barrow and started off to my peg.

I crossed the bridge and found the first peg I was staring at was C24, This meant that I had around thirty or so pegs until mine…. “Nah I can’t draw there twice” I thought.

As I got closer to the area that I was desperate to avoid the numbers got closer and then before I knew it I was wanting to turn around and go home.  Last week I was on 209, this week 208, the peg that Ritchie had struggled from.

After a little cry as I knew I was in for another national to forget I had to do something about the trees behind the peg as Ritch had struggled with the trees behind him, so 5 minutes and a bit of swearing soon saw me with enough room to be able to cast the tip or wag without worrying about the hooklength.

The rest of my pre match time was standard, clip up tip, mix groundbait, plumb short line, plumb long line, plumb worm line, set up wag and whip and finally prep bait and eat.

At the all-in I threw 6 balls of groundbait with no feed all over the canal with a crowd cheering me on (Grant and Ian), Sean Ashby (England International) showed me how it should be done on the next peg and we both seemed to start the match fairly similarly with feeding the various lines and then watching motionless quiver tips.

I managed a ruffe on the tip after about 20 minutes, then a couple of roach on bread on the short pole by the end of the first hour, next hour saw me try everything but the whip for 2 more roach on bread but then that died so I chucked the tip under the tree opposite, one 8oz skimmer and a missed bite on that and then the pain started as every time I looked up someone in the section would be playing a bream.

Knowing I needed a bonus I re fed my worm line at 10m in the middle of a few weed beds, put more feed in on my long pole and tried the tip again for nothing.  I went on the worm line and had a good 20-30 minutes with 3 eels and a perch for about a kilo, then it died, so I went out onto my long pole with half an hour left to go, By this time Seam on my left had 3 big skimmers/bream and the guy on my right had a 4lb+ bream as well that he snared on his short line.  The wind had picked up a bit and in the space of 5 minutes I bumped off two skimmers that I was certain were foulhooked as I picked up on them as the pole was moving the float. That was the end of the long pole and the end of my match as I had no more bites.

I ended up with 1.550kg for 13 out of 44 points,  three pegs to my left won the section with 13kg, three pegs to my right had second in section 10Kg, most people around me had a bonus of some description and I missed out on points by the narrowest of margins.

Back at the results it turned out that Scott had 8^th overall and a section win with 25Kg and that Martin had 3^rd in section with 14Kg.  The team survived in 31^st place.

What would I have done differently?

I should have fished groundbait rather than bread short and possibly started on the bread feeder.

As for that if I had sat it out for a bonus I may not have caught the roach, but 1 bream would have made a huge difference.

Barston on Wednesday, let’s see if I can’t get this out of my system by abusing some carbon!

Division 1 Practice week, Gloucester canal

Day 1 saw the team descended upon Churchill bridge I believe, it was a pleasant enough day as I was sat on an end peg but try as I might I couldn't catch one of the bream that the Gloucester Canal is famous for and I ended the day on 1.9kg for 2nd or 3^rd on the day.  I learnt a few things about the feeding on the day and I was looking forward to taking this information through the rest of the week.

Day 2 we were in the town itself on Hempstead bend to try and get some of the bigger fish, I was on pole for the first part of the day and managed a few small fish, a skimmer of a kilo and a 2.5kilo bream, ( ieven pleed out of a pound skimmer thinking it was a perch!!) the swap to the feeder was  a damp squib and I got to watch Scott and Pez bag in the last 45 minutes as the bream decided to get their heads down.  I was again 3^rd with 4.5kg.

Day 3 was the first day of selection and I was pegged next to Scott as we all trundled to Purton Bridge, I was pegged next to Scott in the middle of the section for this and all that we found was how hard the venue can actually fish, I managed 1.2kg and was pipped by Scott by a roach, this was enough for third from last on the day and I was hoping for more on the final day of selection.

We travelled to the Sims stretch for this day and I think that it was in this area where I had fished the regional national a few years ago, so I knew that it would be hard, just how hard was a shock and I limped home again 2^nd or 3^rd last with 650 grams!!  Not the best way to end the selection. 

At the  team brief that night I was told that I had squeaked it onto the team so come the next day I was part of the Army B team on the RAF challenge match and Lance drew me a peach that would be boom or bust. Peg 452 was on the end of a 150m straight that was split due to the overhead pylons so I set up a feeder and a positive pole line and prayed.  It took over two hours for my first skimmer and it was only followed by another 3 but 5lb 7oz was enough for a half section win and 8^th out of the 20 peg section that was not too bad considering at the far end of the section the bream fed and there were a few 20lb+ weights.  I had still beaten Will raison and Sean Ashby but granted I should have off that peg.

The Saturday was the Individual national and I drew crap and was home before the match finished, hopefully none of the team draw that area next week on the national but if they do I can at least tell them a few things that will work.