AAF Fur and Feather, Furnace Lakes

So yesterday had been the F&F for the South West of England, today was the F&F for the whole Army. Yesterday we had 46 angler booked in today 18, go figure.  On the bright side it meant that there should be some good prizes at the end of it.  Myself and Alfie were the only two anglers from outside the host group so we agreed to meet up at a Café in Guilford I think, and we discussed life and tactics there before joining the others at the lake.  I was a bit later due to a slight detour but I got there…ok I missed the turning.

First point of call was the shop and they told me that the lake had been fishing hard and that only 16lb had won at the weekend, so after getting a brew and dipping my nets I was soon parking up and meeting the rest of the hardy souls who had turned out for this event.

There was a nice atmosphere as usual at these matches and H decided to come out with the quote of the year with “If you have less than 20lb you have done it wrong!”  Well we would see.

I drew A6 which was middle of the left hand bank as we  were looking at it and I had Alfie for company on A5, as it turned out he was about 10m to my left, but I did have a blank swim to my right so the pegging was not that tight.

Looking at my peg the plan was going to reasonably simple: Feeder at 25 turns, Method at 25 turns, pole and caster at 5m and worm at 13m.  I set up and spent a good 5 minutes chopping my half kilo of worm, minus a few for the hook, into a mush, I then opened my groundbait from the day before to suddenly panic and have to mix some more with about 20 minutes until the all in.  I was still ready for the all in (Sorry Ian) and as it was called I fed three balls of minced worm mixed with 2mm pellet and groundbait onto the 13m line, I then threw 15 caster on the short line and finally pinged the cage feeder out to the clip. The feeder was incredibly slow and after 45 minutes I had had a couple of tiny indications on the ¾ oz tip so I decided to have a look on the long pole.

First put in I used my double bulk rig as according to H it would be quite a busy day but that didn’t even twitch so it was onto my light rig and trotting it through on the tow.  It was on my second run through that I had a small indication that gave me a small skimmer and then on the third I lifted and found myself stuck onto a foul hooked fish that felt like a big skimmer. It dropped off and I fed a small ball of worm mix to try and regroup the fish. It was back onto the feeder for another stint without an indication, I set up the method at this point and gave it a few casts to no avail so I decided that I would re rig it to look for a carp on popped up bread.  In hindsight a bit of punched meat would have been better due to the water colour, but I had it in my head to fish bread so I did.  Back on the long pole for a look and first run down I hooked and landed a good skimmer of about a pound and a half on a worm segment about a meter down tow of the bait, then I had another two over the top of the bait but these were half the size, and then the swim went quiet for ten minutes so I re fed and tried my caster line whilst resting it.

Although it wasn’t solid I was putting a few small roach and hybrids into the net from the short pole line, and I thought that I was doing alright as Alfie to my left was struggling and I had not seen too much coming in on the far bank.  I rotated through the long pole, short pole and bread on the bomb for the next couple of hours and I managed a few more skimmers on worm and a few better roach on the caster line but I wasn’t setting the world on fire by any stretch of the imagination. I did notice that I was having to feed quite positively to keep the bites coming so since Alfie was still struggling I popped round and told him what to try. He fed a couple of balls of groundbait and within 30 minutes had an eel and a skimmer!

The last couple of hours were slow for everyone as the wind and tow picked up making presentation tricky, but I did manage a skimmer on the groundbait feeder during this slow spell and before long the all-out was being called.

All around it seemed to have fished hard, Rick in the peg to my right was admitting top 5-6lb, I thought I would have about 10-11lb and we were just waiting on H and his 20lb.  As it turned out H had 4kg odd and Rick it would appear is rubbish at guessing weights as he had 5kg (11lb)  but I squeaked him with 5.15kg for the section.

Back at the car park I found out that I was second as Ken had managed 6kg from the shallow end to take the win, but on my first visit to the venue I couldn’t help but be happy with a second in tricky conditions J.

We all went to the pub for the results and courtesy of the AAF I managed to pick up a nice Hamper for my troubles of the drive along the M25, due to the traffic I sat in the pub and had a meal whilst I waited for the roads to calm down a little and on my return to my room I admired my spoils from the last couple of days.

Thanks again to Craig and his team for the Tuesday and to Ian for the running of the AAF Fur and Feather as it is a thankless task.  Don’t know when my next trip out is but it might be a cheeky session on the Grand Union with Alfie.

What would I do different?

The only two things that I would change would have been to fish method feeder rather than a groundbait feeder for the skimmers and I should have fished a smelly bottom bait on the bomb rather than bread which only received one tap probably off a roach. The water was too coloured for it.  Oh and I needed more than ½ a kilo of worm but I should have tried big potting or loose feeding caster or maggot when it went quiet, but it’s easy after the match.

Tackle used:

Pole long Light:

Elastic: Yellow Hydro

Line: 0.13mm powerline to 0.10mm Cenex

Hook: 18 B911 F1

Float: 0.6g AS2

Pole Long Heavy:

Elastic: Pink Vespe

Line: 0.13mm powerline to 0.10mm Cenex

Hook: 18 B911 F1

Float: 1.0g Drennan Carp 2

Pole Short:

Elastic: Yellow Hydro

Line: 0.13mm powerline to 0.10mm Cenex

Hook: 18 B911 F1

Float: 4X10 MW Carbon F1

Feeder Groundbait:

Rod: Drennan Ultralight Bomb with 3/4oz tip

Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012

Line: 0.16mm Cenex Feeder to 0.12mm Cenex

Hook: 18 B911 F1

Feeder: Micro Drennan cage

Method and Bomb:

Rod: Drennan Series 7 Carp feeder 10ft

Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012

Line: 8lb sensor 0.19mm hooklength

Hook: 14 QM1 12QM1 on Bomb

Feeder: Guru Micro Hybrid, inline and Guru 2/3 inline lead