AAF Individual Championship, Day 1, Heronbrook Fishery

This was it the main event the AAF Individual Championship, I was actually quite unprepared for this match even after spending the night before refreshing hooklengths and re tying a few floats.  I was quite late in the draw queue and ended up on peg 38 of Canal.

Both margins were good with a bush to my left at 11.5m where it was 2ft deep, I would fish paste over pellet and dead maggot there, the right I found a hole at 2+2 that was a foot deeper than around it, as it was so deep I was fishing meat over hemp and meat there.  I also plumbed up a paste rig at 2+2 so that I had somewhere to start and end the match and finally I again set up a rig for fishing shallow with caster across.

I had to hope that one or more of those lines would come good as I had Gaz and Danny around the culvert to my right and the end peg to my left looked dangerous so anything better than 4^th in section would be good but to be honest I would need a section win to stand a chance of a trophy.

Anyway, at the all-in I shipped out the paste rig again and then started feeding the caster line hoping that I could start to line up some F1’s or Carp for later, anyway after 30 minutes or so I had a couple of decent F1’s in the bag but it wasn’t setting the world on fire so I went on the shallow line, a chub of nearly a pound first put in was a false dawn as again I had to start to work at trying to find how to string some fish together.  A few chub and a couple of f1’s were my reward for a few hours work and at the 3 hour mark I started to feed the edges and had another look on the paste line.

Nothing seemed to be working until I shipped down my right hand edge and the float buried with a small barbel on 6mm meat, I instantly upped the hook size and hooklength to allow me to get the fish in quicker and managed a run of small barbel, to try and improve the swim I gave it a quarter of a big cup of meat and then went under the tree to my left.  I had indications straight away and managed a carp of around 5-6lb but then small fish moved in so I topped it up with a full pot of dead maggot and micros and went down the other side. 

This is basically how I finished my day rotating between the three inside lines for a few more barbel and decent edge carp and I actually made a half decent come back, I say comeback as I had been watching Gaz on the peg next to me empty it across on pellet and Danny had managed a few aswell.  Come the end I had 37kg odd for third in section behind Danny on 40kg+ and Gaz on 52Kg.  It was better than I had expected but just a few more edge or paste fish may have tipped it in my favour, always tomorrow for a comeback though.

What would I do different?

I should have realised what Gaz was doing earlier and possibly followed suite, the other option would have been caster under the bushes to my left and pellet to the bare bank.

I needed another paste line that I would have left alone for at least 3 hours.

Tackle used:

Pole, Paste edge and Short:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow Edge

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.18mm Cenex

Hook: 5 Tubertini 175,

Float: Margin, KC Carpa Margin Paste 4X10, Short Dino Paste 0.2g

Margin Meat:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow Edge

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.18mm Cenex

Hook: 3 Tubertini 175,

Float: Drennan Carp 3 in 0.4g

Shallow:

Elastic: White Hydro

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.12mm Cenex

Hook: 20 Guru Pellet waggler with a bait band

Float: Drennan Crystal dibber 0.2g

Masters Cup 2015, Cudmore fishery

This was the one event of the week that I was not looking forward to as the venue has been in the doldrums of late and I didn’t fancy scratching for nothing in an individual match.  Anyway, breakfast at Maccy D’s, done, short trip to venue, done, get jiffed to help on the boards, done.  This turned out to be a good thing however, as Chas drew me the first peg out of the bag, peg 7 on Panama, the peg that had won the lake the day before, so not too bad then.  I didn’t even need my trolly as it was a short walk from the car to the swim.

Upon getting to it there was a nice edge to my right and a decent far bank that would be in easy reach so I decided that it would be an easy day. Paste short, Margin to my right with paste over groundbait and finally caster shallow across.

I was ready for the all in and I shipped out to my 2+2 line with paste on the hook and waited whilst loose feeding caster across the far side, I was on this line for 40 minutes and managed 3 F1’s in this time, but the bubbling had stopped so I went across on the caster.  I had an Ide of about 6oz’s straight away on banded maggot but then had to start working on the depths to try and find the fish. It was a slow start on the shallow line but the wind changed direction and a scum line came into my swim. Although this made presentation tricky the carp moved in and I managed around 12 over the next couple of hours usually as a quick spurt of fish and then they would back off.  All the time I was feeding my short line and I started feeding the edge 3hours in, just in case, and it was lucky that I did as the sun came out and the fish suddenly became harder to catch and draw into the swim.

I tried resting the shallow line by looking on the other 2 but the carp were done on that line and the Ide were conspicuous by their absence. The last 2 hours of the match were hard work but I put a couple of fish into the net from the paste line and the right hand edge, I couldn’t help but feel that another line was needed but it was too late now.

Paul, Neil and Boris to my right all had a few fish in the final stages and I honestly thought that they had run me close, although they all thought that I had romped it.

The scales came down and Paul had 23, Neil 21 Boris 19 and I had 25Kg, this gave me a section and Lake Win, so I was in with a shot at the trophy providing that no one had done better on Drumble as that was the lake I had wanted to draw due to the size of fish.

Alas History will show that Lance had managed two lumps in the last 20 minutes from Drumble and that was enough for him to win the Masters Cup by a kilo and a bit, I was second, pipping Steve by 50 grams! (Sorry)

What would I do different?

I feel at the end that I needed another line, possibly a pellet or corn line somewhere else in the swim would have given me another fish, I am also not convinced that paste down the edge was the right choice on that lake on that day, Neil and Boris both had a few fish in the last hours when I struggled for bites.

Didn’t know that at the time though and I still won the lake so not too bad.

Tackle used:

Pole, Paste edge and Short:

Elastic: Colmic Red Hollow Edge, Blue Colmic hollow Short (Smaller Carp)

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.18mm Cenex

Hook: 5 Tubertini 175, size 4 on short line

Float: Margin, KC Carpa Margin Paste 4X10, Short Dino Paste 0.2g

Shallow:

Elastic: White Hydro

Line: 0.19mm powerline to 0.12mm Cenex

Hook: 20 Guru Pellet waggler with a bait band

Float: Drennan Crystal dibber 0.2g

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

Browning Sponsored Open, Todber Manor

I had booked in for this match weeks ago and to be honest I was kind of looking forwards to it until I realised 2 things the night before, firstly nearly every peg would be in so it would be tricky unless you were on a handful of pegs that can produce when the venue is pressured, and the match was finishing at 3 o’clock, which meant that the last hour sprint was getting missed.  Since I was booked in however I turned up, and peg 42 stuck in my mitt at the draw.  It meant nothing to me as they have recently changed the pegging at Todber but I was soon looking at old peg 15 I think, I decided on an easy plan:

14.5m paste and shallow pellet,

2+2+half paste

And that was it,  as it turns out my plan should have been get back in van and bugger off but I tried paste across for 3 minutes until I foul hooked a tiny roach, then I fished 4mm pellet shallow for F1’s for 2 and a half hours for a total of about 20lb.  with half the match left I concentrated on the paste line to try and make something happen, it didn’t, total weight about 28lb.

What would I have done differently?

I should have gone home after the draw!! I was thinking about it but after paying £30 in pools I was having a days sitting there.

If I had stayed fishing shallow I would have caught more but I needed a miracle to do any good from that peg in all honesty.

The match was won with a 90lb + weight from somewhere on Park, I didn’t hang around for the results.

Emergency Services National, Barston Lake

I had been looking forward to this match for a while as I like Barston and if it was closer I would fish it more often, I was so excited that I struggled to sleep and I was feeling groggy as my alarm sounded at 0530 for my drive up to Solihull.  It was a good run and I was soon eating a fantastic breakfast at the Restaurant on the Lake, it didn’t take too long for the rest of the team to arrive and soon the talk was of tactics and where we wanted to draw.

Gaz handed me 112 at the draw and to be honest I couldn’t remember where this was but I had a pleasant surprise when I got to it.

It was a nice easy chuck to the island with the gear that I had with me and I decided to fish a 45g large hybrid feeder with pellet around it.  This was set up on my 14ft Black Viper feeder rod and I had that teamed up with an Ultegra 5500 Xtc absolutely brimmed with 8lb sensor.  I cast out first with a 2oz bomb to get an idea of the distance and also the lake bed and I had found some gravel which was where I decided that I would start.  Plan B was the pole at 13m to fish for the large head of skimmers and F1’s that can come on the pole line I set up two rigs to fish here, a 4X14 and a 0.6g floats both on 0.16mm mainline to 0.12mm bottom and a size 16 hook, Pink Vespe elastic balanced these rigs off and that was that.  Plan C  was a pellet wag and 10ft method rod for fishing at 25m or so and Plan D was paste at 6m.

The all in came along and I fed 3 balls of groundbait laced with chopped worm and caster at 13m (on a hard spot) half a pot of hemp and pellet at 6m and then I launched the method to the Island, I had a liner on the first cast but then the second and third had problems as my quiver tip was too light and tried to cause frap ups on the cast. To overcome this I put a heavier quiver tip into the rod but this saw me missing 3 minutes of fishing time, it cured the problem though and I was easily hitting the distance cast after cast.  The fish were not forthcoming though and apart from a wrap round that resulted in a broken hooklength and a 4oz skimmer I was struggling.

After an hour I decided to try the pole for an hour and I managed a small carp or skimmer a chuck for the hour but the draw of the island was too much and after a quick go on the pellet wag the method was soon flying back out towards the island.  This was a good call and over the next hour or so I had a decent carp and a string of F1’s one after another on the feeder,  however the last hour started to slow and turned into a bit of a struggle with only a couple of f1’s and skimmers on the tip to show for it.  I even tried the paste in the last few minutes but to no avail and I finished the match with a 4oz skimmer at 81 yards on the feeder.

The scales came round and gave me 38lb of carp and F1’s and 16lb of skimmers and small carp from on the pole line!!  It made me wonder what I could have done if I had just stayed on the pole line as I only needed another 11lb for a section win, as it was I won my half section for £20 and was 5^th in section beaten by the better pegs to my right. Oh and a few double figure fish were definitely the difference.

Teams on the day were Notts fire third I think, Navy and RM were second and the Prison service won the day, we had 2 decent results and three not so good ones but it was still a good day out.

What would I have done differently?

I didn’t need big bertha and could have got away with a lighter actioned rod for the cast to the island, this would have improved accuracy and also may have prevented the two lost fish that I had on the tip.

I should have also concentrated in the pole when the skimmers arrived on the feeder line as I had a decent weight of the small fish that would have boosted me quicker than winding similarly sized fish from next to the island.

Carbon stem floats for speed fishing!

Division 1 National, Gloucester Canal

Well what a difference a week makes and I was well prepared for the actual match day with feeder hooklengths, pole rigs and even a waggler rod in the bag ready to go, the Friday night saw the team meet up and get the bait and final bit sorted.  A quiet nioght this time but I still struggled to get to sleep, partially due to snoring and partially due to the nerves I get on a national as I have only ever had 1 good day on them and I have now fished 6 Div 1’s and a Div 2, still tomorrow was a new day!!

We were all at the draw in good time and parked reasonably well for a quick getaway, Gaz did the honours and passed me D5, I had no idea where this would put me but I knew that I was down from Rea bridge so in the vicinity of the cess pool of a peg that I had been sat on last week.  I was just hoping that I was closer to the bridge as there had been a few fish along there in the Individual national.  I got out of the car park easily, got to the car park without a hitch, met Gaz in the car park as he was in C section high numbers and then it started to dawn on me that I could be in the same area but I quickly ignored it and loaded up my barrow and started off to my peg.

I crossed the bridge and found the first peg I was staring at was C24, This meant that I had around thirty or so pegs until mine…. “Nah I can’t draw there twice” I thought.

As I got closer to the area that I was desperate to avoid the numbers got closer and then before I knew it I was wanting to turn around and go home.  Last week I was on 209, this week 208, the peg that Ritchie had struggled from.

After a little cry as I knew I was in for another national to forget I had to do something about the trees behind the peg as Ritch had struggled with the trees behind him, so 5 minutes and a bit of swearing soon saw me with enough room to be able to cast the tip or wag without worrying about the hooklength.

The rest of my pre match time was standard, clip up tip, mix groundbait, plumb short line, plumb long line, plumb worm line, set up wag and whip and finally prep bait and eat.

At the all-in I threw 6 balls of groundbait with no feed all over the canal with a crowd cheering me on (Grant and Ian), Sean Ashby (England International) showed me how it should be done on the next peg and we both seemed to start the match fairly similarly with feeding the various lines and then watching motionless quiver tips.

I managed a ruffe on the tip after about 20 minutes, then a couple of roach on bread on the short pole by the end of the first hour, next hour saw me try everything but the whip for 2 more roach on bread but then that died so I chucked the tip under the tree opposite, one 8oz skimmer and a missed bite on that and then the pain started as every time I looked up someone in the section would be playing a bream.

Knowing I needed a bonus I re fed my worm line at 10m in the middle of a few weed beds, put more feed in on my long pole and tried the tip again for nothing.  I went on the worm line and had a good 20-30 minutes with 3 eels and a perch for about a kilo, then it died, so I went out onto my long pole with half an hour left to go, By this time Seam on my left had 3 big skimmers/bream and the guy on my right had a 4lb+ bream as well that he snared on his short line.  The wind had picked up a bit and in the space of 5 minutes I bumped off two skimmers that I was certain were foulhooked as I picked up on them as the pole was moving the float. That was the end of the long pole and the end of my match as I had no more bites.

I ended up with 1.550kg for 13 out of 44 points,  three pegs to my left won the section with 13kg, three pegs to my right had second in section 10Kg, most people around me had a bonus of some description and I missed out on points by the narrowest of margins.

Back at the results it turned out that Scott had 8^th overall and a section win with 25Kg and that Martin had 3^rd in section with 14Kg.  The team survived in 31^st place.

What would I have done differently?

I should have fished groundbait rather than bread short and possibly started on the bread feeder.

As for that if I had sat it out for a bonus I may not have caught the roach, but 1 bream would have made a huge difference.

Barston on Wednesday, let’s see if I can’t get this out of my system by abusing some carbon!

Division 1 Practice week, Gloucester canal

Day 1 saw the team descended upon Churchill bridge I believe, it was a pleasant enough day as I was sat on an end peg but try as I might I couldn't catch one of the bream that the Gloucester Canal is famous for and I ended the day on 1.9kg for 2nd or 3^rd on the day.  I learnt a few things about the feeding on the day and I was looking forward to taking this information through the rest of the week.

Day 2 we were in the town itself on Hempstead bend to try and get some of the bigger fish, I was on pole for the first part of the day and managed a few small fish, a skimmer of a kilo and a 2.5kilo bream, ( ieven pleed out of a pound skimmer thinking it was a perch!!) the swap to the feeder was  a damp squib and I got to watch Scott and Pez bag in the last 45 minutes as the bream decided to get their heads down.  I was again 3^rd with 4.5kg.

Day 3 was the first day of selection and I was pegged next to Scott as we all trundled to Purton Bridge, I was pegged next to Scott in the middle of the section for this and all that we found was how hard the venue can actually fish, I managed 1.2kg and was pipped by Scott by a roach, this was enough for third from last on the day and I was hoping for more on the final day of selection.

We travelled to the Sims stretch for this day and I think that it was in this area where I had fished the regional national a few years ago, so I knew that it would be hard, just how hard was a shock and I limped home again 2^nd or 3^rd last with 650 grams!!  Not the best way to end the selection. 

At the  team brief that night I was told that I had squeaked it onto the team so come the next day I was part of the Army B team on the RAF challenge match and Lance drew me a peach that would be boom or bust. Peg 452 was on the end of a 150m straight that was split due to the overhead pylons so I set up a feeder and a positive pole line and prayed.  It took over two hours for my first skimmer and it was only followed by another 3 but 5lb 7oz was enough for a half section win and 8^th out of the 20 peg section that was not too bad considering at the far end of the section the bream fed and there were a few 20lb+ weights.  I had still beaten Will raison and Sean Ashby but granted I should have off that peg.

The Saturday was the Individual national and I drew crap and was home before the match finished, hopefully none of the team draw that area next week on the national but if they do I can at least tell them a few things that will work.