It’s that time of year again and I was starting my quest
to do well in group 2 again and I am not sure if I will even be able to fish 5
matches again this year, but this was my first.
It was off to the K&A again but this time on a stretch that I have
only every carp fished a few years ago, so I popped down over the festive
period for a couple of cheeky practices.
The first went well in a pound behind the Barge Inn I managed around 8lb
of small skimmers and roach over groundbait, the next day I went along pound
lane and struggled in atrocious weather conditions for 4 small roach and 3
waspie perch. I knew where I didn’t want
to draw.
Back to the day in question and we all met up in Devizes
for the draw, pleasantries were passed and we were soon to business, there was
a section around the marina at Foxhangers, a section down the straight and a
final section behind the three magpies, as long as I wasn’t in B section along
the straight I would be happy. I waited
until last out of the bag and peg A6 was waiting for me, which was the last peg
before the bridge at Foxhangers, I was quite happy.
As I got to the peg I had a massive 10 meter walk from my
van to my peg, and then it just got better as I had all the boats moored up to
my left and I knew that this was a good holding area for fish. My plan was simple, two groundbait lines one
at 11 O’clock and one at 1 O’clock both at 13m as the bottom was nice and flat
there, a method cast down towards the boats and finally a worm line that I
would fish along the wall to my left. I
was almost ready for the all in, I am quite rusty at getting ready in time but
as soon as it was called I fed 3 balls to the left and 1 ball to the right on
my groundbait line. My groundbait was a
mix of black canal and lake with a few dead pinkies and caster in it, and then
I cast the method down toward s the boats and set my stop watch for 15
minutes. The plan was to try and mug a
carp from down there but I decided to use dead maggots as hookbait so that it
shouldn’t put off any skimmers from picking it up.
The first half an hour was uneventful so I was soon
having a look on the groundbait lines, the right hand swim was the best at the
start and I managed 5 small roach off it before it died and a short time later
I bumped a skimmer off on the left hand swim so It was time to rest it and look
elsewhere. I had a look on the worm line
for a small perch and another blank 15 minutes on the tip before having a look
on the left hand groundbait line again.
This time the float dipped within seconds and skimmer number 1 was soon
in the keep net and at nearly a pound it was very welcome. But long story short at this point I refed my
groundbait lines once too often and killed them both off so although I kept on
looking I only managed another couple of small roach off them for the rest of
the day.
I kept on having the odd look on the method and through
the course of the day I was rewarded with 3 nice skimmers and I lost one but
enough of that as it was a case of casting and if they were there I would get a
bite pretty quick, if not it was a long 15 minutes. The worm line produced 4 small perch
throughout the whole day and at 1 point I plumbed a bread rig up to fish
towards the boat at 14.5m, I was able to get a bit a chuck on that line but the
fish were transparent so I discarded that and sat it out for bigger fish on my
other lines.
I kept my tip rod in until last and had most of my kit
packed up by the all out. I only had my
net and flask out still when Bri and Pete walked down with the scales and wow
it had fished tricky for most. I started
to hear stories that along B section there had been a number of blanks, we
walked up to the Crabtree part of the section and the guy on the end peg had
managed a kilo and a half ish then there were two sub 1kg weights. When the scales got to me I thought I had
3.5-4lb of fish, I actually had 2.1KG which is about 4lb 8oz by my dodgy maths
so I was well happy. Following the
scales up Bri was the last to weigh and he had nearly a kilo and a half but had
lost a big perch in the last 10 minutes, so I had managed to win the section so
I was well happy. When I got back for
the results it turned out to be enough for 2nd in the match as well
so not a bad day in all.
Thankyou Bri and your team for the seamless running of
the match.
What would I do differently?
I should have started on a bread line and also possibly
fished just 1 groundbait line further over towards the boats so that the fish
had some shelter overhead. I could have
cast the feeder closer to the boats perhaps but there were people ion them and
the last thing I wanted to do was hit one of the boats by accident.
Tackle used:
Feeder:
Rod: Drennan 10ft Series 7 Carp feeder.
Reel: Daiwa TDM 3012
Line: 6lb Drennan feeder to 0.19mm powerline
Hook: 14 QM1
Feeder: 24g small Guru Hybrid
Pole Groundbait heavy:
Elastic: 5 slip
Line: 0.11mm powerline to 0.08mm Colmic Stream
Hook: 20 Polemaster wide gape
Float: 0.3g Drennan AS1
Pole Groundbait light:
Elastic: double 2 slip
Line: 0.11mm powerline to 0.08mm Colmic Stream
Hook: 20 Polemaster wide gape
Float: 0.2g Drennan AS3
Pole worm:
Elastic: Yellow vespe through 1 section
Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.11 Powerline
Hook: 16 B560
Float: 0.3g Frenzee FP500
Pole bread:
Elastic: 5 slip
Line: 0.11mm powerline to 0.08mm Colmic Stream
Hook: 20 Polemaster wide gape
Float: 4X10 Carpa F1
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