AAF Gp2 Mt10, Viaduct, 23/07/2014

Again we were off on a group match, after a 0500 start, I picked John up, drove to the meet point for breakfast and then we had the AGM. It was then off to the draw at the fishery, Tidworth again was Rocky and myself and I was hoping to get us a half decent draw.  I failed, I was on 94 in a corner and Rocky was in the open water on Cambell, this would have been a half decent draw if the wind was in the other direction but it was time to graft. Since I had Pez sat to my left the banter was bound to be going all day and keep my spirits up.

I had the empty platform to my right, under the tree to my right, the lilies to my left and then I also had loads of open water, I decided to set up a paste rig for next to the lilies, a paste rig for under the trees, a bomb rod, a couple of pellet wags and a dobbing rig.

The first 4 hours were a non-event with 5 skimmers and 1 carp from under the lilies, whereas Pez and Docs to my left had managed to snare a few carp each, Pez reckoned that 4 of his fish were close to the net limit at 70lb so I decided to go and get something cold from the shop and have a bit of a rethink, before I left I fed 6 handfuls of 6mm pellet and 2 handfuls of 8mm pellet next to the lilies and a bit of munga under the tree.

On my return the difference was apparent and almost immediate, I had 2 paste fish from next to the lilies in the net within 30 minutes of my return then I hooked a fish that was in another league to the mid doubles that I had been catching. It made numerous runs that saw me going from a top kit to 13m as quick as I could and then holding on for grim death.  It took around 30 minutes but in the end I had a massive common half in half out the landing net and a little while later in the keepnet. The last hour was a bit of a struggle though with just one more carp from the lilies and one from under the tree mixed in with a few silvers.

As the scales came round I thought that I had seven carp, I could not count though and it was 6, plus 10lb of silvers for 88lb, my monster got weighed separately at 23lb 8oz. Pez managed 103 with his 4 biggies going around 50lb and Docs to his left, who had just spent nearly an hour playing a mid-double on skimmer gear had 113lb for a section win.

Overall it was won from the other end of Carey with 183lb on the bomb at 5m!! second was peg 76 and John was third from Campbell.

Can’t wait until next season so that I can try and get my name back on the trophy but I managed a top ten finish in the league so that was not too bad off six matches.

Sorry no photos this time but my phone cooked in the thirty degree heat!!!

Another Carp Hunt

I managed a couple of sessions after some proper carp, the first was to Todber, I went on Little Haynes and started around the back of one of the islands, with the wind hacking down into the corner to my right it looked really good for a bite or two.

However the carp had other ideas and a guy who had turned up at the same time for a day session was quickly into his 4^th carp. This was enough for me and I upped sticks and dropped in a couple of pegs to his left in the open water.

By fishing CCMoore live system boiles in small pva bags and feeding upto 20, 15mm baits over the top I was soon into my first of about 5 fish upto 18lb.  It was a nice night apart from the rain showers and I would have preferred a few more fish but beggars cannot be choosers.

I followed this up with a trip to Shearwater this time with Tony in tow, we went halfway up the lake and I started on the bottom spoding over the top but this was not the way to go on the day.

 I could see carp starting to cruise about so I plumbed the depth with the marker rod and sent out a couple of long zigs, one at 8ft and another at 10 feet long. This resulted in 5 carp and a number of bream on a variety of hookbaits. The spod mix was quite interesting as it was a mix of Friture groundbait, crushed pellet, crushed expander, crushed pop ups and my normal spod mix.  The aim awas to get the fish up so I fed every 2-4 minutes with a couple of spods that as you can see from the photo above created a good slick.

I was even able to feed some ducklings up on it.

AAF Gp2 Match 9, Todber, 02/07/14

Back to Todber for the penultimate match of the year and unfortunately it was only Rocky and myself fishing for Tidworth, breakfast and the draw was at Skevvies and I soon discovered that following admin orders is not one of Rocky’s strong points so I paid him in and did the draw on my own.

I was off to Whitepost and Rocky was off to Park but with good anglers on good pegs it did not look too good for us, especially being an angler down so we decided to have fun and see what we could do. C8 put me in the wides on the bottom lake at Whitepost, I didn’t fancy it that much as all my kit had been swapped to river kit in the recent weeks so all I had packed was a few paste floats, a couple of shallow rigs and my bomb rod to fish a banjo across.

As it turned out it was only 16m or so across but I didn’t want to fish long all day so I set up a deck rig and a shallow rig for 13m in the hope of getting a few F1’s in the first couple of hours and I also plumbed up a paste rig to fish 2+2 at 10 o’clock, It was the same depth at 1 o’clock so that would be a backup swim if the first started to fade.

I had tried to set up a waggler for the far bank but since I snapped that up in the far bank foliage that was thrown up the bank in disgust (much to Ivan on the next pegs amusement). The all in sounded and I fed the long line with half a pot of pellet before going straight on the short line with paste, 3 carp in the first 15 minutes was a good start and I thought that if it carried on like that I would be on the way to a massive weight but it was not to be and I was soon trying to get the F1’s going shallow. My rig for this was a MW pea on 0.16mm mainline to a 0.12mm bottom and an 18 PR36. As I was fishing predominantly for F1’s the elastic was Pink Reflex and but this was woefully light against the carp that kept on muscling in and I could not get through the carp to the F1’s.

I didn’t think that they were there in the numbers that I needed so I went back onto the paste line and the rest (as they say) is history, it was never manic but by feeding half handfuls of 6mm pellet every time I hooked a fish when it was good and cupping a bit of slop in when it was slow I managed to keep a few fish coming. The rig for this was Orange Reflex elastic, 0.20mm mainline to 0.,18mm bottom, size 5 T175 and a Big ‘H’ paste float. Coming into the last hour it got harder as the fish started to back off so I swapped onto the right hand swim and tried to alternate fish and then I went through a spell of 5 foul hookers on the bounce from both swims so I decided to try something I haven’t done before. I ran a 0.4g Drennan carp dibber on some 0.20mm line and then added a hooklength the same as the other paste rig, this was set at 6-12” and in the last half an hour I managed to catch another half a dozen carp where on the deck I think I would have struggled.

The weigh in was a revelation as Ivan and I both thought that the top lake would smash it as the fish are bigger and they had been cruising and crashing as we arrived, however that was not how it turned out, I thought I had 60-70kg and weighed in a little over 60Kg odd for a section win and second in the match, Rocky won his section and the match with 75kg all on the method as only he can do and by some miracle, carrying an angler, this was enough for us to win the team match as well.

Carlsberg don’t do days fishing but if they did this would be close to it.

Melksham Revival 26/06/14

The river season is finally here and I have decided to join Avon AC based out of Melksham, I decided on this club as we fish the winter league on their waters and also they have got a few well hidden carpy looking areas as well.

The first trip saw me popping down for an afternoon, I decided on a peg in the late 20’s along riverside drive as there is easy access and I would be pretty much left alone by all but dog walkers.

The plan was simple, chopped worm and caster at 6m and then a waggler under the far bank tree with maggot and hemp, I started on a 1.5g Drennan Trio float but later swapped to a 1g Caralusso Torpedo to see if it would make a difference, it was not a lot in the steady flow. Hooklengths varied from 0.12mm to 0.16mm as I got bitten off by an eel mid-session so then stepped it up a bit.  I was feeding through a bait dropper and caught small perch pretty much all day. I managed a few roach and bleak on the wag but it was only getting used to rest the pole line and it never really took off.  I ended up with just shy of 8lb of bits and really enjoyed it.

The following weekend saw me down there again and I aimed to go further upstream and find some stick float water, however I had packed too much kit and the banks were still virgin so I took discretion as the better part from valour and went back to the early 20’s.

This time I took it as a match and had multiple lines on the go, a pole line at 13m where I fished 3 rigs for roach and perch, a whip line at 3m for bleak and a waggler line. I fed a bombardment of groundbait on the pole line and again caught a lot of perch which was a nice surprise, I managed a few big bleak feeding sloppy groundbait and also some nice roach on the waggler. In all it was a nice couple of days and it was good to get back on the flowing water.

Withy Munter Hunt 140614

Well with the river season impending on me I decided to go to Withy and try to bag a whacker on proper gear, the light carp rods were packed as were the alarms, book and kettle and I took the merry trip down bright and early.  After getting my ticket and starting to set up on Barnmoor, I had Dave shout across the lake at me that there was match on that lake that I had missed on the board, so Selwood peg 13 it was.

Got them bubbling well!!

  

I loose fed 8mm pellet down the edge and fished a tea bag method over the top, through the day I managed to land around 10 carp all low doubles and lost another couple to snags.  Before I knew it the match had finished on Barn moor so I made a move around to about peg 6, again it was loose fed 8mm pellet and tea bag method and within 20 minutes at starting I had an 18lb lump on the unhooking mat.

It was a lovely evening and I managed another two mirrors of 16 and 14lb respectively before I had to pack up and go home.

Withy TO4, Final Round 31/5/14

This report is a bit belated as I forgot completely, but through the haze of time here it goes.

This was the last round of the well-attended league, all I had to do was beat the guy from Dandys in my section, Kev.

I drew peg 13 on Selwood, this is a bit of a feast or famine peg as it is best approached fishing long down the edge to the right and fishing a few spots trying to get a bite from each, this would have been fine if it wasn’t for the pleasure anglers who set up next to what should have been the best bit of my peg. So the plan changed slightly.

I set up a couple of rigs to fish meat down the left and right hand edge at a variety of distances, a mugging rig and a skimmer rig, I had one skimmer I think, hooked 2 fish mugging, the first one within 15 seconds of the all in and the second I lost.  I managed 5 carp I think from the various edge spots and found that kinder potting was again the way to go but I lost a few fish due to them fighting like demons.

I ended up with 42lb 12oz for 4^th and beat 5th by 6 ozs so those skimmers were worth their weight in gold, Kev had 31lb 8oz for 7^th in section.

The team did well on the day and we managed to hold onto 3^rd overall in the league which was a great result for the whole team.

Section results

Many thanks again to the guys who ran it and can we do it again this winter please?

Inter Services Championship 2014, 6/6/14

This year it had been the Navy’s choice of venue and our destination was Summerhaynes Fisheries in Somerset, a lovely small complex sat right next door to the M5 and a railway line. I arrived for the team meeting on the Sunday night with Nic Mac as my driver for the week and we got a brief off a few of the guys who had been there fishing that day and the consensus was mixed with it appearing to be a venue that you would have to work hard at and you may still not stand a chance.

Day 1 of practice saw us on Lillies lake, a pretty little pond with 14 pegs, all of which were filled with Fosters Team Army, I was on peg 2 that saw me with a max pole of 9m as three of us were hemmed into a corner, there was also a large lilly bed to my right so I was in for an interesting day. Local knowledge said to fish the right hand margin in ther gap between the bank and the lillys, common sense said to avoid it so I also put in another 2 lines, a choppy line against the lillys at 2+2 and a groundbait and dead maggot line at 9m away into the open water towards peg 3.

I managed to get a few out from down the edge but lost another 6 or so, I also got a few carp from the 2=2 line and a couple of silvers from the open water line for 13 odd kilo and joint first as Danny on peg 1 weighed exactly the same as me…spooky.

Ready to go.

Sorting the bait day 1

 Day 2 saw us on Longs lake, I had peg 18 and decided to fish paste across, meat short and down the edge and finally a silvers line with groundbait and dead maggot at 11m in the opposite direction to the meat line. Long story short I had 10 fish in the first hour and then 3 more throughout the day for 13kg again but I got Harried as I could not find anymore fish in the later stages and spent too long chasing nonexistent silvers.

Peg 18 Long

Day 3 and we were on Sellicks lake in some atrocious weather, I was on peg 3 with Grant on peg 2 and Mick (again) on peg 5 for company. This time we were told that we would struggle and so we did, Grant had a couple of skimmers, I managed 4 carp two from under the far bank undercut and two from down the edge and Mick had about 15Kg mainly from his right and edge. Weather was pants and I was now not a happy bunny.

Keith weighing in on Ind IS

Day 4 was the Inter Services Individual championship and I drew a snag pit in the form of peg 15, I had 16m across and a massive lily bed that was full of fish, I got drawn into trying to mug too many fish from the lily’s when I should have concentrated across and used the lilies as a backup line, weighed 32lb, came second in section and no where individually.

These results were enough for me to crawl into the Fosters Team Army squad and on the day of the race I was given Peg 12 on longs and that is an out and out flyer if you can present on the far bank. It was 16m across and I spent all day fighting my pole across as I had a wicked cross wind and then resting by fishing paste down the track on two lines. I did not fare well and managed around 30lb that was half the weight of the RAF lad in the next peg who could fish across at13m. In hindsight I should have chucked the tip further to the right, plumbed up down the edge more thoroughly and also used the meat track rig more than once as I had fish fizzing most of the day but they did not seem to want the paste.

I was not the only one who struggled and courtesy of some odd results the RAF walked away the victors this year, Army second and the Navy and Royal Marines Third.

It is our venue next year so we should get it back but it still hurts.