Inter Corps Championship, the Glebe.

As we had won this competition last year it was down to us to pick the venue and organise it, DJ ran the day and we went to the Glebe.  We had fished it earlier in the year for the Corp Championships and we had used that event to pick the team, with me there was Pez (Capt), Craig, Kev, Lance and Alfie for his debut.

Pre match banter given and received, DJ and Roy did their little bits and then it was the draw and we came out as the last team, I really fancied Lake 1 and my wish was granted with peg 24.

 I had the team plan to sort out so I clipped the feeder up under the overhanging tree, and then went about plumbing around looking for my corn and paste line, my 3ft line and then plumbed the edges, and I found a nice 2ft at 2+2 on both my left and right, so that was handy.

The all in sounded so I put in a full pot of hemp at 10m on my corn line, it was fished there as I had found the base of the near shelf and plumbed up an inch shallower on a firmer bottom.  I then fed my 3ft line followed by the feeder hitting the clip tight to the far bank reeds, I didn’t have to wait long and I was soon playing my first fish.

At a couple of pounds it was a good start and I managed to get a few of his friends to join him in the net over the first couple of hours, by a couple I think it was 12, but I had forgotten to use my clicker, more on this in a bit.  So I decided to start on paste on the longer line and happily the float buried within seconds of settling and a better carp was soon in the net, followed by another 5 in short order before the swim went mysteriously quiet, a swap to corn saw a couple more carp in the keepnet but then I went back out in the feeder to rest the line and had another 6-8 carp in nearly the same number of casts.

This was starting to cause a little concern as I was totally lost on how much I had caught, the fish were ranging from 2lb to 10lb, I had a few, I was only about 3 hours in with another 3 to go and there was a 100lb net limit!!  I took the plunge, I had caught 2 skimmers and a couple of small crucians that would have gone about 10lb so I tipped them back when I couldn’t find another net nearby, then I lit the blue touch paper.

I fed my two edge lines and then quickly mugged a cruising carp of about 10lb.

As this was happening my margins turned on so I quickly went down them, over the next hour and a bit I had 12 fish, 2 of which I put into my original nets and then I counted 10 into my third. 

They were all big fish caught on paste down the edge and I was sure that I had over 80lb in that net so it was time to try and find another keepnet.  I was saved by H and his spare but it had taken 10-15 minutes of faffing about and on my return the swim was nowhere near as strong as it had been when I ran off, and I had a disappointing last 40 minutes with 6 small fish going in the net.  I was worried right until the end as all I could see was other people catching around me so that wasn’t ideal, but hopefully I had done enough.

There were 2 80kg weights in my section below me but I had managed to win the section with 95Kg plus change for a new PB match weight, and yet I was quite miffed as I thought that I had caught more, but it was still a red letter day.  I was also annoyed with myself as the first two nets had around 44Kg split across them, which is around a ton. Lesson learned there I hope.  The third net of ten fish went 38kg!!  So they were lumps!

The day was made even better when it turned out that the Royal Signals had managed 5 out of 6 section wins and Alfie had still managed a second in section so we romped home victorious as the Inter Corps Champions 2015.  So many thanks to DJ and his team for organising event, Chris for his quality Photos and thanks to the rest of the R.Sigs team now we need to do it all again next year, on a natural venue!

What would I do different?

I would use a clicker, with a 100lb net limit and my total weight being 209lb I didn’t need to ditch my silvers or get so carried away trying to find a forth net.

Always pack 4 nets on venues with net limits.

(New Bit)

Tackle used:

Feeder:

Rod: Drennan Matchpro medium feeder at 11.5ft

Reel: TDM 4012

Line: 8lb Sensor

Feeder 20g small and medium Guru open end

Hooklength, 0.19mm Powerline to 14 QM1

Pole, Paste edge and long:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.18mm Cenex

Hook: 5 Tubertini 175

Float: Long, Big H 4X 10 paste, Margin, KC Carpa Margin Paste 4X10

Corn Rig:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.16mm Cenex

Hook: 2 Tubertini 175

Float: Drennan Carp 3 0.6g

Dobbing

Elastic: Colmic Blue Hollow

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.16mm Cenex

Hook: 28 Guru Pellet waggler with a bait band

Float: Drennan Crystal dibber 0.3g