Catch up

Ok so it has been a couple of months since I last updated my blog and for that I apologise, but I am know in my new job and home and shall have a bit more time to update this.  Over the last few months I have taken part in the Division 2 National that saw Browning Andover miss out on promotion by the narrowest of margins so I shall start here.

For practice Dave George and I travelled up the week before the match to try and sort out a few things to help the team, what we found was that the venue was full of small gustas that would eat almost anything, and very few better bonus fish. So our plan largely revolved around trying to catch as many small fish as possible.  It worked for a few of us and didn’t for a few, Ian Ross and Stu Dabbs both had good days picking up coin and Ian even got a section winners medal.

Then back to reality and I fitted in a few opens around the area that I can hardly remember before the Winter League started with a gusto, First round was on the Thames again and even though I drew reasonably both on the practice and the match, conditions and pegging let me down. I ended up with 4 fish over the 2 matches for a combined weight of less than a pound, but this was still better than some people and this made me feel better.  Next round was on the K&A around Devizes and I ended up on a marathon walk for a couple of pounds, this was not last in section but not far off, I was let down this time by a decision to try and chase skimmers that would not settle and the guys around me had better days. Round 3 was on the Bristol Avon and saw me draw a peg in the park at Melksham, I decided against the grain to bosh the grannie out of it and was rewarded with a mid section 5 ½ lb, beating the guys on both sides. I should have done better but as I was getting into a rhythm catching decent roach on caster I bumped a fish and did not see fish of that class again. Whoops.  I missed the last round on the due to other commitments but I have managed to fish a few matches at Whiterington Farm, drawing both Selwood and Cottage on 3 occasions and I am yet to beat 20lb on any of the 3. Twice I have had the winner of the lake in the next peg emptying it whi;st I have struggled for a bite but I have a better idea of what they have been doing differently so I can now improve (Hopefully). And that is us up to date. See you on the bank soon.

13/07/2012, Royal Signals Champioship, day 2

Day 2 saw us all swapping lakes and Pez and I tried something new by drawing for each other, it worked, I put him on a good peg, Snake 15, and he put me on end peg 26 on Lake 4. It was looking good for the team until I found out that the day before only 9Kg had come off it, but it was a start point. When I got to my peg I found the island on my left hand side that extended to the rope at around 40yds, there was a big tree on both sides of my peg and also a really nice margin down to my left hand side that required the bare minimum of gardening.

This allowed me to make an easy plan I was going to fish the pellet wag, method or bomb long and then paste down the edge to my left in the last couple of hours, I set up an 11ft Force Pellet Waggler 2 with a Xitan 030FD reel and 0.18mm mainline. I slid a sliding pellet wag rig up the line with a 4.5g clear loaded pellet wag and terminated it with a 0.18mm bottom to a 16 hook and a bait band on the hair. I also set up a bomb rig on a 10ft Force Commercial bomb and then set up a similar margin paste rig as yesterday for down the edge. At the all in I cast out the pellet wag and was rewarded with a fish on my 4^th cast at around 5 feet deep, this filled me with confidence and with the wind blowing from over my left shoulder I was able to controll feeding and the float easily. This then set the rest of the day, I caught fish on the waggler on and off for the first 4 hours of the match and had 15 fish in the net at the end of this period at depths from 2-6ft, I also caught one on paste on a rig I quickly set up at 5m after watching Ivan on the far bank bag a couple of quick fish. This only gave me the one so at 2hrs to go I fed the edge and had a look, again it took the fish about 20 minutes to settle but then I stopped foul hooking the fish and started landing some better margin fish. I had a further 7 or 8 in the last couple of hours and this was enough to give me another good weight with 55.850Kg and this was enough to take top spot on the day again.

It was a brilliant couple of days and the best bit was picking up not only the individual championship but Pez and I also managed to pick up the team as well. Not too bad.

Here are the full results:

12/07/2012 Royal Signals Champs , Day 1

Day 1, I was running this match ably assisted by Pez This saw me draw peg 16 on Reptile lake, Phase 2, after I had finished with the tidying up of the draw area and then loaded up my barrow it was off down around the lake to get to my peg. Upon arrival I found myself sandwiched between 2 guest anglers, Gaz Evans (Army team captain and Makins Regular) and Rocky (Makins Regular and Army squad member) so I knew that I had my work cut out from the start. Both Rocky and Gaz however were throwing in disclaimers from the start saying that I was on a better peg; well I didn’t know as I had not fished the place since last year. I decided on a simple plan with a method rod and pellet wag for casting into a gap between two islands at around 23m, Meat at 5m to my left away from Gaz and then paste over groundbait down on my left hand margin as I had a platform at 10m.

 At the all in I potted in a half full pot of bait at 5m and then cast the pellet wag into the gap as the carp were showing on the surface, instantly I knew that this was the wrong thing to do as the waggler was making too much noise on the impact with the water and seemed to be making the fish back off from the start. I quickly decided to get off my box and set up a shallow rig to fish at 14.5M towards the island, It consisted of a 0.1g Sconzone wellardz on 0.18mm Hybrid mainline to a 0.14mm Cenex bottom terminated in a PR36 hook with a F1 bait band. I dropped a 6mm pellet on the surface 3 times and yellow Reflex elastic poured out of the top kit, this happened a few more times as I slowly started to trickle bait in on the line. But it was in a straight line with my back up feeder line so before I got too carried away I moved it around 4m to the left more towards the centre of the open water.

I stayed on this for around an hour but I noticed that the fish were starting to back off a bit so I cast out the feeder to give it a rest, the tip flew round fairly quickly and I took a quick 10 fish on this line. I alternated between the tip and the shallow line for the next couple of hours taking fish steadily, I had a couple of looks on the short line but with no indications I stayed long.

With 2 hours left to go I put 5 pots of groundbait down the edge to my left and a couple of minutes later followed it with a rig, consisting of a Big H Bullit paste float on 0.20m  cenex with a 0.18mm bottom finished with a size 5 Tubertini 175. This was rigged on a strong hollow elastic so that I could bag happily,  by this time both Rocky  and Gaz were making charges with decent fish from their edges so I had to hope that I could get enough to stay in front. It didn’t take long and I started to get a few fish from on it and they were of a slightly better stamp than most other people were managing, I kept catching until the all out and at the end I knew I had a decent weight.

The scales came round and I was one of the last to weigh on Reptile, with 58.680Kg, this was more than enough to see off anyone else in my section by around 20Kg so the job had been done for day 1. On the team front, Pez had drawn in a corner on Lake 4, Peg 18 and found himself boxed in, once the fish backed off from in front of him he struggled, but he had done enough for the team with a second in section keeping us in contention for the Inter Unit Championships.

AAF Gp2 Match 9, Todber Manor Fishery.

It was time for another group match and this time we were back off to Todber, the weather gods obviously saw us coming because the forecast was for showers as usual, however, the wind should stay off us. The draw as usual was at Skevvys cafe in Shaftesbury and my team for the day was just myself and Tommy as Pez was away. Tommy did the draw and ended up on Whitepost whereas I was off to Park and permanent peg 12, I had been beaten badly by this peg in the past so I knew it had a bit of form and was therefore quite happy.

I decided on another easy day so I set up a rig for across to fish meat in the reeds, a paste rig for 2+2 and another paste rig for the margin to my left, I would feed the track at the start with a pot of hemp and pellet and then concentrate across for the first part of the match.

The all in was called and I potted in a full pot on my track line before shipping my across rig over, it consisted of a 4X12 Big H Border float on 0.20mm mainline to a 0.16mm bottom and a size 2 Tubertini 175 hook, to match the rig I had it set on a short length of Blue reflex hollow elastic. The Kinder pot on the end of the rig was filled with hemp and meat and I shipped across into the gap in the reeds expecting a quick response; however this swim never really took off. I had fish in it almost straight away but if I had not had a positive indication within the first minute after feeding then I would not catch a fish. I lasted on this line for around 30 minutes and had put a few small carp into the net but it was not quick enough and the track line was fizzing so out went a big chunk of paste. The rig for this line was a 4X14 Big H paste float on 0.20mm mainline and a 0.18mm bottom to a size 5 ‘175’, elastic started as blue reflex but I soon changed this to green as I was catching a few fish on it. I was feeding by dumping in some bait every few fish as I found that feeding through the paste pot was drawing the fish up in the water, but it was steady on this line with small carp and F1’s coming steadily to paste. I stayed on this line for the next couple of hours catching steadily before deciding to feed my margins. For this I had 2Kg of groundbait mixed and I started with 5 full pots containing a few cubes of meat, this line was again steady and provided a few fish but never really took off, the fish were the same size as the short pole so I was alternating until the all out, I had been watching Dave Doc’s catching from the end peg all day and in the last hour I managed to get a few fish strung together. At one point I landed 3 4-6lb fish in the same amount of time it took him to land 1, so In was confident that I may have managed to claw something back.

As you can see from the section weigh sheet I managed to do more than claw a bit back and I was able to overtake Docs in the last 30 minutes or so as the fish turned up in numbers.

SECTION	PEG No	NAME	TEAM	WEIGHT	POSITION
A	1	Statters	ARMCEN B	14.56	9
A	2	Oakey	Nomads	42.28	3
A	3	Goddard	Orphans	11.26	10
A	4	Holmes	Tidworth Gunners	0	13
A	5	Brettle	Individual	30.64	6
A	6	Cicconi	Army HQ B	15.28	8
A	7	Hamilton	ARMCEN A	26.64	7
A	8	Duggan	Individual	6.8	11
A	9	Bentley	11 Sig Regt	50.15	1
A	10	Poolman	Army HQ A	30.87	5
A	11	Farragher	Individual	40.73	4
A	12	Docherty	RA Centre	45.45	2

To sum up it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I even managed second overall in the match beaten from a weight from the other side of Park where Duncan Cooper chucked the method all day to record an impressive 70 odd Kilos. I’m off to Makins next then back to Viaduct.

AAF Gp 2 vs Browning Andover, Witherington Farm, 1 July 2012

This was day 2 of another weekend of angling, fortunately with them both being on commercials prep the night before was kept to a minimum, now this seemed good the night before but came back to bite me, more of that later. Another proper breakfast was duly dispatched (I think I am going to have to run a bit more!!) and the banter was in full flow before and during the draw, the team captains of John (AAF Gp2) and Barry (Browning Andover MG) did the draw and I was pulled out of the bag on peg 41 fishing against none other than Fisho Finalist, Dave George!!

I rather fancied the draw and had decided on the way to my peg that I would be concentrating on paste today as I thought it would be the way to go, The main reason for my optimism was the fact that the wind had been blowing down that end of the lake for a few days and the carp were in residence. I started to get set up and I had the bridge into the inner snake sat between myself and Dave, so I set up a method rod to cast along the far bank as it was a little breezy and this guarantees perfect presentation, this is where my night off from prep bit me though. Firstly I had left my favourite Method groundbait at home and secondly I had to set my rod up on the bank which is normally done at home so I don’t have to take ages setting it up.

I carried on and after I had messed around with the method rod it was time for my paste rigs, I set up a standard 4 X14 Big H paste float for the 4ft deep 5m line and then it was a self cocking Big H paste for my margin rig. Both were set up on 0.20mm mainline and 0.18mm bottoms to size 5 Tubertini 175, the long line was rigged on blue browning Reflex elastic and the margin rig was on a strong hollow elastic through a heavy tension puller kit.

That was me, I also set up a shallow rig and a deck rig for across but I did not see myself using this too much as the wind was awkward and swirling across me. So at the all in I was ready and whilst everybody else was cupping in pots of bait I shipped my paste rig out to the 5m line and tipped out a large lump of paste with some hemp and pellet under it, nothing first put in but on the second I had a positive indication that saw me slipping the net under a 3lb carp, another followed a few minutes later and I had 3 in the net after 30 minutes whilst Dave had not had a fish. It was at this point that I started to get fizzing and indications off small fish so I decided that the time was right to put a bit of feed in at 13m on my long paste line and so I started to rotate across the swims with paste hookbaits looking for the odd fish. I tried the method cast towards the bridge a couple of times and I could not get a positive indication on an 8mm pellet to a 14 hook so I dropped down to a 4mm pellet to a 16 on 0.16mm line. I cast the feeder across and whilst I was not looking I nearly lost the rod into the lake and the fish made good its escape through a Lilly bed.

About half way through the fish started showing towards the bridge so I decided to try my luck with a shallow rig and a 6m pellet, I hooked a proper fish very quickly and by using a short length of Blue Cenex hollow elastic through a no.1 section I soon had a 10lber tamed and in the net. I shipped back across and was seen off by the next couple of fish so I decided to feed the edge with my small amount of groundbait. This saw a quick run of 3 fish from down the edge all decent fish and I thought that at this time I had about 50lb in the net so I decided to chuck a third net in after topping up a couple of lines. ( The third net was for a bit of sportsmanship and also because the pegs are a long way off the water and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt myself or loose fish due to pulling too much up the bank.)

This however was the kiss of death and after putting this net in I did not have another indication for nearly an hour and only managed another 3 fish in total until the end of the match. During this time, Dave had a great run and managed to put 8 Carp into the net, he did however loose lots more; all he was doing was concentrating on his short line with meat over pellet. The all out could ot come quick enough and I knew that Dave ad caught enough to beat me, he reckoned he had 6 Carp (I had counted 15) andthat I had smashed him, the scales however, showed that he is rubbish at counting fish and estimating weight, my bag went 69lb 4oz and Dave managed to squeek it with 72lb 8oz, I was not a happy bunny. But I had not lost too many fish apart from the one on the rod and another on the long shallow rig that powered into snags before I had a chance. On the day however the AAF was victorious with an impressive 8 section wins so we won the trophy back. Another good result was Neil Gaff from the other side of Dave managing 3^rd overall.

30/06/2012 MFS Campbell lake, Viaduct

People seem to think that I am usually quite good at the draw, but today I was let down severely by my right hand. My day started slightly late and I then found that a small Dorset town was shut so had to plumb in an alternative route to the Tom Tom. I finally found my way into the car park only to find that I must have been one of the last people there, but I still found time for a breakfast at Woodys and very good it was too.

I managed to draw peg 130 out of the bag and this was apparently not a good draw, still I had planned on another easy day but this time concentrating on the tip and waggler but it was not to be as soon after the whistle I was struggling and my day got worst from there.

I set up 2 wagglers and a bomb rod and hooked carp on all 3, I also set up a margin rig and a short pole line to fish meat but all I managed here was to get beaten up down the edge and a few skimmers at 5m.

I tipped back 30lb and this still would have put me as last on the lake, in hindsight I should have worked the waggler for longer and I think that a paste line at 13m even with the gusting wind would have been a better idea.

It was won by Rich the match organiser from peg 119 with around 190lb of carp so well done to you mate, the lake on a whole fished quite hard but we still had 4 or 5 ton weights and loads of bags around  70-90lb.

Hordle Lakes 24/06/2012

It was off to a new venue for this one and Hordle lakes were programmed into the sat nav and off I went Via Chris’s house and Maccy D’s. We had enough time to say hi to the guys and have a look around the ponds when we got there and after looking at both of the lakes that were in I fancied a draw anywhere on Willow lake as there seemed to be more water to go at rather than Spring lake that was a snake lake. Chris and I both drew on Willow fortunately with me on 6 and he was on 4, we soon discovered that these were not the permenant peg numbers as I ended up with 4 blank pegs between me and peg 5 to my right, and peg 7 was not drawn out giving me another blank peg to my left... ACRES....

Just to make it the perfect peg there was an island around 25m out in front of me which had carp written all over it, due to the amount of room I decided to keep things simple and spread 3 lines out and around myself. Firstly was the Island, I set up a 30g small Kobra inline method feeder with a size 14 QM1 on 0.20mm Cenex and a bait band o my Force 10ft Bomb rod with an ultimatch reel and 8lb reel line. I also set up a 2 swan Drennan crystal pellet waggler on 4lb line to a 0.18mm bottom and a 16 PR36 hook for fishing a foot deep to the island, the rod for this was an 11ft Force pellet wag 2 and a 030 Xitan front drag reel,  I use this reel as it retrieves over a meter of line a turn which is quite useful for on the pellet wag when the quicker you can get in and out can sometimes make a difference.

After extensive plumbing up I decided to fish a meat line o a 2+2 line at 2 O’Clock to my right, it was about 4 feet deep there and I set the float to fish about an inch over depth just up from the bottom of the shelf. I started with a Preston Inter 1 float on the line with 0.18mm  main line to a 0.14 bottom and on the business end was a size 2 Tubertini 175 as I had heard that there were some bonus fish in this pond. I had this rigged on yellow Browning Reflex elastic through a tension puller kit  so that I could land anything that I hooked on it. My final rig was for paste to fish in front of the platform to my left, I found 4 feet again tight to the pilings and had a quick grope around under the water to see if there were any undercuts to worry about. The answer was no so it was a 4X10 Big H paste float on 0.20 Hybrid power mono to a 0.18mm Cenex bottom and again a tubertinin 175 but this time a size 5. This was rigged on a 17H elastic through a heavy tension puller kit and a paste pot was put on the very end of the kit next to the bush.

My plan was simple, I would feed the meat line at the all in then fish the island for 2 hours, then hopefully the carp would be on the meat line and in the last 2 hours I would plunder the margins. So the all in sounded and out went ½ a pot of hemp and 6mm meat onto the chosen spot then I cast the method to within inches of the island, I was watching Chris still cupping in bait on his spots when my rod wrapped round and Carp number 1 was soon in the net, not that I told anyone!!(MUCH!!)

It was steady for the first couple of hours with the odd carp and skimmer falling to pellet or mini boilie on the hair, the problem I had was the overhanging bushes and a determination to get the feeder really tight to the island. From the start I was also pinging a few 8mm pellets towards the island and after a while I had a look, I would love to say that it was solid but I can’t, I managed a couple of chub but it was soon time to go onto the meat line. By this time the guy opposite had started getting a few carp shallow, he was not setting the world on fire but he was definitely ahead of anybody else, even Chris was getting a few on the pole behind the island. I shipped down to the right with a medium cad pot on the end of my top kit full of hemp and meat, dropped the lot in held onto the rig and after 30 seconds was playing a skimmer, 2 minutes later though it was a carp and at about 3lb it was the start of a good run of fish. I managed around 15 over the next couple of hours interspersed with a few skimmers and proper roach but it was fading fast on me and it was about time to prep my margin. I potted 5 full pots of groundbait, meat and hemp in down on the edge line then I cast the method back to the island, that didn’t work but the waggler gave me a couple of quick fish before they backed off again.

It was time so I shipped my paste rig off and down the edge, the float settled perfectly on the slope and after a count of 85 the float disappeared, followed after the strike by around 10 of proper elastic, there was an over flow pipe in the middle of my swim and it was interesting to play the fish around it but I soon had an absolute HORSE in the landing net. Next put in and the same result but with a slightly smaller fish and then the same on the third put in, I had managed over 30lb of carp in 3 put ins near enough so I knew what was going to be my main line for the last period of the match.

I topped up after every 3 proper indications and this kept the fish in my swim until the all out, I managed to land about 8 carp for around 60lb over that period but they were alot harder to come by at the end as I ran out of groundbait.

The all in saw me a very happy boy as I knew that I had done alright and reckoned that I had around 140lb of fish, Chris thought that he had 50lb and a wager was set on top weight, top silvers and closest guess (well I had to give him a chance), the guy to his right weighed first with 96lb, Chris had 85lb!! Then it was around to me and 5 weighs saw 135lb 11oz on the scales helped alot by this little beauty at 15lb 10oz.

Many thanks to Rich for running it and I hope to go back soon.