It is funny how the old saying ‘Doesn’t time fly’ can
sometime ring true, but it feels like last week that I was fishing shallow and
melting in the heat on the banks of various lakes. Anyway it was off to Withy for
the annual Gp2 Christmas match and as I had volunteered to help I was soon
begrudgingly getting up in the dark and cold before winding my way to the
venue.
As it turned out my help was not actually needed as all
the pegs have nice shiny tags marking them so we were able to paper peg the
lakes. I say lakes as most people had
been expecting to turn up and fish the Snake, but at the last minute there was
a change of plans, so Selwood and Cottage were brought into the equation as
well. Not ideal if you had only packed a pole, especially with the weather
forecast that we were expecting.
Everyone had booked in, Craig had given his brief and a
breakfast had been dispatched (second of the day!) so onto the draw, now some
say that I am a lucky bugger at times, and this was one of those times that I
will agree as I pulled 54 on the outer snake out of the bag, not too shabby.
Normally I would have set up a rig to fish tight over on
the pole and prepared for a tug of war day, but I had dropped a couple of
sections off for precautionary wraps so I only had 13m of Z9 with me and
although that would have reached the front of the bush opposite I wanted to
fish alongside it, so I set up a micro hybrid feeder to go into the lions
den. I also plumbed up a line at 11.5m for
silvers and two margin lines, then I mixed some 50:50 F1 dark and Sensas Lake
and sorted the rest of my bait.
I had Dave to my right for company and I had also gone a
quid with Craig and Pez, who were both also in my section even though they were
sat on Selwood?!? You have to love it when people don’t turn up!
The start came and I cupped 3 balls of groundbait in on
the silvers line before pinging out the feeder across, my watch was set for 15
minutes and after about 7 minutes Dave had a proper lump on, I also hooked a
fish pretty quick but I would have needed 4 of them to catch up with Daves
fish. It was steady away really
throughout the day with a few carp on the tip and I broke this up with a few skimmers
and a rogue carp on the long pole line.
That is about all I can say about the fishing, I had quicker bites by putting
less feed in the feeder but if I didn’t get a bite within the 10 minutes on my
stopwatch (I reduced the amount of time after the first two fish came at 8
minutes) I would move onto the pole to rest the feeder line for 10-20 minutes.
I did’t have a single indication down the edge even
though I was an end peg but other than that the day went as planned apart from losing
a fish on the whistle under the tree.
It was a quick pack up and we were soon all back in the café
eager for the results, Dave won it from my right with 24kilo, then Dave H on
Selwood 15 had an impressive 22Kg on the waggler by all accounts, then I
rounded off the section top 3 with 18.860kg.
But I was still only in 4th overall as Rocky on Cottage 16
had 19Kg, the venue other than that had fished quite hard and there were even a
couple of DNW’s on Selwood.
Fortunately Craig had sorted a prize for everyone and
there was plenty of banter after the match and the post-match soup helped this
along no end.
I ended up with a couple of boxes of sweets and some other
goodies, after a bit of trading, so I was well happy as I started my journey
back to North London.
Thanks to Craig for the organisation and all the team at
Witherington Farm for an enjoyable day.
What would I do different?
If I had wanted to win I should have gone into the shop
and bought some stronger elastic than I had packed, I would have also needed to
have borrowed a section from John. This
would have allowed me to fish against the snags where the fish were, but I was
quite happy with my plan to fish the feeder and I learnt a few bits and bobs. I
would have liked some different hookbaits and possibly a second size of pellet
in the feeder mix, i.e 2mm and 4mm not just 2mm. I also think that a short
maggot line for roach would have been a better option than trying down the edge
for carp.
Tackle used:
Pole long Light:
Elastic: Yellow Hydro
Line: 0.13mm powerline to 0.10mm Cenex
Hook: 18 B911 F1
Float: 0.4g AS2
Pole Long Heavy:
Elastic: Yellow Hydro
Line: 0.13mm powerline to 0.10mm Cenex
Hook: 18 B911 F1
Float: 0.6g Drennan Carp 2
Pole Margin:
Elastic: White Hydro
Line: 0.15mm powerline to 0.14mm Cenex
Hook: 1 Tibertini 175
Float: 4X8 MW carp slim
Feeder:
Rod: Drennan Series & Carp feeder 10ft
Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012
Line: 8lb sensor 0.19mm hooklength
Hook: 14 QM1
Feeder: Guru Micro Hybrid, inline
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