Royal Signals Championship 23 Todber Manor

Firstly, sorry for not keeping this up to date, but I am going to try and get back on the blog as I can use it for other things aswell.  Anyway back to the champs, I was a little on the back foot as I had been coaching on the run up to this, so whilst everyone else was getting their eye in I was trying not to lose mine. Day 1 Hillview peg 40, not the best peg but I had tons of room and the pegging was fair so it was a get my head down job and catch what I could.

 

I started with maggot in the margin and fished that all day, I swapped between shallow and no shot rigs as I had carp crawling up the bank all day, I was a little rusty however and a few destroyed rigs- (should have used a no float rig!!), and not keeping up with the clicker cost me dearly in the end.  I weighed in 653lb 13oz but had gone over in 3 nets so had lost out on at least 50lb, DJ smashed the lake on the day with 733lb but I feel that may have been possible from that peg if I had just done some small things better, but Hey Ho, onto day 2.

 

Day 2 Homeground, I was on peg 85 for this match, not what I wanted but I had the wind and rain in my face all day so that may have been a benefit by pushing the fish into the margin.  Plan was the same as day 1, maggots in the margin but I also added a meat line on a top kit as a resting line.  It was another good day and I barely noticed how crappy the weather was because I was catching so well throughout the day, I had a small cut out to my right and at times I was able to mug the individual fish as they were slurping the maggots off the reeds.  When they backed off for a few minutes I was able to drop on my meat line and tick over with a slightly bigger stamp of fish, although the bites were slightly slower.

I knew it had been a good day and I weighed in 508lb 9oz, I was pleasantly surprised when this was enough for a section win and with DJ having a  mid 400lb I knew it would be close for second place in the champs.

 

History will show that Greg was totally dominant with a 750lb on day 1 and 1081lb on day 2 he romped to winning the Corps Champs with a perfect score and total weight of 1830lb!!!, DJ piped me with 3 points and 1178lb to my 3 points and 1162lb.  Those nets I went over on Day 1 cost me dearly.

 

Thankyou to Greg for running the event and to all that fished, we just need to find more anglers now that want to get involved.

 

What would I do different:

Practice, I firmly believe that fishing the match before the camps would have stopped me from going over on my nets day 1 and this would have been the difference between 3^rd and 2^nd.

 

Rigs used:

Pole meat:
Elastic: Preston 17H
Line: 0.19mm Powerline to 0.17mm Powerline
Hook: 14 Kaizen
Float: 0.3g RWC Avenger

 

Pole shallow maggot:
Elastic: Preston 17H
Line: 0.19mm Powerline to 0.17mm Powerline
Hook: 14 Kaizen
Float: 0.4g Drennan inline dibber

 

Pole No float:
Elastic: Preston 17H
Line: 0.19mm Powerline to 0.17mm Powerline
Hook: 14 Kaizen
Float: none