Hi Folks, the day before this match was something of a logistical nightmare for Bob Baker who was running this match as he still wanted the match to go ahead but there were no where near enough pegs free of ice for the 40 odd blokes booked in, i told Stav of the situation and after a few phone calls with a bit of um'ing & arh'ing we decided to have a drive down to have a look at the situation for ourselves and if the worst came to the worst and the ice was too thick to break at least we would have had a ride out! When we got there and had a walk around the pools it didn't look very promising with thick ice on all the pools with just a few pegs fish-able with only thin breakable ice where the aerators had been put on in the days leading up to the match, after meeting up with Bob he started to count up the pegs available then Phil turned the aerators on to remove the cat ice from the few fish-able pegs and it looked like we might get a match after all if there was not a big turn out. After paying some pools money it was time to draw there was 24 brave ( if not slightly insane) blokes ready to do battle with with the ice before they could do battle with the fish it was still well below zero, i drew out peg 10 on laurel pool which meant nothing to me as i have only fished Wyatts twice before and Laugherne island once Stav drew on Laugherne ( the peg number escapes me 29 i think?). When i got to the peg it was right in a corner with the aerator right in-front of me not where i wanted to be as i have fished many a winter ice match at Woodlands view over the years and you normally need to be as far away from the aerators as poss and fish up against solid ice, i was also a bit miffed at not being able to fish long as the rope from the aerator was stopping me and so was the guy on peg 9 as if we had both fished 13m we would touching poles. I was not to despondent though as i could here a lot of ice breaking going on around the other pools at least my peg was free of ice due to the aerator so at least i had not got to sling my lump of steel & chain around before setting up, i think the pegging ended up something like 6 on laurel,10 on wyatts and 4 each on oak & laugherne island.
I won't bore you with rigs & bait as i was very limited to how far i could fish out so i set up just two rigs both with on 0.10 line one with a 20 to try a 4mm pellet and the other a 22 for pinkies, both rigs would do for both lines with were at 6m & 13m the long line was as far as i could go with the aerator rope both floats were 0.50gr floats for around 7 1/2- 8ft of water. I fed just 5-6 1mm micro pellets with 3-4 flouro pinkies on both lines now and then just to see if i could get a bite first of all, the guy next to Bob on the edge of the ice was first to catch a small roach and before long he had a few of them plus the odd skimmer. I think Bob had 2-3 fish before i had my first bite a 40z skimmer then a couple of small roach it was slow going but at least we had got off the mark, the guy next to Bob was catching the most while they were only small fish but he was quite busy. Bob's fish seemed to be slightly bigger than than mine and the guy's next to him due to fishing the maggot as apposed to the pinkie, i tried maggot and pinkie on both of my lines but could only get a bite on the pinkie at 13m my 6m line never showed a fish all day. After around 2-3 hours Stav came up the bank to steal some of my coffee and said that all of the other 3 pools were all dry with no one having a bite so at least we were catching, i think that at the time i had got 5-6 fish while he was emptying my flask i had another small roach he said it was making him feel bad seeing people catch and went back to his own pool to try and get a bite. The bites now stopped as i was getting trouble with floating cat ice and having to smash it up with the pole pot, Bob was catching a few better silvers still and the guy next to him was catching smaller fish when we all saw more elastic than normal coming from then end of Bob's pole the signal of a carp. Bob netted the carp which looked around 2-3lb from where i was sitting but the always look bigger on such a hard day, i couldn't get a bite on anything the guy to my left had 1 roach and the guy to my right managed 2, the guy 3 pegs up on my left up against the ice had got 1 skimmer with the last hour upon us. In the last hour i managed to hook and land a small 12oz carp and a small skimmer, Bob had another carp smaller than his first plus a few slivers, the guy to his right up against the ice had fished a good match catching small silvers all day, the guy to my left had 3 small carp and a skimmer in the last hour up against the ice. We new that no one on wyatts had a bite there was only a single roach caught on laugherne island and the guy's on oak had gone dry as well! All 6 of us on Laurel had caught so it was the pool to draw, the guy on my left with the 3 late carp was fist to weigh with 3lb odd mine went 2lb 6oz, Bob had done well with his 2 carp and silvers for a match winning 8lb odd and the guy to his right had 5lb odd of smaller silvers with no carp, the 2 guy's either side of me and the 1 roach on island pool all weighed 3oz so they were all joint 5th as 7 had caught out of the 24 that fished but it was bloody cold. We all got a tin of choc's to take home for our efforts on a cold day i was 4th 0ne out of the money but got a free 12 months subscription to match fishing magazine as there had been a few prizes donated, many thanks to Bob for organizing the match and well done for winning the match, many thanks to the staff at Cob House for trying the mission impossible to keep the pools clear.
Tuesday 28 December 2010
Sunday 5 December 2010
NO FISHING FREEZING ZONE!!!!!!!!!
As i am writing this our 2nd round of the pairs league at Blythe has been canceled due to some 3-4 inches of solid ice that Warren tried to break during the week without success so no fishing this week JOBS A BAD UN' a day in the house with the misses!
I hope we have a bit of a thaw during next week as Satv and i have booked into the Cob House fur & feather which i have been looking forward to so lets pray as cooking Sunday dinner is not what blokes are built for, that's what i got a misses for!
I hope we have a bit of a thaw during next week as Satv and i have booked into the Cob House fur & feather which i have been looking forward to so lets pray as cooking Sunday dinner is not what blokes are built for, that's what i got a misses for!
Thursday 2 December 2010
Staffs-Worcs canal Castlecroft Sunday 28/11/10
Hi folks, today's match is the fur & feather with one of my clubs Halesowen A.C which has been switched from the canal at Hinksford due to it being froze over, the clubs own stretch of canal at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton has been known not to freeze due to a bit of flow and the fact that it is only around a mile away from some waterworks. I was hoping for a better draw than the 3 times of have fished the stretch before as i have managed to draw the same peg 7 every time without catching much off it, it was the same as the last 3 times i had been to Hinksford until 2 weeks ago drawing on the first set of reeds 3 times on the bounce and the first time i did draw off them i won the match so i was hoping for a different peg today. With 23 hardy ( saft, stupid no brains) blokes assembled at the Green Man pub in Swindon for breakie we all must want our lumps reading as the overnight temperatures went down to -8'c god it was cold, we done the draw in the pub before shooting off to the venue and at last i got a different peg 35 there were shouts of jammy git as i had drawn the chub peg that has won the last 2 club match's on the stretch and it was a boun's peg so the pressure would be on. I missed the last match on here which was won with 9lb comprising of 6 small chub off this peg but i did fish it in March when JB won off it with 27lb of chub, my only concern was how cold it had gone with my local canal first freezing on Thursday now 1 1/2 inches thick the cold snap had come fast and the weather man said we had got it for a least 2 weeks, we were lucky as most of the rest of the country was covered in snow. Stav had cried off saying it was to cold and fancied a day in warm (wimp) he had fished the last club match on here and drawn peg 36 next to the winner also it is a good walk, we got to the canal and there was some ice patches on it so i loaded the barrow up and started to walk and walk and walk!. The pegs on our stretch are well spaced out but there are also a couple of sets of overhead power cables which we have to miss out and a bridge down it the 20's but we cannot get access to it even to drop the tackle off as it is a private road, it was a long walk but at least i had a look at the stretch for the first time and i have to say that there were some very fishy looking pegs but i was more worried about my fingers dropping off as they were exposed pushing my barrow. When i eventually got to my peg you can see why the chub live there, there is an overhanging ivy bush that comes out some 3-4m from the bank and must stretch 15m wide with the peg smack in the middle of them. There was some talk after the match to re-peg the stretch so that we can put 2 pegs on the ivy so they can share the fish which i think would be a good idea as it is certainly long enough, to reach the edge of the ivy i only had to use around 8m of pole but i put the no7 on to reach 2 gaps in the ivy at 10 & 2 o'clock. The ice was a too thick to break with the pole so i lent Steve Robson's ice breaker who had drawn peg 36 to break it out right ( i had left my breaker in the shed as i was told all last winter the canal never froze!), on the other side of me was our PET Geordie Phil who i work with so at least we would have a laugh if we couldn't catch. I was starting to fear the worst as if you fished last weekend you will know what i am talking about it was bloody cold, after cooling down from the long walk and the ice breaking session the weak bit of sun that was out was blocked off by some trees on the opposite side so i had to sit in the shade all day. The next thing i was worried about was that i only had 1 top kit with heavy elastic in all my others were in a tube in the house i had taken them out to put my canal tops in so the 13hollo i had would have to be sacrificed and tightened up, i set up the following rigs to tackle the peg.
Rig 1, i made this up on the bank as the chub rigs i carry are for fishing right over with small in-line dibber floats with short line but the ivy was that far out into the canal you have got 4ft of water! I fished a 4 x 10 Preston pink float, 0.14 line straight through to a 16 b611 with my tightened 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, a 4 x 12 Drennan caster original 0.08 straight through to a 18 pr322 with a no4 elastic which would be fished at 4m down the track on caster.
With the long walk and ice breaking all the guys at our end missed around the first 10mins of the match before we were ready to fish, as i had drawn the flier and a bouns peg i was only going to fish caster and worm leaving the bread, squatt & pinkie in the bag ( good job as i had to give Geordie some of my slices of bread for the hook as he had left his on the kitchen table).
I put half a pot of chopped worm on my left-hand swim and around 20 casters on my right swim then just throwing 3-4 casters at 4m, Steve & Pet both started on the bread with an instant reaction both having a roach first put-in. After around 5mins i had my first bite a 2oz perch then i had 3 more fish in quick succession 1 roach and the rest perch, Pet had carried on catching on the bread but Steve had 2 roach then bumped the third which stopped him from getting anymore bites. The bites started to slow up on the worm so i had a look on the caster line while i put a bit more worm in on the other line, with no bites on the caster i was back on the worm line which produced 2 more perch over the next 30mins this set the tone for most of the day with the worm line catching most of my fish and only 1 4 oz roach on the caster. I was missing a few bites on the worm and bumping the odd perch off due to the tight elastic by there was no sign of the chub that live on the peg maybe the -8 had put them down too far? Boy was it cold as the trees on the far bank were stopping the week sunshine coming through it was freezing everything all my bait worm & casters were freezing in my bait boxes, Steve to my right had been in the sun all day talking the mick by saying that he wished hadn't forgot his sun tan lotion but at least he wasn't catching with no more fish after those 2 first roach. Pet had managed around a dozen roach on the punch before he started to struggle for bites, we had heard that there loads of guys that were dry with the best being Stu with around a 1lb of roach on the punch and a few better perch he was admitting to 2lb after 3 hours. I thought that i had around 1 1/2lb in the net at this point and i was struggling to get a bite from any of my 3 lines even my light fed caster down the track rig failed to produce a bite, with around an hour to go i had a bite on the worm which pulled a few inches of tight elastic out it was a nice 12oz bonus perch lying in the bottom of my frozen solid landing net. On the next put-in i had another bite hoping for another big perch i lifted into the fish but it was to late by the time i realized it wasn't a perch and shipped the pole back the unforeseen beast had gone through the trees on the far side, i applied as much pressure as i could but all i could see was the tree branches moving then nothing it had gone solid all i could do was pull for a break. Shit! I quickly made up another rig and pulled another 1ft of elastic out to try and stop another one if i got the chance, i couldn't get a bite on the worm so i switch to the caster line which buried straight away and i managed to get this one away from the sanctuary of the ivy bush soon i was looking at a 1 1/2lb chub in the net which made me feel a lot better. 5mins later and i was in again but i parted company with this one as i threw the pole back at break neck speed maybe i had tightened the elastic too much? That was the end of the action for me as i didn't get another bite the last half hour but maybe you could understand why, it was now very cold as the sun had gone down behind the hedge row you could feel the temperature dropping like a stone as dusk approached. JB came down the canal with the scales saying it had fished hard for a lot of people with a lot of dry nets Kev on peg 39 had gone dry, Steve next to me had 15oz with 1 small 8oz chub & 3 bits, my net went 3lb 15oz which JB said it should be enough to take home the coin, Pet to my left had caught early on the punch then adding a few more on the pinkie later to weigh 2lb 4oz. The best weight above the bridge was Stu with 2lb 12oz but that was only the bottom end so i would have to wait until i got back to the car park to see if i had done enough, when i got back to the car park John Bab who i had traveled with said he had the best weight from the middle of the stretch with 3lb 2oz so i had won the match, the top end of the match length by the boats had not fished at all with just odd fish and lots of dry nets. John had caught on worm and then on squatt over the top with 1 bouns perch and a few roach, i can not remember being so cold as you could have cut my little fingers off after pushing the barrow back to the car park in the now semi darkness. I was well pleased to have won the match as that's now 2 wins on both my clubs fur & feathers both on the bouns pegs, i am just glad that the 2 chub i lost have not cost me winning the match today or i would have been well happy with myself for leaving my heavy carp kits in the house. At least i will get some brownie points with" her in doors " as that's 2 turkeys and a leg of pork for the Christmas dinner table mega points! All i need now is a couple of 24 packs of stella and i will be well set for the festive period. I must mention our Pet on his virgin punch fishing session after he had drove everyone mad all week asking questions about how to fish the punch even getting one of the customers in the shop to do him a bag of liquidized bread, he's been nagging me to mention him so well done for coming 4th Pet don't forget my 10% of the winnings for lending my hook bread?
Rig 1, i made this up on the bank as the chub rigs i carry are for fishing right over with small in-line dibber floats with short line but the ivy was that far out into the canal you have got 4ft of water! I fished a 4 x 10 Preston pink float, 0.14 line straight through to a 16 b611 with my tightened 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, a 4 x 12 Drennan caster original 0.08 straight through to a 18 pr322 with a no4 elastic which would be fished at 4m down the track on caster.
With the long walk and ice breaking all the guys at our end missed around the first 10mins of the match before we were ready to fish, as i had drawn the flier and a bouns peg i was only going to fish caster and worm leaving the bread, squatt & pinkie in the bag ( good job as i had to give Geordie some of my slices of bread for the hook as he had left his on the kitchen table).
I put half a pot of chopped worm on my left-hand swim and around 20 casters on my right swim then just throwing 3-4 casters at 4m, Steve & Pet both started on the bread with an instant reaction both having a roach first put-in. After around 5mins i had my first bite a 2oz perch then i had 3 more fish in quick succession 1 roach and the rest perch, Pet had carried on catching on the bread but Steve had 2 roach then bumped the third which stopped him from getting anymore bites. The bites started to slow up on the worm so i had a look on the caster line while i put a bit more worm in on the other line, with no bites on the caster i was back on the worm line which produced 2 more perch over the next 30mins this set the tone for most of the day with the worm line catching most of my fish and only 1 4 oz roach on the caster. I was missing a few bites on the worm and bumping the odd perch off due to the tight elastic by there was no sign of the chub that live on the peg maybe the -8 had put them down too far? Boy was it cold as the trees on the far bank were stopping the week sunshine coming through it was freezing everything all my bait worm & casters were freezing in my bait boxes, Steve to my right had been in the sun all day talking the mick by saying that he wished hadn't forgot his sun tan lotion but at least he wasn't catching with no more fish after those 2 first roach. Pet had managed around a dozen roach on the punch before he started to struggle for bites, we had heard that there loads of guys that were dry with the best being Stu with around a 1lb of roach on the punch and a few better perch he was admitting to 2lb after 3 hours. I thought that i had around 1 1/2lb in the net at this point and i was struggling to get a bite from any of my 3 lines even my light fed caster down the track rig failed to produce a bite, with around an hour to go i had a bite on the worm which pulled a few inches of tight elastic out it was a nice 12oz bonus perch lying in the bottom of my frozen solid landing net. On the next put-in i had another bite hoping for another big perch i lifted into the fish but it was to late by the time i realized it wasn't a perch and shipped the pole back the unforeseen beast had gone through the trees on the far side, i applied as much pressure as i could but all i could see was the tree branches moving then nothing it had gone solid all i could do was pull for a break. Shit! I quickly made up another rig and pulled another 1ft of elastic out to try and stop another one if i got the chance, i couldn't get a bite on the worm so i switch to the caster line which buried straight away and i managed to get this one away from the sanctuary of the ivy bush soon i was looking at a 1 1/2lb chub in the net which made me feel a lot better. 5mins later and i was in again but i parted company with this one as i threw the pole back at break neck speed maybe i had tightened the elastic too much? That was the end of the action for me as i didn't get another bite the last half hour but maybe you could understand why, it was now very cold as the sun had gone down behind the hedge row you could feel the temperature dropping like a stone as dusk approached. JB came down the canal with the scales saying it had fished hard for a lot of people with a lot of dry nets Kev on peg 39 had gone dry, Steve next to me had 15oz with 1 small 8oz chub & 3 bits, my net went 3lb 15oz which JB said it should be enough to take home the coin, Pet to my left had caught early on the punch then adding a few more on the pinkie later to weigh 2lb 4oz. The best weight above the bridge was Stu with 2lb 12oz but that was only the bottom end so i would have to wait until i got back to the car park to see if i had done enough, when i got back to the car park John Bab who i had traveled with said he had the best weight from the middle of the stretch with 3lb 2oz so i had won the match, the top end of the match length by the boats had not fished at all with just odd fish and lots of dry nets. John had caught on worm and then on squatt over the top with 1 bouns perch and a few roach, i can not remember being so cold as you could have cut my little fingers off after pushing the barrow back to the car park in the now semi darkness. I was well pleased to have won the match as that's now 2 wins on both my clubs fur & feathers both on the bouns pegs, i am just glad that the 2 chub i lost have not cost me winning the match today or i would have been well happy with myself for leaving my heavy carp kits in the house. At least i will get some brownie points with" her in doors " as that's 2 turkeys and a leg of pork for the Christmas dinner table mega points! All i need now is a couple of 24 packs of stella and i will be well set for the festive period. I must mention our Pet on his virgin punch fishing session after he had drove everyone mad all week asking questions about how to fish the punch even getting one of the customers in the shop to do him a bag of liquidized bread, he's been nagging me to mention him so well done for coming 4th Pet don't forget my 10% of the winnings for lending my hook bread?
Sunday 28 November 2010
Blythe Pairs League Round 1 21/11/10
Hi folks, this weekend took us to Blythe waters for the start of our annual pairs league me & my partner Stav were hoping for a good start to the league as we won it earlier this year, the league is run over 8 match's with roughly 1 match per month until may next year. Normally the match is just split into 2 sections on Cherries pool but due to a few more pairs wanting to fish this year we decided to run the match's over 2 pools with Bridge pool being the new addition, 1 angler from each pair on each pool with points deciding the overall results 15 points down to 1 for last on the pool and 0 for a DNW. Carl the gaffer had decided to limit the the amount of pairs to 15 as he felt this about right for the pools during the winter, last year there were 11 pairs on 1 pool which was a few too many for Cherries meaning we had to put a few pegs in that were not very good so we were hoping that by using the 2 pools and taking some of the pressure off that we would catch a few more kippers. Typical that we turned 1 pair away for the league then 1 pair failed to show up so we were down to 14 pairs for the league, Bridge pool is a bit of an unknown to most of us but we were told that there were more carp present than Cherries me & Stav fished it a few weeks ago and it had not fished well then it was now ever colder. Stav went up for the draw putting himself on peg 21 on Bridge and came back with peg 14 on Cherries for me, Stav's peg as i have said is a bit of an unknown but my peg is crap i don't like this part of the pool as you cannot reach the boom with the pole and the next peg in 12 is out on a bump some 3-4m further out into the lake than you. I was not happy as with the whole lake being the section there are only 5 pegs that cannot reach the boom with the pole but peg 10 is in the bay all on it's own peg 12 i have told you about and pegs 22&23 are corner pegs, that leaves 14&16 the only pegs without a boom within pole range okay you might say so use the lead or the feeder that's okay if there are any fish in the area but the peg opposite 28 is missed out because its crap it was in last year and never threw a weight up. The next pegs to my right 16&17 are opposite 25&26 two good peg that regularly throw up good weights and to make matters worse Carl the gaffer had drawn peg 10 which 2 years ago was the best peg on the pool but last year we put 11 in so it didn't fish as it had before, this year peg 11 was out peg 8 was missed out due to there being a few arguments about them throwing in the same spot and pegs 1-7 on the disabled pegs were left out so peg 10 has got 9 spare pegs? I set up the following rigs to tackle the peg.
Rig 1, 14.5m pole line 4x14 j8-range float, 0.16 mainline to 0.12 h/l with a 18 808 hook, set just touching the deck in 5 1/2ft of water finished off with Preston 11h elastic just in-case the carp turn up.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a 20 808 hook to 0.10 h/l & double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, fished at 8m a Preston inter 9 0.30gr float 0.10 straight through to a 20 B510 hook and double 5 elastic.
I also set up my beastmaster 9-11 feeder rod for the method feeder up the boom which is around 20-22m away.
For bait i had brought 1 pint of red & white maggots, 1 pint of red & fluro pinkies, 1 bag of 1mm pellets, some 4mm expanders, half a tin of corn for the hook( team tin as me & Stav call it) and a few dead maggots for the hook.
I started the match on the method with 2 dead reds on the hook with 1mm soaked pellets on the hook which i planned to fish for the first hour while keeping an eye on what was being caught around me, i had put a few micro's on my 14.5m line & a quarter of a pot of pinkies on the 8m line sat back and got my head down awaiting my first bite. Wait for a bite i did 55mins gone before the tip dropped back and my first fish a 6oz skimmer was in the net, before i recast i went to answer a call of nature( to much tea) asking Johnny Bill who was on peg 16 how he was getting on he said 2 small carp and a skimmer i couldn't see him due to a tree in-between us. He was doing the best as far as i could see as pegs 12, 29 & 30 were not catching, after another bite-less 15mins i switched to the long pole line with a 4mm expander on with a few micro's in my tiny fruit shoot pot. I fished the long pole for around 30mins without a single bite i couldn't believe it normally you can catch a few skimmers from all the pegs on pellet, usually the better bags come from fishing the pole up to the boom as this gives you better presentation than chucking a feeder for the skimmers. I went onto my 8m pinkie line which i had been topping up from the start and had 4 small 1oz roach in 4 put-ins which was better than nothing i thought before i connected with something a bit better a 1lb skimmer, this is more like it i thought but the bites soon dried up after another couple of roach and a small skimmer so i topped up with pinkies and had another chuck on the feeder. I was now getting worried as i couldn't get a bite on anything and John was catching skimmers with a couple of big perch thrown in on the chopped worm, it was now 1/2 way through the match so i phoned Stav on the other pool to see how he was doing and he was having a few roach on the pole but no carp, Roy next to him had got a couple of carp but there was a few dry nets on his pool as well so he was in the top half on his pool. I was now left wondering what to do as apart from the odd small roach on the pinkie line i couldn't raise a bite on anything else, there were the odd carp being caught from the deep end of the pool to my right
so i felt that i would have to catch one or two as the silvers were not coming fast enough to build a decent weight. I decided to change from the method feeder to a small maggot feeder as i felt that they didn't want a pellet at all as Stav had not had a bite on it either but another 30mins went by without as much a liner, i was now needing snookers and put a single red maggot on my light rig over the top of the pellet line with 3-4 maggots as feed. I had 2 skimmers and a roach in 3 put-ins on this then nothing again for 10mins before another skimmer of 4oz, i stayed on this line until the whistle as it was the only thing i could get a bite on. The whistle sounded and i was glad after suffering a frustrating 5 hours i knew the peg was crap but JB had caught well off the next peg16, Carl on peg 10 came across saying it had fished hard he had got 4 small carp HARD he don't no the meaning of the word whats a carp i hadn't seen a sign of one all day. Carl had weighed in by the time i had packed in but his 4 SMALL carp went 27lb he said one of the carp was 15-20lb telling pork pies he is, big Gary on peg 12 had suffered the same as me with 3lb odd and my few bits went 5lb 6oz, JB had a good day with 19lb then Martin on peg 17 having 6lb odd. The pools had fished very hard but there were a few more fish caught at the deeper end of the lake Phil ( Geordie pet ) a guy i work with had 11lb odd on peg19 and losing a good fish towards the end of the match which cost him a few places, Stu on corner peg 20 had 18lb, Bash on peg 22 had 8lb then Tony on peg 23 had a great bag of silvers with 18lb. There was another 18lb, 8lb & 12lb on the end peg 32 the only other 2 on the lake that i beat were opposite and slightly to my left on pegs 29 & 30 with a 1lb odd and the other with just ounces, if you look at a map of the pool the bottom 4 weights were all in the same area so this is my excuse and i am sticking to it. Stav had feared better than me on Bridge pool with 10lb odd of all roach for 6th place on the pool, the lake had been won off peg 7 with 31lb of carp by Dave Anderson but there were a few low weights on the pool the same as Cherries two guys not breaking a pound. I know the water temperature must be dropping fast due to the frosts were having but i thought there might be a few more fish caught, at the time of writing i don't have the pairs points to share with you Stav said we were about half way so i hope to get the pairs points after the next round. I will be drawing our pegs on the next round as i have sacked Stav from his job after putting me on that peg, i should have known better after winning the fur & feather last week that i had used all my good luck up!
Rig 1, 14.5m pole line 4x14 j8-range float, 0.16 mainline to 0.12 h/l with a 18 808 hook, set just touching the deck in 5 1/2ft of water finished off with Preston 11h elastic just in-case the carp turn up.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a 20 808 hook to 0.10 h/l & double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, fished at 8m a Preston inter 9 0.30gr float 0.10 straight through to a 20 B510 hook and double 5 elastic.
I also set up my beastmaster 9-11 feeder rod for the method feeder up the boom which is around 20-22m away.
For bait i had brought 1 pint of red & white maggots, 1 pint of red & fluro pinkies, 1 bag of 1mm pellets, some 4mm expanders, half a tin of corn for the hook( team tin as me & Stav call it) and a few dead maggots for the hook.
I started the match on the method with 2 dead reds on the hook with 1mm soaked pellets on the hook which i planned to fish for the first hour while keeping an eye on what was being caught around me, i had put a few micro's on my 14.5m line & a quarter of a pot of pinkies on the 8m line sat back and got my head down awaiting my first bite. Wait for a bite i did 55mins gone before the tip dropped back and my first fish a 6oz skimmer was in the net, before i recast i went to answer a call of nature( to much tea) asking Johnny Bill who was on peg 16 how he was getting on he said 2 small carp and a skimmer i couldn't see him due to a tree in-between us. He was doing the best as far as i could see as pegs 12, 29 & 30 were not catching, after another bite-less 15mins i switched to the long pole line with a 4mm expander on with a few micro's in my tiny fruit shoot pot. I fished the long pole for around 30mins without a single bite i couldn't believe it normally you can catch a few skimmers from all the pegs on pellet, usually the better bags come from fishing the pole up to the boom as this gives you better presentation than chucking a feeder for the skimmers. I went onto my 8m pinkie line which i had been topping up from the start and had 4 small 1oz roach in 4 put-ins which was better than nothing i thought before i connected with something a bit better a 1lb skimmer, this is more like it i thought but the bites soon dried up after another couple of roach and a small skimmer so i topped up with pinkies and had another chuck on the feeder. I was now getting worried as i couldn't get a bite on anything and John was catching skimmers with a couple of big perch thrown in on the chopped worm, it was now 1/2 way through the match so i phoned Stav on the other pool to see how he was doing and he was having a few roach on the pole but no carp, Roy next to him had got a couple of carp but there was a few dry nets on his pool as well so he was in the top half on his pool. I was now left wondering what to do as apart from the odd small roach on the pinkie line i couldn't raise a bite on anything else, there were the odd carp being caught from the deep end of the pool to my right
so i felt that i would have to catch one or two as the silvers were not coming fast enough to build a decent weight. I decided to change from the method feeder to a small maggot feeder as i felt that they didn't want a pellet at all as Stav had not had a bite on it either but another 30mins went by without as much a liner, i was now needing snookers and put a single red maggot on my light rig over the top of the pellet line with 3-4 maggots as feed. I had 2 skimmers and a roach in 3 put-ins on this then nothing again for 10mins before another skimmer of 4oz, i stayed on this line until the whistle as it was the only thing i could get a bite on. The whistle sounded and i was glad after suffering a frustrating 5 hours i knew the peg was crap but JB had caught well off the next peg16, Carl on peg 10 came across saying it had fished hard he had got 4 small carp HARD he don't no the meaning of the word whats a carp i hadn't seen a sign of one all day. Carl had weighed in by the time i had packed in but his 4 SMALL carp went 27lb he said one of the carp was 15-20lb telling pork pies he is, big Gary on peg 12 had suffered the same as me with 3lb odd and my few bits went 5lb 6oz, JB had a good day with 19lb then Martin on peg 17 having 6lb odd. The pools had fished very hard but there were a few more fish caught at the deeper end of the lake Phil ( Geordie pet ) a guy i work with had 11lb odd on peg19 and losing a good fish towards the end of the match which cost him a few places, Stu on corner peg 20 had 18lb, Bash on peg 22 had 8lb then Tony on peg 23 had a great bag of silvers with 18lb. There was another 18lb, 8lb & 12lb on the end peg 32 the only other 2 on the lake that i beat were opposite and slightly to my left on pegs 29 & 30 with a 1lb odd and the other with just ounces, if you look at a map of the pool the bottom 4 weights were all in the same area so this is my excuse and i am sticking to it. Stav had feared better than me on Bridge pool with 10lb odd of all roach for 6th place on the pool, the lake had been won off peg 7 with 31lb of carp by Dave Anderson but there were a few low weights on the pool the same as Cherries two guys not breaking a pound. I know the water temperature must be dropping fast due to the frosts were having but i thought there might be a few more fish caught, at the time of writing i don't have the pairs points to share with you Stav said we were about half way so i hope to get the pairs points after the next round. I will be drawing our pegs on the next round as i have sacked Stav from his job after putting me on that peg, i should have known better after winning the fur & feather last week that i had used all my good luck up!
Monday 22 November 2010
Staffs-Worcs canal Hinksford Sunday 14/11/10
Hi folks, this Sunday saw us on the Staffs-Worcs canal at Hinksford for the last club match of the year with one of our clubs Cradley Heath which was the fur & feather, we had got the section from Hinksford bridge down to the Navigation pub but with 26 turning out for the match we decided to put a 5 peg section above the bridge going back towards Swindon to take some of the pressure off the main stretch. Me & Stav had been down for a practice a couple of weeks ago and with me catching over double figures i was hoping for a good draw which was to take place a the Green Man pub at Swindon. With all 26 hopefuls assembled outside the pub ready for the 9.00am draw the mickey talking started as you have to get into the top 12 to get a turkey on this match then all the rest get capons ( or as the lads call them budgie's! ), i went into the draw bag and peg 2 stuck to my hand Great! i had drawn one of the 5 unknown pegs above the bridge which no one new nothing about as since they extended the boat moorings not many people fish it. The pegs below the bridge are well fished as there has been a league run on here with double figures needed to win all the rounds but our pegs have no form at all, not many clubs bother to book the stretch we are on as there are boats moored up for 80% of the stretch on the opposite side of the canal which might sound good for cover but if you get someone working on there boat banging and rocking the boat it can ruin your days fishing. To make matters worse after talking to Martin who had pegged out me & Kev Clark who had drawn peg 1 had to walk passed all the boats to get to our pegs as he had put pegs 3, 4 & 5 just above the bridge then left all the boats out so we were up towards Swindon lock, when we got there we felt like billy no mates as we were a few hundred yards above peg 3 but to make matters worse Kev who thought he had drawn the flier peg 1 under the lock which holds big chub in the over flow from the lock was some 50yards away as they had put some more moorings on our side of the canal down from the lock. It had been many years since either of us had even seen this stretch of the canal as we didn't even no there was any moorings below the lock but you can understand not pegging them as if a boat wants to moor up you cannot do anything about it. My peg was 14m wide with the end of the last boat some 16m away at a 2 o'clock angle but there was very little depth over as i plumbed up so i was going to base my attack at 11.5m where the boat channel started to shelve up. I set up the following rigs.
Rig 1, a 4 x 10 tubertini stix float, .08 mainline to a .07 hooklength with a 22 pr31 hook set just touching bottom in just over 2ft of water at 11.5m finished off with a 3 vespe elastic.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a 4 x 8 float for 13m if the boats moved the fish up the shelf in around 18" of water, any further over and the depth was less than a foot.
Rig 3, the same 4 x 8 float and the same line but with a size 20 pr322 hook for the hemp set at around 18" deep were i found a little more depth at 14.5m at 2 o'clock towards the moored boats.
Rig 4, a 4 x 10 original Drennan caster float, .08 line straight through to a 18 pr322 & a no4 vespe elastic set just out of the main track in 3ft of water at 11.5m off at a 10 o'clock angle to my left.
For bait i had brought 1/2 pint each of red squatt, caster & hemp a few pinkies for the hook and some of my favorite g/bait mix of V.D.E supermatch & supercup mixed 70% supermatch to 30% supercup, i had also got some liquidized bread if the going got tough as it is around this time of the year it starts to take over from the squatt as the water temperature cools and the canal starts to clear due to the boat traffic slowing down.
On the whistle i put 2 golf ball size balls of g/bait with a few squatts in then loose fed hemp and caster onto there respective lines some 6-8 grains or shells every now and then, i sat back on the 11.5m squatt line awaiting the first bite of the day while firing a few squatts over the top.
Kev had started on the bread right over to a set of reads he had in-front of him but 5mins went passed without a sign then another 5mins we started to get a bit worried after around 20mins i was really worried as neither of us had so much as a bite, i kept saying to Kev that my fears were becoming reality as no one fishes here much any more the fish haven't seen any bait here for that long that i feared the fish just weren't there anymore and have swam to where they get fed regularly. Then out of the blue on 25mins we both had a fish at the same time then another 3-4 on the next 3-4 put-ins just like someone had flicked a switch the fish started to feed, i was catching small roach to start with then after around 45mins proper dumpy squatt roach in the 2-3oz bracket with the odd gonk (gudgeon) thrown in for good measure. Kev was still struggling to catch much at all but i was now flying coming back with a roach, small perch or gonk every put in, i stayed on the squatt up until the 2 hour mark when most of the roach had dried up and all i could catch was gonks so decided to have a look on my hemp line to see if there were any roach over it. First put-in on the hemp at 14.5m the float buried and a 3oz roach was in the net but it was another 10mins before my next fish a 2oz job so after another 5 mins i decided to go back on the squatt, there were odd fish on the hemp line but they were not coming fast enough shipping 14.5m of pole out when i was getting bites on the squatt at 11.5m a lot quicker. I had a quick 5mins on the caster but without a bite i was soon back on the squatt because i feel that if you have feed a line for 2-3 hours and don't get a bite within 5mins there is not a lot of fish there, then just as i got back onto the squatt the first boat of the day came chugging up the cut and went right over my squatt line churning up the bottom i think his propeller mush have hit the shelf as he turned the peg into a mud slick. 5mins after the boat had gone through and all i could hook was leafs or very fine green weed was masking the bait, another 5mins went by without a sign of a bite so it looked like the boat had done a lot of damage even going up the shelf at 13m failed to produce a bite so i had a look back on the hemp line as it seemed to miss most of the disturbance caused by the boat. I had put another golf ball of g/bait on the squatt line before trying the hemp as i had done 4-5 times throughout the match when bites started to dry up, after 10mins on the hemp with just 2 more small roach to show for my efforts i went back to the squatt line and the fish had come back mainly gonks but a least they were back. I decided to stay on the squatt as kev had a phone call from Steve Robson who was just below the bridge to say that they were struggling in his area and Kev himself had found bites hard to come by all day, with 30mins left to go i decided to have a last look on the caster line for 5mins and if it didn't go by then i would just catch the gonks on the squatt until the whistle. With my 5mins almost up on the caster the float buried and i was playing a better fish a roach of around 8oz was a welcome bonus, i sat on the caster for the rest of the match with a roach and a perch both around the same size as the first 1 gonk and a roach of 2oz right on the whistle. I was left wondering how long the fish had been on the caster line but i was happy with my days fishing apart from the slow start and the boat that wiped me out for 25mins, we had another boat that came down the lock some time after the first one but it came at half the speed of the first and straight down the track and never even stirred up the silt. A quick call to Stav who had drawn a good peg just above the power cables on the main stretch reveled he had got around the 4lb mark and there was a couple admitting to around the same, i thought that i might have around the 5lb mark. Kev was the first to weigh as we had the scales but only had to weigh our 5 peg section he had struggled putting 2lb 1oz on the scales, i was well shocked when Kev shouted out 7lb 9oz for my net the last 3 bonus caster fish had really bumped my weight up Kev put my 3 caster fish back then put the sling back on the scales reveling 6lb of squatt fish. Walking down the canal we started to here of another 7lb and one of the lads was admitting to 6lb+ the next good weight on our scales was Brian Smith with 5lb 10oz, when we got back to the car park i spoke to Shaun Waite who had the other 7lb and said his was 7lb dead so i was the best weight we had heard of so far. Back in the pub it was soon reveled that i had won the match and i was well pleased even more so when i was handed the bouns money as i was sitting on one of the half a dozen bouns pegs MEGA HAPPY!
The match had fished well as 12th place and the last turkey went to Martin Yardsley with 4lb 2oz, Satv had got into the turkey's with 4lb 7oz. Shaun was second with his 7lb which he said contained a 1lb carp while getting broke by 2 more proper carp! Baz Robson was 3rd with 6lb off the peg i practised on a couple of weeks ago, there were a few good pegs that didn't produce as there was a club match on there the day before but overall the stretch had fished well for this time of the year. Lets hope that it fishes the same again in 2 weeks time as we have got the same
stretch booked for the Halesowen fur & feather, i am just hoping the weather holds before we return as we fished the stretch earlier this year in the cold and there were a few dry nets as the fish start to shoal up.
Rig 1, a 4 x 10 tubertini stix float, .08 mainline to a .07 hooklength with a 22 pr31 hook set just touching bottom in just over 2ft of water at 11.5m finished off with a 3 vespe elastic.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a 4 x 8 float for 13m if the boats moved the fish up the shelf in around 18" of water, any further over and the depth was less than a foot.
Rig 3, the same 4 x 8 float and the same line but with a size 20 pr322 hook for the hemp set at around 18" deep were i found a little more depth at 14.5m at 2 o'clock towards the moored boats.
Rig 4, a 4 x 10 original Drennan caster float, .08 line straight through to a 18 pr322 & a no4 vespe elastic set just out of the main track in 3ft of water at 11.5m off at a 10 o'clock angle to my left.
For bait i had brought 1/2 pint each of red squatt, caster & hemp a few pinkies for the hook and some of my favorite g/bait mix of V.D.E supermatch & supercup mixed 70% supermatch to 30% supercup, i had also got some liquidized bread if the going got tough as it is around this time of the year it starts to take over from the squatt as the water temperature cools and the canal starts to clear due to the boat traffic slowing down.
On the whistle i put 2 golf ball size balls of g/bait with a few squatts in then loose fed hemp and caster onto there respective lines some 6-8 grains or shells every now and then, i sat back on the 11.5m squatt line awaiting the first bite of the day while firing a few squatts over the top.
Kev had started on the bread right over to a set of reads he had in-front of him but 5mins went passed without a sign then another 5mins we started to get a bit worried after around 20mins i was really worried as neither of us had so much as a bite, i kept saying to Kev that my fears were becoming reality as no one fishes here much any more the fish haven't seen any bait here for that long that i feared the fish just weren't there anymore and have swam to where they get fed regularly. Then out of the blue on 25mins we both had a fish at the same time then another 3-4 on the next 3-4 put-ins just like someone had flicked a switch the fish started to feed, i was catching small roach to start with then after around 45mins proper dumpy squatt roach in the 2-3oz bracket with the odd gonk (gudgeon) thrown in for good measure. Kev was still struggling to catch much at all but i was now flying coming back with a roach, small perch or gonk every put in, i stayed on the squatt up until the 2 hour mark when most of the roach had dried up and all i could catch was gonks so decided to have a look on my hemp line to see if there were any roach over it. First put-in on the hemp at 14.5m the float buried and a 3oz roach was in the net but it was another 10mins before my next fish a 2oz job so after another 5 mins i decided to go back on the squatt, there were odd fish on the hemp line but they were not coming fast enough shipping 14.5m of pole out when i was getting bites on the squatt at 11.5m a lot quicker. I had a quick 5mins on the caster but without a bite i was soon back on the squatt because i feel that if you have feed a line for 2-3 hours and don't get a bite within 5mins there is not a lot of fish there, then just as i got back onto the squatt the first boat of the day came chugging up the cut and went right over my squatt line churning up the bottom i think his propeller mush have hit the shelf as he turned the peg into a mud slick. 5mins after the boat had gone through and all i could hook was leafs or very fine green weed was masking the bait, another 5mins went by without a sign of a bite so it looked like the boat had done a lot of damage even going up the shelf at 13m failed to produce a bite so i had a look back on the hemp line as it seemed to miss most of the disturbance caused by the boat. I had put another golf ball of g/bait on the squatt line before trying the hemp as i had done 4-5 times throughout the match when bites started to dry up, after 10mins on the hemp with just 2 more small roach to show for my efforts i went back to the squatt line and the fish had come back mainly gonks but a least they were back. I decided to stay on the squatt as kev had a phone call from Steve Robson who was just below the bridge to say that they were struggling in his area and Kev himself had found bites hard to come by all day, with 30mins left to go i decided to have a last look on the caster line for 5mins and if it didn't go by then i would just catch the gonks on the squatt until the whistle. With my 5mins almost up on the caster the float buried and i was playing a better fish a roach of around 8oz was a welcome bonus, i sat on the caster for the rest of the match with a roach and a perch both around the same size as the first 1 gonk and a roach of 2oz right on the whistle. I was left wondering how long the fish had been on the caster line but i was happy with my days fishing apart from the slow start and the boat that wiped me out for 25mins, we had another boat that came down the lock some time after the first one but it came at half the speed of the first and straight down the track and never even stirred up the silt. A quick call to Stav who had drawn a good peg just above the power cables on the main stretch reveled he had got around the 4lb mark and there was a couple admitting to around the same, i thought that i might have around the 5lb mark. Kev was the first to weigh as we had the scales but only had to weigh our 5 peg section he had struggled putting 2lb 1oz on the scales, i was well shocked when Kev shouted out 7lb 9oz for my net the last 3 bonus caster fish had really bumped my weight up Kev put my 3 caster fish back then put the sling back on the scales reveling 6lb of squatt fish. Walking down the canal we started to here of another 7lb and one of the lads was admitting to 6lb+ the next good weight on our scales was Brian Smith with 5lb 10oz, when we got back to the car park i spoke to Shaun Waite who had the other 7lb and said his was 7lb dead so i was the best weight we had heard of so far. Back in the pub it was soon reveled that i had won the match and i was well pleased even more so when i was handed the bouns money as i was sitting on one of the half a dozen bouns pegs MEGA HAPPY!
The match had fished well as 12th place and the last turkey went to Martin Yardsley with 4lb 2oz, Satv had got into the turkey's with 4lb 7oz. Shaun was second with his 7lb which he said contained a 1lb carp while getting broke by 2 more proper carp! Baz Robson was 3rd with 6lb off the peg i practised on a couple of weeks ago, there were a few good pegs that didn't produce as there was a club match on there the day before but overall the stretch had fished well for this time of the year. Lets hope that it fishes the same again in 2 weeks time as we have got the same
stretch booked for the Halesowen fur & feather, i am just hoping the weather holds before we return as we fished the stretch earlier this year in the cold and there were a few dry nets as the fish start to shoal up.
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Greenhill Farm (Jim's) Sunday 7/11/10
Hi folks, me & Stav had been invited to this club/open match at Jims pool but we had a Halesowen club match booked on the same day at Castlecroft on the canal which Stav decided to go on, as i have not had a good draw on our canal yet i decided to go on the pool match instead with a mate of mine Alan Fleet. The match had come about when Alan's club had a bit of a mix up with some dates so instead of letting Jim down with the booking they decided to ask the club members if they wanted to fish it first then threw it open to fill some more places. There was 14 guys turning up for this match so when me & Alan got there we had an easy job of pegging out just putting 7 pegs on each bank with roughly every other peg in we had a bit of room, i have only fished this pool around 3 times before so a bit of digging about was required about how to attack it and after asking a few people it seemed to be straight forward with maggot, caster & corn the main baits on the pole & lead. It looked like you needed to draw on the car park bank as it was deeper than the opposite bank and after a night of 3c with a cold wind it made the draw paramount, the corner peg on the car park bank was the flier draw we were told as it had won the last 2 match's on there including Wednesday's match with 144lb nearly 80lb clear of second!
In the draw bag i went and out popped peg 5 on the opposite bank just over halfway up, Great! my usual crap draw arm had struck again and i think i have to go back to the middle of September since the last time i had a draw i was happy with at least i had Dave (crack-off the legend) for company on peg 3 so at least the banter would keep us going. The peg i drew was only 2 pegs away from where i had won my section off on a match during the summer and remembered it to be quite shallow, on plumbing up the pole line i found only 3 1/2ft of water at 13m which was as far as i wanted to go in the wind which was quite strong blowing down the pool from left to right. With the guy's on the opposite side claiming 5 1/2ft of water at 6m i feared the worst after the cold night we had so with this in mind the lead rod was the first thing out of the bag and i set up 2 pole rigs as follows.
Rig 1, 13m line a 4 x 14 j-8 range float, 0.16 mainline to a 0.14 hook-length and a 16 tosciro hook, 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 8m line the same as above just a 4 x 12 float.
Rig 3 was my lead rod with 6lb mainline, a 1/2 bomb, 0.16 hook-length which was 18" to a size 2 tuerbertini 175.
There are a few strange rules at Greenhill's Farm such as no hair rigs, no pole pots between March & October and no leads in-between the same months but no feeders at all? There are no pellets at all here so that makes bait selection easy i had brought 3 tins of corn, 2 pints of maggots & 1 pint of casters plus a few worms for the hook as a change bait.
On the whistle i fed the 13m line with a few grains of corn & 1/2 a pot of maggots & the same on the 8m line but with casters & corn instead of maggots, i hooked a grain of corn on the lead rod & cast into the middle of the pool firing a few grains around the lead.
Alan who had draw opposite me was the first into a fish after around 10mins the he had another next put in so he was off and running but after around 45mins on the lead without even a liner it was time to try the pole as the guy to my right was netting his second carp on the pole at 10m, i tried corn & maggot at 13m but to no avail so i tried the 8m line without a bite again. The only guy catching on our bank was the guy to my right with 4 fish after 1 1/2 hours there was the odd fish being caught around the pool but most were struggling, then i had a skimmer & a roach on the maggot at 13m but the tow was pushing the rig through the peg to fast so i changed the 4 x 12 rig for a 0.50gr rig and used the 4 x 14 rig for the 8m line to slow the float down a bit. I foul hooked a carp on the 8m line which pulled out but a least there were signs in the peg at last, i missed a couple of bites on the 13m line on corn but felt the rig wasn't right so after pulling the olivette down to 6" away from the hook & adding another 1" to the depth hooked the next fish a 4lb carp. With nearly 2 hours of the match gone i had at last got my first carp but the guy to my right was netting no5 so i was well behind but over the next hour i managed 3 more while he had only i more to make it 4-6 by the end of the 3rd hour, during the 4th hour i had 6 carp 1 f1 & a couple of small skimmers to put me 10-8 in-front of the guy to my right but the gut to my left was now catching well at about the same rate as i was. The last hour slowed up a bit as the wind died and the pool went flat calm but i managed 4 carp on the maggot as i stopped getting bites on the corn, Alan opposite had caught on and off through out the match plus he had got one big lump of around 10lb the 2 flier pegs in the car park had caught well. It had turned out to be a good ending to a very slow start on our shallow bank but when you give them a 2 hour head start it is always going to be hard to pull them back, i felt that at the start the fish were just not there after the cold night but when they started to feed in the shallower water they were very finicky and my rig was not right but after putting the heavier rig on i was presenting the bait better. I was getting indications on the float but not proper bites but i got a gut feeling that they were there but not feeding freely, i decided to up the float size as opposed to putting more line on the deck to slow the rig down as i feel that you get to many false bites & foul-hookers fishing the corn to far over depth. We started the weigh-in and peg 1 had 28lb next had 23lb Crack-off had 25lb on peg 3 and the guy to my right on peg 4 had 9 fish for 34lb my 14 fish went 50lb 8oz, the guy to my left had 41lb and the last peg on our bank had 31lb so at least i was the best weight on my bank which was our section. Over on the other bank 22lb & a D.N.W who they reckoned had around 30lb then peg 10 had 47lb before Alan had 53lb odd to put him in the lead with the help of a 10lb 10oz fish, Keith on peg 12 had 25lb odd then peg put 52lb on the scales with the help of 2 3lb+ perch to put him second with just the flier peg to go, the end peg flier lived up to its reputation with a match winning 69lb not a big weight but still enough to win the match. I feel that if we had not had such a cold night that the weights would have been a lot better but i was glad to have caught in the end and win my section, if i could have had an odd fish the first 2 hours
i would have been second as i was only 3lb short. Thanks to Alan for inviting me & taking me cheers mate & thanks to Crack-off for making us all laugh on the end whistle when he was playing a carp that tired to get under his pallet & after much mickey taking( loosing one on his last visit around the leg) he got it out he said it would be on his next DVD How NOT to loose carp under the pallet LEGEND!
In the draw bag i went and out popped peg 5 on the opposite bank just over halfway up, Great! my usual crap draw arm had struck again and i think i have to go back to the middle of September since the last time i had a draw i was happy with at least i had Dave (crack-off the legend) for company on peg 3 so at least the banter would keep us going. The peg i drew was only 2 pegs away from where i had won my section off on a match during the summer and remembered it to be quite shallow, on plumbing up the pole line i found only 3 1/2ft of water at 13m which was as far as i wanted to go in the wind which was quite strong blowing down the pool from left to right. With the guy's on the opposite side claiming 5 1/2ft of water at 6m i feared the worst after the cold night we had so with this in mind the lead rod was the first thing out of the bag and i set up 2 pole rigs as follows.
Rig 1, 13m line a 4 x 14 j-8 range float, 0.16 mainline to a 0.14 hook-length and a 16 tosciro hook, 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 8m line the same as above just a 4 x 12 float.
Rig 3 was my lead rod with 6lb mainline, a 1/2 bomb, 0.16 hook-length which was 18" to a size 2 tuerbertini 175.
There are a few strange rules at Greenhill's Farm such as no hair rigs, no pole pots between March & October and no leads in-between the same months but no feeders at all? There are no pellets at all here so that makes bait selection easy i had brought 3 tins of corn, 2 pints of maggots & 1 pint of casters plus a few worms for the hook as a change bait.
On the whistle i fed the 13m line with a few grains of corn & 1/2 a pot of maggots & the same on the 8m line but with casters & corn instead of maggots, i hooked a grain of corn on the lead rod & cast into the middle of the pool firing a few grains around the lead.
Alan who had draw opposite me was the first into a fish after around 10mins the he had another next put in so he was off and running but after around 45mins on the lead without even a liner it was time to try the pole as the guy to my right was netting his second carp on the pole at 10m, i tried corn & maggot at 13m but to no avail so i tried the 8m line without a bite again. The only guy catching on our bank was the guy to my right with 4 fish after 1 1/2 hours there was the odd fish being caught around the pool but most were struggling, then i had a skimmer & a roach on the maggot at 13m but the tow was pushing the rig through the peg to fast so i changed the 4 x 12 rig for a 0.50gr rig and used the 4 x 14 rig for the 8m line to slow the float down a bit. I foul hooked a carp on the 8m line which pulled out but a least there were signs in the peg at last, i missed a couple of bites on the 13m line on corn but felt the rig wasn't right so after pulling the olivette down to 6" away from the hook & adding another 1" to the depth hooked the next fish a 4lb carp. With nearly 2 hours of the match gone i had at last got my first carp but the guy to my right was netting no5 so i was well behind but over the next hour i managed 3 more while he had only i more to make it 4-6 by the end of the 3rd hour, during the 4th hour i had 6 carp 1 f1 & a couple of small skimmers to put me 10-8 in-front of the guy to my right but the gut to my left was now catching well at about the same rate as i was. The last hour slowed up a bit as the wind died and the pool went flat calm but i managed 4 carp on the maggot as i stopped getting bites on the corn, Alan opposite had caught on and off through out the match plus he had got one big lump of around 10lb the 2 flier pegs in the car park had caught well. It had turned out to be a good ending to a very slow start on our shallow bank but when you give them a 2 hour head start it is always going to be hard to pull them back, i felt that at the start the fish were just not there after the cold night but when they started to feed in the shallower water they were very finicky and my rig was not right but after putting the heavier rig on i was presenting the bait better. I was getting indications on the float but not proper bites but i got a gut feeling that they were there but not feeding freely, i decided to up the float size as opposed to putting more line on the deck to slow the rig down as i feel that you get to many false bites & foul-hookers fishing the corn to far over depth. We started the weigh-in and peg 1 had 28lb next had 23lb Crack-off had 25lb on peg 3 and the guy to my right on peg 4 had 9 fish for 34lb my 14 fish went 50lb 8oz, the guy to my left had 41lb and the last peg on our bank had 31lb so at least i was the best weight on my bank which was our section. Over on the other bank 22lb & a D.N.W who they reckoned had around 30lb then peg 10 had 47lb before Alan had 53lb odd to put him in the lead with the help of a 10lb 10oz fish, Keith on peg 12 had 25lb odd then peg put 52lb on the scales with the help of 2 3lb+ perch to put him second with just the flier peg to go, the end peg flier lived up to its reputation with a match winning 69lb not a big weight but still enough to win the match. I feel that if we had not had such a cold night that the weights would have been a lot better but i was glad to have caught in the end and win my section, if i could have had an odd fish the first 2 hours
i would have been second as i was only 3lb short. Thanks to Alan for inviting me & taking me cheers mate & thanks to Crack-off for making us all laugh on the end whistle when he was playing a carp that tired to get under his pallet & after much mickey taking( loosing one on his last visit around the leg) he got it out he said it would be on his next DVD How NOT to loose carp under the pallet LEGEND!
Sunday 7 November 2010
Staffs-Worcs canal Hinksford Sunday 31/10/10
This was just a practice session for me & Stav as we both have match's coming up soon on this stretch from Hinksford bridge to the navigation pub, both the two clubs we are in Cradley Heath & Halesowen have there fur & feather match's on here Stav also has a match on here next Saturday with another club he is in. This stretch of canal has been fishing well over the last few weeks as a few guys we know have been running a league on here and they have been catching over 10lb+ on some of the pegs, most of the weights consist of roach,perch & gudgeon with the odd chub, tench & dace putting in an appearance now and then. Most of the usual canal methods work here with squatt, caster & hemp catching plenty of fish but maggot & punch can catch fish at different times of the year, there tends to be not too many match's on here during the warmer months as the boat traffic on here can be a nightmare so booking a club match on here between Easter & late September/early October is a no no. I won't go through all the rigs as this wasn't a proper match although there was the usual £1 side bet between us plus the normal bragging & mickey taking later, for bait i had brought 1/2 a pint each of red squatt, caster & hemp plus a few pinkies for the hook i had also got my usual mix of supercup & supermatch g/bait. We decided to go a bit further down the stretch as the first 2 pegs by the bridge are absolute fliers and have won plenty of match's in the past and we felt that they would fish themselves, the next few pegs are good but you are sitting right on the towpath and as we are only practicing we decided to go a bit further down where you are sitting on your own bit of grass verge with the towpath a few meters behind you so we could get away from the bikers & joggers.
I put 2 balls of g/bait just down the shelf in around 2 1/2ft of water at 11.5 m which is a good depth as Stav was only on the next peg but only had half that depth on the same line, i fed a hemp line at 13m off at an angle of 10 o'clock with the same depth as my squatt rig then feed a caster line down the track at 6-8m on the same angle as the hemp line. I was into small roach & gudgeon straight from the off on the squatt line loose feeding 20-30 squatt over the top every put-in, after around 8-10 fish Stav was still to get off the mark so i told him to get his £1 warmed up ready to go into my pocket! I was happy catching squatt fish for the first hour most of them were in the 1-3oz bracket with a few really small roach holding the float up before the styl's had time to settle, on the hour mark i switched to the hemp line which i had been priming from the start with 6-8 grains of seed and had a 4oz roach first drop in followed by 4 fish of similar size over the next 20mins. I was missing a few bites on the seed despite coming off the deck to see if they were up in the water but it didn't work there were a few fish there but they had not settled yet so i went back to the squatt line, before i came off the squatt line i had put another ball of g/bait in and when i started catching again most of the fish were of a slightly better stamp proper dumpy roach. What i started to notice was that the more loose squatt i fed over the top the more pairs of eyes i was catching, what i decided to do was feed a ball of g/bait ( golf-ball size) with a few squatts in to get some bait on the deck. I stopped loose feeding then i would catch mainly dumpy roach for around 10mins before putting another ball in and leaving it to settle for a few mins while having a look on the hemp line, every time i done this it worked then i started to catch regular fish on the hemp including a surprise 8-10oz perch i also had a couple of roach in the 6-8oz bracket. Stav was catching on the squatt but couldn't match the size of the fish i was catching getting plagued by eyes & gonks, after around 3 hours Stav had a look on the caster line but missed a bite and then had a gonk on it so i decided to have a look on the shell too. First drop i had a 6oz perch then a roach around the same size next drop Stav said he wasn't playing anymore as everything i tried had turned to gold including his golden nugget, for the rest of the session i switch between the caster & hemp line giving up on the squatt as i was having too much fun on the other two even managing a 10-12oz chub on the hemp just before we called it a day after the normal 5 match hours.
I can honestly say that this was the first time i had enjoyed a day on the canal for a long time as i don't fish them as much as i used to a few years ago due to bad draws and too many things outside of your control that can ruin your day, by that i mean boats, joggers, dog walkers ( or dog shite) that you don't get on the pools i have had good days on the canal ruined by boats crossing in your peg or the one that thinks he's got to drive Stirling Moss up the canal straight over the line your catching on. I had got sick of the bad draws as i have drawn the same peg on this stretch the last 3 times on the bounce which i have never seen a bag of fish come off i think 3lb is the best i have had off it, on Halesowen's own stretch at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton i have only fished it 3 times since we took it over and drawn the same peg there 3 times! with around the same result as Hinksford which i know hasn't even won a section since we took it over ( so why do they peg it???). It was a good day as we only had 5-6 boats all day and asi ship down the canal as opposed to across the towpath the joggers & bikers didn't bother me, without any scales to weigh the fish we guessed my fish at easy double figures probably 11-12lb and i reckoned Satv's at 4-5lb although he said more like 6lb i think he was just trying to save face as i had give him a right good battering off the next peg. ( sorry m8).
I hope our match's on here are as good as today but it will all depend on if the weather holds out or not as if we have a few frosts & the boats stop the canal losses its colour & becomes harder as winter proper sets in.
I put 2 balls of g/bait just down the shelf in around 2 1/2ft of water at 11.5 m which is a good depth as Stav was only on the next peg but only had half that depth on the same line, i fed a hemp line at 13m off at an angle of 10 o'clock with the same depth as my squatt rig then feed a caster line down the track at 6-8m on the same angle as the hemp line. I was into small roach & gudgeon straight from the off on the squatt line loose feeding 20-30 squatt over the top every put-in, after around 8-10 fish Stav was still to get off the mark so i told him to get his £1 warmed up ready to go into my pocket! I was happy catching squatt fish for the first hour most of them were in the 1-3oz bracket with a few really small roach holding the float up before the styl's had time to settle, on the hour mark i switched to the hemp line which i had been priming from the start with 6-8 grains of seed and had a 4oz roach first drop in followed by 4 fish of similar size over the next 20mins. I was missing a few bites on the seed despite coming off the deck to see if they were up in the water but it didn't work there were a few fish there but they had not settled yet so i went back to the squatt line, before i came off the squatt line i had put another ball of g/bait in and when i started catching again most of the fish were of a slightly better stamp proper dumpy roach. What i started to notice was that the more loose squatt i fed over the top the more pairs of eyes i was catching, what i decided to do was feed a ball of g/bait ( golf-ball size) with a few squatts in to get some bait on the deck. I stopped loose feeding then i would catch mainly dumpy roach for around 10mins before putting another ball in and leaving it to settle for a few mins while having a look on the hemp line, every time i done this it worked then i started to catch regular fish on the hemp including a surprise 8-10oz perch i also had a couple of roach in the 6-8oz bracket. Stav was catching on the squatt but couldn't match the size of the fish i was catching getting plagued by eyes & gonks, after around 3 hours Stav had a look on the caster line but missed a bite and then had a gonk on it so i decided to have a look on the shell too. First drop i had a 6oz perch then a roach around the same size next drop Stav said he wasn't playing anymore as everything i tried had turned to gold including his golden nugget, for the rest of the session i switch between the caster & hemp line giving up on the squatt as i was having too much fun on the other two even managing a 10-12oz chub on the hemp just before we called it a day after the normal 5 match hours.
I can honestly say that this was the first time i had enjoyed a day on the canal for a long time as i don't fish them as much as i used to a few years ago due to bad draws and too many things outside of your control that can ruin your day, by that i mean boats, joggers, dog walkers ( or dog shite) that you don't get on the pools i have had good days on the canal ruined by boats crossing in your peg or the one that thinks he's got to drive Stirling Moss up the canal straight over the line your catching on. I had got sick of the bad draws as i have drawn the same peg on this stretch the last 3 times on the bounce which i have never seen a bag of fish come off i think 3lb is the best i have had off it, on Halesowen's own stretch at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton i have only fished it 3 times since we took it over and drawn the same peg there 3 times! with around the same result as Hinksford which i know hasn't even won a section since we took it over ( so why do they peg it???). It was a good day as we only had 5-6 boats all day and asi ship down the canal as opposed to across the towpath the joggers & bikers didn't bother me, without any scales to weigh the fish we guessed my fish at easy double figures probably 11-12lb and i reckoned Satv's at 4-5lb although he said more like 6lb i think he was just trying to save face as i had give him a right good battering off the next peg. ( sorry m8).
I hope our match's on here are as good as today but it will all depend on if the weather holds out or not as if we have a few frosts & the boats stop the canal losses its colour & becomes harder as winter proper sets in.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Blythe Waters Open Tuesday 26/10/10
Me & Stav had planned this day a few months ago as he had booked the week off but i had no holiday left so we just went on my usual Tuesday off, we had planned to just go on the Bridge pool for a practice for the forthcoming pairs as i have only fished the pool once and Stav has never fished it. On the Monday Stav rang Gail who runs the fishery to make sure the pool was free but he was told that the open match was on there, so we decided to fish it as we know some of the guy's who fish there including Warren who runs them. The day started off badly when we drove to our local cafe only to find out it was shut (disaster)! Thanks to Gail for cooking us a good breakie it might be the best part of the day the weatherman had forecast a very wet & windy day, as we sat in the cafe talking to Gail she informed us that they don't draw for the open until 10am this was only 8.45am as we thought the draw would be a normal 9.00am jobie, as we had plenty of time to waste we had a walk around the pool looking at the pegs that are being used in the pairs league looking for likely fish holding areas. Just before 10am the draw took place and i pulled out peg 31 in a corner then Stav pulled out peg 23 apparently a flier that won the match on saturday with 63lb, all the locals said about my peg was that it is a deep peg with 7ft+ of water and if the fish have gone there it is a good peg if not it is a hard peg i was hoping for the first option as we had 2 more hard frosts on Saturday & Sunday night. When i got to my peg i looked at the water trying to look for inspiration how to tackle it there was a areator at around 20m+ away open water in-front of that & a nice sweeping right hand corner that looked fishey but very snaggy with a lot of tree roots down there. I decided to set up a normal autumn/winter pellet & corn attack at 13m, a 6m maggot line for anything that swims and a pellet & corn job 14.5m up the edge, i was going to ignore the aerator as on Cherries pool they don't seem to hold a lot of fish as there is a lot of other features in the pool with islands and floating booms, unlike a square/oblong shaped pool where the aerators are the only features.
I set up a .5gr j-range float for the 13m line in 7 1/2ft of water a 18 toscirco hook to 0.14 line & 11 hollo elastic, a similar set up for the 6m line only with a 18 808 hook 0.12 line & double no5 elastic the depth was about 3-4 inches deeper than the 13m line?, for the edge rig i went for a 4x14 float of the same make as there was 4 1/2ft of water down the edge (my normal edge rigs weren't long enough) 0.14 line to a 16 tosciro hook with 13 hollo elastic.
I decided to keep things simple and stick to the 3 lines as the weather was getting worse as the day wore on with wind & rain lashing down it was a case of baton down the hatches & hold on to the pole, luckily most of the wind was off our back on our bank with some on the other side getting it full in the face. For bait i had brought some 2 pints of micro pellets, 1 1/2 pints of maggots & 2 tins of corn, nice & simple i had also got a pint of pinkies if all else failed, i had also got a few different hook baits plus some g/bait if i had drawn an island peg which i left in my bait bag.
On the whistle i fed the edge with 1/4 a pot of micros & a few grains of corn, the 6m line got 1/2 pot full of maggots and i started on the 13m line with just 3 grains of corn & a small fruit shoot size pot of micros looking to put very little bait on this line after the 2 heavy frosts the weekend.
I had a couple of very small dink's on the float before i hit my first bite after around 15mins which turned out to be a 30z skimmer falling to a 4mm expander, another 10mins went by before my next bite which turned out to be another skimmer of the same size. Next put in i hit a better fish which gave me a bit of a run around with 11 hollo elastic before i netted a 4lb carp, with around 45mins gone and no more action i put a piece of corn on the hook and hit my second carp of the day which was around the same size as the first. It was looking good as no one i could see was catching but after i spent the next 30mins biteless it was time for a look up the edge, i put a grain of corn on and shipped out 14.5m to where i had potted some bait in from the start i was getting odd dips now and then but nothing i could hit then i got a proper bite which was a 1lb carp. On both lines i was getting small nock's & dink's which i thought were the skimmers that seemed to be missing as no one was catching them normally you can catch 10lb+ of without any carp off any peg it looked like the frosts had been to much for them, it looked like being a hard day as i still couldn't see anyone catching much of note. The rest of the match was very slow and at the all-out i had managed 5 carp & 4 skimmers plus around 6 small roach which was all i had on the maggot line, 2 of the carp were only 1lb each but one of my skimmers was around the 2lb mark. The guys around me hadn't caught at all with only 2-3 carp each neither had Stav who had managed only 1 carp + a few skimmers & roach, you know how the story goes just as the whistle went the rain stopped uncanny how many times that happens ain't it! it had rained virtualy non stop for most of the match. As Warren started to weigh in there was a couple who just broke double figures with 12-13lb until we got to Warren who had found a couple of carp+ some better skimmers putting 22lb on the scales, the next peg put 19lb on then the best weight of the day on peg 18 was 27lb. On my bank there were 5 pegs in which i was the best weight with 18lb 6oz Stav had 11lb and the next 2 guys just breaking double figures, the last 2 guys to my right on pegs 33 & 35 had 10lb & 17lb respectively, i had come 4th overall when they were only paying the top 3 so i was one out of the money by a pound! Crap! Never mind it will only take a week to dry the kit out, i had to throw the maggots & pinkies away after the match as they were every where the pinkies were in the bottom of my bag zipped up & in a bait box with the lid on but still managed to get wet as there was 2 inches of water in the bottom of my bag! I hope the weather gets a bit more settled before the start of our pairs league in a few weeks as you need the skimmers to feed if the carp don't show up in numbers which were missing today.
I set up a .5gr j-range float for the 13m line in 7 1/2ft of water a 18 toscirco hook to 0.14 line & 11 hollo elastic, a similar set up for the 6m line only with a 18 808 hook 0.12 line & double no5 elastic the depth was about 3-4 inches deeper than the 13m line?, for the edge rig i went for a 4x14 float of the same make as there was 4 1/2ft of water down the edge (my normal edge rigs weren't long enough) 0.14 line to a 16 tosciro hook with 13 hollo elastic.
I decided to keep things simple and stick to the 3 lines as the weather was getting worse as the day wore on with wind & rain lashing down it was a case of baton down the hatches & hold on to the pole, luckily most of the wind was off our back on our bank with some on the other side getting it full in the face. For bait i had brought some 2 pints of micro pellets, 1 1/2 pints of maggots & 2 tins of corn, nice & simple i had also got a pint of pinkies if all else failed, i had also got a few different hook baits plus some g/bait if i had drawn an island peg which i left in my bait bag.
On the whistle i fed the edge with 1/4 a pot of micros & a few grains of corn, the 6m line got 1/2 pot full of maggots and i started on the 13m line with just 3 grains of corn & a small fruit shoot size pot of micros looking to put very little bait on this line after the 2 heavy frosts the weekend.
I had a couple of very small dink's on the float before i hit my first bite after around 15mins which turned out to be a 30z skimmer falling to a 4mm expander, another 10mins went by before my next bite which turned out to be another skimmer of the same size. Next put in i hit a better fish which gave me a bit of a run around with 11 hollo elastic before i netted a 4lb carp, with around 45mins gone and no more action i put a piece of corn on the hook and hit my second carp of the day which was around the same size as the first. It was looking good as no one i could see was catching but after i spent the next 30mins biteless it was time for a look up the edge, i put a grain of corn on and shipped out 14.5m to where i had potted some bait in from the start i was getting odd dips now and then but nothing i could hit then i got a proper bite which was a 1lb carp. On both lines i was getting small nock's & dink's which i thought were the skimmers that seemed to be missing as no one was catching them normally you can catch 10lb+ of without any carp off any peg it looked like the frosts had been to much for them, it looked like being a hard day as i still couldn't see anyone catching much of note. The rest of the match was very slow and at the all-out i had managed 5 carp & 4 skimmers plus around 6 small roach which was all i had on the maggot line, 2 of the carp were only 1lb each but one of my skimmers was around the 2lb mark. The guys around me hadn't caught at all with only 2-3 carp each neither had Stav who had managed only 1 carp + a few skimmers & roach, you know how the story goes just as the whistle went the rain stopped uncanny how many times that happens ain't it! it had rained virtualy non stop for most of the match. As Warren started to weigh in there was a couple who just broke double figures with 12-13lb until we got to Warren who had found a couple of carp+ some better skimmers putting 22lb on the scales, the next peg put 19lb on then the best weight of the day on peg 18 was 27lb. On my bank there were 5 pegs in which i was the best weight with 18lb 6oz Stav had 11lb and the next 2 guys just breaking double figures, the last 2 guys to my right on pegs 33 & 35 had 10lb & 17lb respectively, i had come 4th overall when they were only paying the top 3 so i was one out of the money by a pound! Crap! Never mind it will only take a week to dry the kit out, i had to throw the maggots & pinkies away after the match as they were every where the pinkies were in the bottom of my bag zipped up & in a bait box with the lid on but still managed to get wet as there was 2 inches of water in the bottom of my bag! I hope the weather gets a bit more settled before the start of our pairs league in a few weeks as you need the skimmers to feed if the carp don't show up in numbers which were missing today.
Larford Classic Qualifier Sunday 24/10/10
Hi folks, back to Larford this week for another bash at the classic qualifier on the speci lake hoping for a better draw this week, as we pulled up on the car park we were greeted by exactly the same conditions as last week with another hard frost and no wind (why do the weather gods wait for a weekend to unleash there bad weather?). With all the lake in this week there was a better turnout with 50+ booked in, i drew out peg 19 which i was happy with as it was opposite where all the fish came from last week and in the middle of the lake Stav drew 61 one peg off last weeks winning peg so we were both a little happier with our pegs. I set up the same as last week a method rod, straight lead & 2 pole rigs the only thing i left in the bag was the pellet wagg as no one caught on it last week and another hard frost looks like it has put pay to this method for another year! As i was setting up i changed my mind and instead of the lead which i only managed one fish on last week i put a Drennan gripmesh feeder on to try and keep the feed tight and not spray 8mm pellets all over the place, i was talking to a Dan at work during the week weather or not to fish for skimmers with proper gear(light lines, small hook etc) and after seeing the frost i should have but you won't win the match with them at the moment as too many carp are still feeding.
Too cut a long story short ( my daughter wants the computer studying for A levels ) i had a crap match ending with only 9 skimmers for about 10-11lb, the welsh guy to my left had 4 carp 1 bream & 3 skimmers for 37lb with only 8 fish and the guy to my right had 2 bites all day 2 carp for 16lb. Battered both sides by carp try as i might to catch them they all seemed to miss my bait! Talking to the welsh guy we had both gone through all the hook bait permutations corn, maggots,bollies & meat but he hooked carp & me skimmers? Mick Varley had caught on the method on peg 11 for 70lb & Andy Kinder on peg 14 had a couple on the lead & then switched to the method for 54lb these were the best weights on the burr bank we later found out that there was a 62lb on peg 72 which is dead in-line with peg 11!
Can you see a pattern emerging here? this is last weeks results.
I think you needed to draw the 60's???
Then this week 1st & 2nd dead in-line with each other???
I think the fish are in small pockets & if you don't draw on them your in for a very hard day, Satv feared worse than me so we both went home with our tails between our legs. ( sorry to cut this one short the daughter's nagging, just like here mom!)
Too cut a long story short ( my daughter wants the computer studying for A levels ) i had a crap match ending with only 9 skimmers for about 10-11lb, the welsh guy to my left had 4 carp 1 bream & 3 skimmers for 37lb with only 8 fish and the guy to my right had 2 bites all day 2 carp for 16lb. Battered both sides by carp try as i might to catch them they all seemed to miss my bait! Talking to the welsh guy we had both gone through all the hook bait permutations corn, maggots,bollies & meat but he hooked carp & me skimmers? Mick Varley had caught on the method on peg 11 for 70lb & Andy Kinder on peg 14 had a couple on the lead & then switched to the method for 54lb these were the best weights on the burr bank we later found out that there was a 62lb on peg 72 which is dead in-line with peg 11!
Can you see a pattern emerging here? this is last weeks results.
| Position | Name | Peg | Method | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Andy Morrison | 62 | Pole fished pellet at 15m | 60-14-00 |
| 2nd | Neil McKinnon | 67 | Short pole | 55-04-00 |
| 3rd | Sean McCarthy | 68 | Long pole at 14m | 54-02-00 |
| 4th | Matt Hodges | 65 | Method feeder with sweetcorn | 52-10-00 |
Then this week 1st & 2nd dead in-line with each other???
| Position | Name | Peg | Method | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Mick Varley (Maver) | 11 | Method feeder (boilie) / pole fished pellet | 70-02-00 |
| 2nd | Sean McCarthy | 72 | Straight lead | 66-14-00 |
| 3rd | Andy Kinder (Maver) | 15 | Bomb and pellet / Method feeder | 54-06-00 |
| 4th | John Catermole (Maver) | 30 | Method feeder | 53-00-00 |
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Larford Classic Qualifier Sunday 17/10/10
Hi folks, me & Stav had booked into the Larford qualifier on the speci lake but for a change the weather man had got it right in our area they had forecast the first proper frost since the end of last winter, when Stav came around to pick me up he confirmed that he had to scrape the frost off the car windows it was white all over( Great winter's on the way!). As we dropped down into the Severn valley towards Larford off the main road the fog/mist was that dense that you couldn't see the speci lake from the cafe and the temperature gauge in the car was still reading 0c! There was 30 booked in for the match and with only 1 bank available the pegging would be tight i drew out peg 81 one off the end peg & Stav drew peg 74 not as low down as we were hoping, the last big match on here 2 weeks ago saw the top 3 all come from the pegs in the 60's in the center of the lake where the fish tend to hang during the winter ( had the fish gone into there winter quarters already?) . At least i was in good company for the day as an old friend of mine Tim Guise was on the next peg end peg 82, now Tim might be getting on a bit (sorry mate) but he is still a very good angler and he would be hard to beat with all that spare room to his right. I had been in two minds most of the week as to still attack the lake as i would during the summer months hoping the first frost wouldn't damage it too much or go softly softly due to the cooler weather, i opted for the first option thinking that the lake is deep and it would take a few cold days to put the fish right down. I set up just 1 pole rig as i thought that with every peg in they might prove hard to tempt close in, a method feeder, straight lead & a pellet wag just in-case the fish came to the sun that had now burnt off the mist and was quite pleasant.
The pole rig i set up was a 1.0gr maver paste float 0.18 silstar line straight through to a 4 175 hook set 8ft deep at 11m, on this line i would feed with a mix of chili hemp & meat in the hope that the carp moved in later in the match. I had brought 2 bags of 8mm pellets for the straight lead & pellet wagg which would be fished around 30-35m out, i had also brought some g /bait for the method feeder which i would fish at 50-60 turns plus the usual array of hook baits for this.
Well to cut a long story short after the first hour i had 1 skimmer on the straight lead Tim was bite-less and the Welsh chap on the next was bite-less as well! the first proper frost of the winter had took its toll and what wasn't helping was that the lake was like a sheet of glass and the sun was now quite warm probably the worst fishing conditions you could ask for. Even at this early stage of the match i was regretting my all out carp/summer tactics a switch to the method was called for with one eye on the guy's either side as they both had a look on the pole line, second chuck on the method with 2 dead reds on produced a skimmer and over the next hour i had got 6 skimmers before they dried up. Word along the bank was that it was fishing rock hard up our end of the lake no one was catching anything of note at all, after around 2 1/2 hours Stav rang to say that he had got a 3lb carp when he hung up as he had got a bite it turned out to be a skimmer only his second bite of the day! On the 3 hour mark i finally had a bite on the lead on a 8mm pellet it was a 3lb carp just 1 bite out of the blue then nothing again, i had tried all my lines apart from the pole as Tim and Welsh guy hadn't had a bite on it. It was now approaching the last hour so i picked up the pole and decided to sit on it until the end of the match as my section was fishing hard you can have 2 bites for 30-40lb on the pole here ( they don't call it the speci lake for now't?), after around 10mins the float buried it was a nice 2lb skimmer on a 8mm cube of meat but not what i was looking for. Another 10mins passed before my next bite which when i struck i new it wasn't a skimmer and after a short but healthy fight a nice 8lb carp was netted, i was now praying for a late burst with around 45mins left to go i put another pot of hemp & meat in which attracted a 1lb skimmer so i put another pot of feed in as it was to late in the day to build up a net of them. 2mins after the second pot i was playing another carp which felt big but didn't seem to be going anywhere fast just plodding along the bottom but as i shipped back half the pole we parted company, SHIT!, on closer inspection the hook had opened up! What was that these turbertini's 175's are very strong. As i was fishing straight through i now had a decision to make either put another rig on or throw the lead over the top giving me more chance of getting a lump out, there was now fish on the pole line as Tim had a great big lump on the lead over the pole line and got broke by one while the Welsh lad to my left to had a carp on the pole at the same time. I opted to fish the lead over the top of the pole as the safer option so i changed the hook-length from a lasso to a quickstop mounted 2 8mm cubes of meat on the hair and under armed the lead over the 11mm line, with 15mins to go the tip hooped around and a 3lb carp was netted not the big double i was praying for which turned out to be my last action of the day. I had got 3 carp & 9 skimmers what a hard days fishing that was, Tim ended up with 1 carp & 2 skimmers & the Welsh lad 1 carp & 3 skimmers it was not the end of the lake you wanted to be.
When i had packed up i walked down around 10 pegs where i met up with the scales that had weighed from the bottom end up, Phil (Briscoe) said that there had been a 62lb & a 55lb which were the best two weights so far. The guy on Stav's left was the first i saw weighed with 20lb odd
Stav had 1 carp of 3lb and 15lb of skimmers for 18lb odd, 2 pegs to Stav's right saw Mark have the best weight up our end with 5 carp 7 a few skimmers on the method for 49lb, the guy on peg 78 had 1 12lb carp and 32lb of skimmers for 44lb saying like most that he had all his fish in the last 2 hours but was dry until then! Peg 79 DNW, peg 80 DWN, me with 14lb of carp & 10lb of skimmers for 24lb then Tim on the end with a DWN i was right in the thick of all the fish!!! Although Tim didn't bother to weigh as the two 40lb+ weights were in our section he said he would have pushed me close as he estimated his carp at 18-19lb with 2 2lb skimmers. It had been a very hard day with the first proper frost of the winter taking a bigger toll on the lake than me and a lot of others had anticipated but when there is 20lb+ fish swimming around it don't take long to go from zero to hero ( if you can get them out).
The pole rig i set up was a 1.0gr maver paste float 0.18 silstar line straight through to a 4 175 hook set 8ft deep at 11m, on this line i would feed with a mix of chili hemp & meat in the hope that the carp moved in later in the match. I had brought 2 bags of 8mm pellets for the straight lead & pellet wagg which would be fished around 30-35m out, i had also brought some g /bait for the method feeder which i would fish at 50-60 turns plus the usual array of hook baits for this.
Well to cut a long story short after the first hour i had 1 skimmer on the straight lead Tim was bite-less and the Welsh chap on the next was bite-less as well! the first proper frost of the winter had took its toll and what wasn't helping was that the lake was like a sheet of glass and the sun was now quite warm probably the worst fishing conditions you could ask for. Even at this early stage of the match i was regretting my all out carp/summer tactics a switch to the method was called for with one eye on the guy's either side as they both had a look on the pole line, second chuck on the method with 2 dead reds on produced a skimmer and over the next hour i had got 6 skimmers before they dried up. Word along the bank was that it was fishing rock hard up our end of the lake no one was catching anything of note at all, after around 2 1/2 hours Stav rang to say that he had got a 3lb carp when he hung up as he had got a bite it turned out to be a skimmer only his second bite of the day! On the 3 hour mark i finally had a bite on the lead on a 8mm pellet it was a 3lb carp just 1 bite out of the blue then nothing again, i had tried all my lines apart from the pole as Tim and Welsh guy hadn't had a bite on it. It was now approaching the last hour so i picked up the pole and decided to sit on it until the end of the match as my section was fishing hard you can have 2 bites for 30-40lb on the pole here ( they don't call it the speci lake for now't?), after around 10mins the float buried it was a nice 2lb skimmer on a 8mm cube of meat but not what i was looking for. Another 10mins passed before my next bite which when i struck i new it wasn't a skimmer and after a short but healthy fight a nice 8lb carp was netted, i was now praying for a late burst with around 45mins left to go i put another pot of hemp & meat in which attracted a 1lb skimmer so i put another pot of feed in as it was to late in the day to build up a net of them. 2mins after the second pot i was playing another carp which felt big but didn't seem to be going anywhere fast just plodding along the bottom but as i shipped back half the pole we parted company, SHIT!, on closer inspection the hook had opened up! What was that these turbertini's 175's are very strong. As i was fishing straight through i now had a decision to make either put another rig on or throw the lead over the top giving me more chance of getting a lump out, there was now fish on the pole line as Tim had a great big lump on the lead over the pole line and got broke by one while the Welsh lad to my left to had a carp on the pole at the same time. I opted to fish the lead over the top of the pole as the safer option so i changed the hook-length from a lasso to a quickstop mounted 2 8mm cubes of meat on the hair and under armed the lead over the 11mm line, with 15mins to go the tip hooped around and a 3lb carp was netted not the big double i was praying for which turned out to be my last action of the day. I had got 3 carp & 9 skimmers what a hard days fishing that was, Tim ended up with 1 carp & 2 skimmers & the Welsh lad 1 carp & 3 skimmers it was not the end of the lake you wanted to be.
When i had packed up i walked down around 10 pegs where i met up with the scales that had weighed from the bottom end up, Phil (Briscoe) said that there had been a 62lb & a 55lb which were the best two weights so far. The guy on Stav's left was the first i saw weighed with 20lb odd
Stav had 1 carp of 3lb and 15lb of skimmers for 18lb odd, 2 pegs to Stav's right saw Mark have the best weight up our end with 5 carp 7 a few skimmers on the method for 49lb, the guy on peg 78 had 1 12lb carp and 32lb of skimmers for 44lb saying like most that he had all his fish in the last 2 hours but was dry until then! Peg 79 DNW, peg 80 DWN, me with 14lb of carp & 10lb of skimmers for 24lb then Tim on the end with a DWN i was right in the thick of all the fish!!! Although Tim didn't bother to weigh as the two 40lb+ weights were in our section he said he would have pushed me close as he estimated his carp at 18-19lb with 2 2lb skimmers. It had been a very hard day with the first proper frost of the winter taking a bigger toll on the lake than me and a lot of others had anticipated but when there is 20lb+ fish swimming around it don't take long to go from zero to hero ( if you can get them out).
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Alvechurch Fisheries 3/10/10
Hi folks, today's match is a Halesowen club match booked on the Horseshoe Pool at Alvechurch Fisheries i had fished here years ago but hadn't heard of anyone fishing it for years, that was until a mate of mine Mark told me he was thinking of buying it and turning it into a fishery again as it had been left unattended and overgrown for years. Me and Stav had been earlier this year for a practice and to say we struggled would be an understatement with only a couple of small carp and the odd silverfish to our names, but it was still very cold and it is a new fishery which all need time to settle and mature. I had been keeping an eye on the results through out the summer months and to be fair most of them had been quite good with the odd ton here and there, one or two of the match's seemed to be two or three good weights then the rest of the field struggling. The last open on here was 2 weeks ago when 47lb had won with the week before that 105lb so it was a bit up and down ( like the weather at the moment!), Mark knows that he needs to put some more fish in but can't stock any i until the right time of year. Mark is going to be running a silvers winter league on here so a week before we were due to fish he had taken some of the silverfish out of one of the other pools (house pool) and put then into the horseshoe pool in readiness for the league. There was 18 brave (stupid) soles turning out for this one with a couple of the lads not turning up after seeing the weather on the morning! RAIN,RAIN & more RAIN to say it was p*****g it down would be an understatement, frontwards, backwards & sideways all day until the whistle blew for the all out then the sun came out as usual! Mark cooked us a good breakfast in the newly built cafe but as we looked out into the gloom of the rain it looked like being the best part of the day. I drew out peg 28 from the bag and Stav drew peg 7 on the opposite side of the pool at least both of us had drawn with a throw to the island, i hadn't fancied drawing in the bottom bowl with no island and the pegs looked a bit tight although Mark had said that all the carp were coming from that area.
I set up a small method feeder for the island and just two pole rigs i was going to fish the worm & caster at 9m and the pellet at 14.5m, for bait i had brought 1/2 kg of worms, 2 pints of casters, 1 bag each of micro & 4mm feed pellets, 1 bag of green swimsitm for the method, i had also brought the usual array of hook baits 6&4mm expanders, meat, corn dead maggots.
On the whistle i potted in a full pot of chopped worm & caster at 9m & a pot of micros with a few 4mm in on the 14.5m line then threw the feeder tight to the island which is only around 25m way on my peg. First chuck with a maggot feeder for Phil on the next peg resulted in a carp around the 4lb class then 10mins gone my tip wrapped around and i was in, NO, i wound the feeder back (minus a carp) only to find that i had been broken? Crap how had i been broke on 0.20 line? all that was left was a loop of line i had been done on my own knot! Plonker! never mind it was early days( i hate inline method feeders). I had to wait another 30mins for my next bite when the tip wrapped around again only to be left with no fish again( no i hadn't got broke again)? what was going on Phil had got 2 carp now but i hadn't seen anyone else have a fish apart from Stav who had a what looked to be a lump carp early on. I stayed on the tip until the until the 1 1/2 hour mark had gone without anymore signs of fish, a switch to the pole was called for but i didn't hold out to much hope as i couldn't see anyone else catching on it. I put a worm head on and shipped out to my 10m line where i had fed some worm from the start, it took me 10mins to get my first bite a 3oz roach then a further 10mins for my second a 2oz perch. I went onto my pellet line at 14.5m with a 4mm expander over some micro's and had a 6oz skimmer straight away, i then missed a bite before connecting with a better fish which turned out to be a 3lb carp at last! Unfortunately it was a false dawn as i couldn't raise another bite on anything but i wasn't on my own as no one was catching, Phil in the next peg had got his 3 early carp and lost one but it looked like it wasn't going to get any better so i decided to sit out for carp as there was no sign's of doing any good fishing for silvers. I abandoned the worm line and just fished the method & pellet line until the whistle, i had a carp of around 8lb on the method from the island and another of 3lb on the pole in the last hour. During the match a couple of times i potted in a few micro's on the pole line only to have a fish swirl at the float up in the water, a few times during the match there was odd fish topping by the island in Phil's peg and towards the end of the pool where Ollie was sitting so maybe i should have set a shallow rig up? Ollie had managed to extract 4 carp from his peg in on the car park bank late in the match but most had suffered a bad match with only odd carp caught & a distinct lack of silvers. The best weight on the opposite side of the pool was Stav with 1 carp + a few silvers for 14lb odd but most of the weights were very poor with some only weighing a few silvers with no carp, my 3 carp went 15lb 2oz then Phil's 2 went 15lb 6oz putting me 2nd. Ollie's 4 carp went 21lb odd with only Martin left to weigh he had won the match, Martin who i couldn't see because of the island had managed to find a few big skimmers + some roach for 14lb odd relagating Stav into 4th by a few ounces. It had been a very hard match in very wet conditions but i was happy to come out of it in 3rd place, i was left ruing the loss of the one on the method that broke me costing me at least 2nd or might have cost me the match had it have been big enough? Mark has got big plans for Alvechurch Fisheries and he knows that its going to take a lot of time & hard work as he has just acquired some land adjacent to the fishery, i for one hope that he makes it and i am sure that he will.
I set up a small method feeder for the island and just two pole rigs i was going to fish the worm & caster at 9m and the pellet at 14.5m, for bait i had brought 1/2 kg of worms, 2 pints of casters, 1 bag each of micro & 4mm feed pellets, 1 bag of green swimsitm for the method, i had also brought the usual array of hook baits 6&4mm expanders, meat, corn dead maggots.
On the whistle i potted in a full pot of chopped worm & caster at 9m & a pot of micros with a few 4mm in on the 14.5m line then threw the feeder tight to the island which is only around 25m way on my peg. First chuck with a maggot feeder for Phil on the next peg resulted in a carp around the 4lb class then 10mins gone my tip wrapped around and i was in, NO, i wound the feeder back (minus a carp) only to find that i had been broken? Crap how had i been broke on 0.20 line? all that was left was a loop of line i had been done on my own knot! Plonker! never mind it was early days( i hate inline method feeders). I had to wait another 30mins for my next bite when the tip wrapped around again only to be left with no fish again( no i hadn't got broke again)? what was going on Phil had got 2 carp now but i hadn't seen anyone else have a fish apart from Stav who had a what looked to be a lump carp early on. I stayed on the tip until the until the 1 1/2 hour mark had gone without anymore signs of fish, a switch to the pole was called for but i didn't hold out to much hope as i couldn't see anyone else catching on it. I put a worm head on and shipped out to my 10m line where i had fed some worm from the start, it took me 10mins to get my first bite a 3oz roach then a further 10mins for my second a 2oz perch. I went onto my pellet line at 14.5m with a 4mm expander over some micro's and had a 6oz skimmer straight away, i then missed a bite before connecting with a better fish which turned out to be a 3lb carp at last! Unfortunately it was a false dawn as i couldn't raise another bite on anything but i wasn't on my own as no one was catching, Phil in the next peg had got his 3 early carp and lost one but it looked like it wasn't going to get any better so i decided to sit out for carp as there was no sign's of doing any good fishing for silvers. I abandoned the worm line and just fished the method & pellet line until the whistle, i had a carp of around 8lb on the method from the island and another of 3lb on the pole in the last hour. During the match a couple of times i potted in a few micro's on the pole line only to have a fish swirl at the float up in the water, a few times during the match there was odd fish topping by the island in Phil's peg and towards the end of the pool where Ollie was sitting so maybe i should have set a shallow rig up? Ollie had managed to extract 4 carp from his peg in on the car park bank late in the match but most had suffered a bad match with only odd carp caught & a distinct lack of silvers. The best weight on the opposite side of the pool was Stav with 1 carp + a few silvers for 14lb odd but most of the weights were very poor with some only weighing a few silvers with no carp, my 3 carp went 15lb 2oz then Phil's 2 went 15lb 6oz putting me 2nd. Ollie's 4 carp went 21lb odd with only Martin left to weigh he had won the match, Martin who i couldn't see because of the island had managed to find a few big skimmers + some roach for 14lb odd relagating Stav into 4th by a few ounces. It had been a very hard match in very wet conditions but i was happy to come out of it in 3rd place, i was left ruing the loss of the one on the method that broke me costing me at least 2nd or might have cost me the match had it have been big enough? Mark has got big plans for Alvechurch Fisheries and he knows that its going to take a lot of time & hard work as he has just acquired some land adjacent to the fishery, i for one hope that he makes it and i am sure that he will.
Sunday 10 October 2010
Woodlands View Open Sunday 26/9/10
This was the last day of our fishing week as Stav had to do an errand on Friday and then went back to Manor Farm on Saturday with Bash to fish a series match they fish every 3-4 weeks ( they both blew out again & Bash blew his rod up? ) so this was our last day before we went back to work. The only thing that was worrying us and everyone that was fishing was the sudden turn in the weather, Tuesday & Wednesday saw 18-20 C then on Friday night the mercury had dropped to nearly a ground frost then Saturday the same the wind had changed direction and was cold. As we stood outside the cafe at Woodlands Chris Robson said something that would soon become very apparent during the day " if you don't draw with the wind off your back you will be knackered!". There was 20 guy's out today and the match was to be held on both Dean's pool's so Mike Mason put 5 pegs on each bank which would be your section, into the draw box and out popped peg 4 on front Deans then Stav drew peg 7 the next peg in so at least we were together for our decider on the fishing week. When we drove up to the pool and got the tackle out i started to get a bad feeling as the cold wind was blowing diagonally across the pool from corner peg 21 straight into my face. I set up just 3 pole rigs one for 6m, one at 13m and a margin rig, the wind was a bit to strong for fishing shallow so it was a deck job in the cold wind, i will not bore you with the details of the rigs as they are all broke and failed to go under. To cut a long storey short after an hour i had foul-hooked a 4lb carp on my 6m line and couldn't get a bite on any of my lines, i walked over to Stav to see what he had got and he said 2 f1's there was not a lot being caught from what i could see just a few bits & odd carp on the opposite bank. Another hour passed with only 1 skimmer on the 13m line to add to my lonely carp, the younger of the French guy's was opposite me with around 4 carp and Paul Sibbo on corner peg 33 was having only odd bits it was hard going. Stav had 1 carp to go with his 2 f1's and it was bloody cold with me wearing a tee-shirt, jumper and my windproof fleece on what change from in the week my eyes were streaming so was my nose and i haven't got a cold. This was no good as i couldn't raise a bite on any of my lines so i decided to go to the car and get my gun sling out, i could see the odd fish rising on the other side of the pool where the cold wind wasn't hitting the water so i set up the pellet cone. I threw out the cone to the middle of the lake and on only the 2nd chuck the tip went round and a 6lb carp was in the net, 10mins later and carp no2 was in the net by the time carp no3 went in the onion sack Sibbo on the other side shouted over " i bet you wished you've have set that up earlier". With 1 hour left i had got 7 carp and was looking for a few to end up with when my bites dried up, 2 of the carp i had got out on the cone were foul-hooked then in the last hour i only had 3 bites which 2 were foul-hooked and came off landing 1 last carp with 2mins from the whistle while Matt who had come to weigh us in was standing behind me. I said to Matt that you wouldn't believe that it was the same month let alone the same week as we fished here Tuesday with a tee-shirt on now it felt like November. My carp went 46lb 12oz then Stav put 41lb odd on the scales then a 63&73lb as you went up the pool away from the wind the weights got better, the French guy opposite me had 36lb and Sibbo tipped around 20lb back in the corner. We heard there were 3 80lb+ weights on back Deans with the high bank from stock pools hay & barley protecting them from the wind.
The week had started off well on Ghost pool & Wyatts pool then the brown stuff hit the fan on Thursday & today all i want is a hot bath to warm me bones, at least i had the consolation of beating Stav 3-1 so he had to cough up £2. Never mind back to work in the morning!
The week had started off well on Ghost pool & Wyatts pool then the brown stuff hit the fan on Thursday & today all i want is a hot bath to warm me bones, at least i had the consolation of beating Stav 3-1 so he had to cough up £2. Never mind back to work in the morning!
Monday 4 October 2010
Manor Farm Open Thursday 23/9/10 Island Pool
Day 4 of our fishing week took us to the Thursday Affordable at Manor Farm, today's match was to be on Island pool and with 12 turning up we would have lot of room as Dave put 3 anglers on each bank. I drew out peg 32 & Stav got peg 8 for company on peg 34 i had Barry Robson who had also had the same week off as us, a quick look at the weight sheet from the open the day before reveled that our two pegs in the 30's had not weighed in! Great i hope the fish no how to use those fins of there's and swim up here! About 3 weeks ago i got battered off peg 33 while i was sat on peg 34 by a guy that caught on the method feeder but he didn't throw it too tight to the island, he also had a few fish by casting 2/3's of the way across over where he was firing some 6mm pellets with this in mind i set up a plan of attack. I set up a method rod, a pellet feeder rod & 2 pole rigs 1 for on the deck at 6m and a shallow rig for 13-14m.
Rig 1, a 13ft method rod 8lb maxima, Preston 30gr method elasticated with black hydro, 16 pr27 0.20 H/L.
Rig 2, a 11ft feeder rod 8lb maxima, Guru 24gr inline pellet feeder, 16 pr27 with a lasso 0.20 H/L for a 6mm pellet.
Rig 3, a 4x14 Maver Jona 0.16 line to a size 3 Tubertini 175 for the 6m line in around 6ft of water.
Rig 4, a 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber, 0.14 line to a 18 pr27 with a lasso for the shallow line, i set the depth around 18" but had around 4ft of line above the float to vary the depth plus keep the pole tip off the water.
For bait i had brought lots of different pellets from micro's for the pellet feeder, 4mm's for the shallow line, 6mm's for firing around the pellet feeder 2/3rd's of the way over, i had also got corn, meat, dead maggots & expanders for the hook, ground bait for the method feeder was green swimstim.
On the whistle i put a pot of 4mm pellets & a few grains of corn on the 6m line and cast the method to where i had clipped up around 1m short of the island, Bash had clipped up tight to the island so if they were in the shallower water i would soon see we both sat back and awaited the action. The guy on peg 36 was the first to see action fishing the pole line at around 6-8m after around 10mins, with around 30mins gone he had got 5-6 fish while me & Bash hadn't had a bite yet. Bash was the first to have a carp off the island then after around 45mins i had my first bite on the method a 2lb f1, i stuck to the method for the first 1 1/2 with only 2 fish to show for my efforts Bash had got 3 but the guy on peg 36 had slowed up a bit after his earlier flurry with around 8 fish. I was at a loss for a reason why we weren't catching on the island when we had lots of room to go at? I changed to the pellet feeder at around 30m where the island is around 40-45m away i had been firing a few 6mm pellets in while fishing the method, i packed the feeder with damp micro's & a 6mm pellet on the hook cast out and had 2 f1's in two casts. Just when i thought i had sussed it the bites dried up with only 1 more f1 in the next 30mins, with over 2 hours of the match gone i was going nowhere fast Bash had a couple of fish on the 6m line so it was time to try that. I had 2 fish on the 6m pole line and with half the match gone i had got 7 fish both me and Bash were struggling to come up with reason why we weren't catching as we could see pegs 4,6 & 8 catching, the guy on peg 4 had been catching shallow from the off but he had got some ripple on the water where as the wind was coming off our backs making our pegs dead flat. I had a go shallow and while not setting the world on fire i started to put the odd f1 in the net, i couldn't believe the amount of fizz i was getting on the shallow line i was firing 4mm pellets over the top and slapping the rig in the peg was a mass of bubbles! I tried all-sorts of tricks to try and up my catch rate but it seemed as i was only going to have a fish when they felt like it, i did have a look back on all my other lines but only managed 1 small 1lb tench on the 6m line so i just fished shallow for the remainder of the match. The fizzing on the shallow line was mental when i tried another line and stopped feeding the fizz died down but within 2-3 catty's of 4-5 pellets it would be a mass of bubbles again! When the whistle went i had ended up with 20 f1's & that 1 tench Bash had fared even worse than me, we had both been battered by the guy on peg 36 so we went around to ask how he had caught he said all he fishes here is paste at this time of the year. It had worked for him today not breaking any records but enough to win our 3 peg section ( yes we were in 4 x 3 peg sections with nothing overall for winning overall it is only the affordable after all). My fish went 46lb 2oz, Bash 27lb & paste man won our section with 61lb. Stav came around saying he had come last in his section with 58lb, French guy ( who we had me at Woodlands on Tuesday) on the next peg having 65lb & the guy on peg 4 catching shallow all day had 97lb which was the best weight of the day. The younger of the 2 French guys won his section with 91lb in the teens & the 20's section was won with 78lb on the feeder so our section had been the worst of the day! as i said earlier they didn't bother weighing on the pegs the day before so think there just isn't enough fish there at the moment. On reflection i should have gone shallow earlier and also set up a rig to fish the deck on the same line? I was 15lb off winning the section and worst of all 12lb off being beaten by Stav? Stav had pulled 1 back in our fishing week so it was now 2-1 to me so we would have a decider on our next match double or quits on the £1 side bets. It looks like when you have a lot of room you can catch more on the pole line than when you put 20+ on the pool forcing the fish out to the island?
Rig 1, a 13ft method rod 8lb maxima, Preston 30gr method elasticated with black hydro, 16 pr27 0.20 H/L.
Rig 2, a 11ft feeder rod 8lb maxima, Guru 24gr inline pellet feeder, 16 pr27 with a lasso 0.20 H/L for a 6mm pellet.
Rig 3, a 4x14 Maver Jona 0.16 line to a size 3 Tubertini 175 for the 6m line in around 6ft of water.
Rig 4, a 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber, 0.14 line to a 18 pr27 with a lasso for the shallow line, i set the depth around 18" but had around 4ft of line above the float to vary the depth plus keep the pole tip off the water.
For bait i had brought lots of different pellets from micro's for the pellet feeder, 4mm's for the shallow line, 6mm's for firing around the pellet feeder 2/3rd's of the way over, i had also got corn, meat, dead maggots & expanders for the hook, ground bait for the method feeder was green swimstim.
On the whistle i put a pot of 4mm pellets & a few grains of corn on the 6m line and cast the method to where i had clipped up around 1m short of the island, Bash had clipped up tight to the island so if they were in the shallower water i would soon see we both sat back and awaited the action. The guy on peg 36 was the first to see action fishing the pole line at around 6-8m after around 10mins, with around 30mins gone he had got 5-6 fish while me & Bash hadn't had a bite yet. Bash was the first to have a carp off the island then after around 45mins i had my first bite on the method a 2lb f1, i stuck to the method for the first 1 1/2 with only 2 fish to show for my efforts Bash had got 3 but the guy on peg 36 had slowed up a bit after his earlier flurry with around 8 fish. I was at a loss for a reason why we weren't catching on the island when we had lots of room to go at? I changed to the pellet feeder at around 30m where the island is around 40-45m away i had been firing a few 6mm pellets in while fishing the method, i packed the feeder with damp micro's & a 6mm pellet on the hook cast out and had 2 f1's in two casts. Just when i thought i had sussed it the bites dried up with only 1 more f1 in the next 30mins, with over 2 hours of the match gone i was going nowhere fast Bash had a couple of fish on the 6m line so it was time to try that. I had 2 fish on the 6m pole line and with half the match gone i had got 7 fish both me and Bash were struggling to come up with reason why we weren't catching as we could see pegs 4,6 & 8 catching, the guy on peg 4 had been catching shallow from the off but he had got some ripple on the water where as the wind was coming off our backs making our pegs dead flat. I had a go shallow and while not setting the world on fire i started to put the odd f1 in the net, i couldn't believe the amount of fizz i was getting on the shallow line i was firing 4mm pellets over the top and slapping the rig in the peg was a mass of bubbles! I tried all-sorts of tricks to try and up my catch rate but it seemed as i was only going to have a fish when they felt like it, i did have a look back on all my other lines but only managed 1 small 1lb tench on the 6m line so i just fished shallow for the remainder of the match. The fizzing on the shallow line was mental when i tried another line and stopped feeding the fizz died down but within 2-3 catty's of 4-5 pellets it would be a mass of bubbles again! When the whistle went i had ended up with 20 f1's & that 1 tench Bash had fared even worse than me, we had both been battered by the guy on peg 36 so we went around to ask how he had caught he said all he fishes here is paste at this time of the year. It had worked for him today not breaking any records but enough to win our 3 peg section ( yes we were in 4 x 3 peg sections with nothing overall for winning overall it is only the affordable after all). My fish went 46lb 2oz, Bash 27lb & paste man won our section with 61lb. Stav came around saying he had come last in his section with 58lb, French guy ( who we had me at Woodlands on Tuesday) on the next peg having 65lb & the guy on peg 4 catching shallow all day had 97lb which was the best weight of the day. The younger of the 2 French guys won his section with 91lb in the teens & the 20's section was won with 78lb on the feeder so our section had been the worst of the day! as i said earlier they didn't bother weighing on the pegs the day before so think there just isn't enough fish there at the moment. On reflection i should have gone shallow earlier and also set up a rig to fish the deck on the same line? I was 15lb off winning the section and worst of all 12lb off being beaten by Stav? Stav had pulled 1 back in our fishing week so it was now 2-1 to me so we would have a decider on our next match double or quits on the £1 side bets. It looks like when you have a lot of room you can catch more on the pole line than when you put 20+ on the pool forcing the fish out to the island?
Sunday 3 October 2010
Cob House Open Wyatts Pool Wensday 22/9/10
Day 3 of our fishing week took us to the open at Cob house on Wyatts pool this is the in complex at the moment if you want big weights, the last time we came down here Bob Baker broke the match record for the first time since then Bob himself broke his own record then Scott Jones took the match record to a massive 396lb! While Bob had 311lb off Laugherne Island Holy Shit! The new cafe is massive and very clean ( it felt almost too clean for scruffy anglers) there is also a new on-site tackle shop. There was 12 anglers booked in for today's affordable open and after talking to Scott & Craig who work at the fishery it seemed that the top tactics are short, shallow & down the edge. Into the draw bag and out popped peg 10 for me & Satv drew 24 but i don't think it matters on here at the moment as the place is solid all over.
I set up 4 rigs 2 for the short line (3m), 1 for the edge & a shallow rig.
Rig 1, 0.30gr Maver invincible series 7, 0.18 main to a 16 pr27 0.16 h/l with a lasoo for a hard 6mm pellet, 11 Preston hollo elastic for the 3m line.
Rig 2, Maver Jona 4x14, with the same line, hook & elastic as the first rig just a heavier if the wind got up which was blowing down the pool.
Rig 3, Preston durra 10 4x12, 0.16 straight through to a Tubertini 175 size 3, 13 nollo elastic for the edge.
Rig 4, Maver Jrassic dibber 0.30gr 0.14 to a 16 pr27, 13 hollo elastic, a lassoed 6mm pellet for the shallow line at 6-8m.
For bait i had got a bag each of 2mm & 4mm fishery feed pellets, around 4 pints of dead maggots (i will use the maggots up i took to arena pool) plus some various soft & hard pellets for the hook.
On the whistle i started on the 3m line throwing 20 or so 2mm pellets at the float and it sailed away with carp no1 a 1lb fish, i caught steady for the first hour on the 3m line before they started to slow up a bit so i switched to the margin line and was rewarded with a few fish of a slightly better stamp with the odd 3-4lb fish thrown in. To be honest most of the match is a blur as i have fished a few match's on venues like this before and all you can do is to put your head down and just try to keep the bites & catch rate ticking over, if you take to much notice of the people around you it can distract you as every where you look all you can see is people playing and landing fish. During the match i tried to catch shallow at 6m but it was too slow and only accounted for 4-5 fish, i was going back and forth from the edge line to the 3m line to keep bites coming. The fish on the maggot down the edge seemed to be of a better stamp so i fished this for most of the match plus as i use a lasso for a hard pellet i was wasting time putting new hook-lengths on when the fish broke the lasso off in the landing net, when using the lasso you need to use a fine micro/hair landing net to stop the hard bait falling through the holes and snapping off when the fish goes mad in the net. Unfortunately at Cob House the nets they provide you with have got big holes so i all but gave up on the lasso after the first hour as i lost three hook-lengths during that time. Like i said earlier its hard to keep track of who's catching and who's not when everyone is catching but i new Stav was having his fair share so was a guy on the same bank on peg 18 but that is only because they were opposite me someone on my bank could have 500lb and i wouldn't have seen them. At the all out i had somewhere in the region of 132 fish but new i had a better weight than the first time i had fished the lake with 120 fish for 120lb this time i had some better stamp fish.
When Scott & Carl came with the scales the first to weigh on my bank had 120lb, next 101lb then 90 odd on the next peg to my right, i thought that i had 150lb - 160lb but i was quite shocked when Scott gave me 192lb 6oz to put me in the lead, the guy to my left had 105lb then the lowest? weight of the day 70lb? the guy fished the feeder all day, the last peg on my bank had 144lb. Over on the on the other bank the guy next to Stav had 166lb, then Stav ( uncle festa) had 189lb 8oz ( phew that was close i nearly had to give him a quid back), we were lying first and second with 2 left to weigh but the guy on peg 18 had caught well all day and put 198lb 50z on the pellet & paste, a mate of mine Lee was in the corner peg and put 144lb on the scales. What a cracking match with ton's all over the place & only 10lb separating the top 3, so with me second & Stav third the jobs a good un' ( 2-0 up Stav get your gold coins ready). So if you haven't already been and want to catch lots of fish in great surroundings get yourself down to Cob House the cafe is great and the staff Scott & Carl will always put you right, thanks lads we had a great day Cheers.
I set up 4 rigs 2 for the short line (3m), 1 for the edge & a shallow rig.
Rig 1, 0.30gr Maver invincible series 7, 0.18 main to a 16 pr27 0.16 h/l with a lasoo for a hard 6mm pellet, 11 Preston hollo elastic for the 3m line.
Rig 2, Maver Jona 4x14, with the same line, hook & elastic as the first rig just a heavier if the wind got up which was blowing down the pool.
Rig 3, Preston durra 10 4x12, 0.16 straight through to a Tubertini 175 size 3, 13 nollo elastic for the edge.
Rig 4, Maver Jrassic dibber 0.30gr 0.14 to a 16 pr27, 13 hollo elastic, a lassoed 6mm pellet for the shallow line at 6-8m.
For bait i had got a bag each of 2mm & 4mm fishery feed pellets, around 4 pints of dead maggots (i will use the maggots up i took to arena pool) plus some various soft & hard pellets for the hook.
On the whistle i started on the 3m line throwing 20 or so 2mm pellets at the float and it sailed away with carp no1 a 1lb fish, i caught steady for the first hour on the 3m line before they started to slow up a bit so i switched to the margin line and was rewarded with a few fish of a slightly better stamp with the odd 3-4lb fish thrown in. To be honest most of the match is a blur as i have fished a few match's on venues like this before and all you can do is to put your head down and just try to keep the bites & catch rate ticking over, if you take to much notice of the people around you it can distract you as every where you look all you can see is people playing and landing fish. During the match i tried to catch shallow at 6m but it was too slow and only accounted for 4-5 fish, i was going back and forth from the edge line to the 3m line to keep bites coming. The fish on the maggot down the edge seemed to be of a better stamp so i fished this for most of the match plus as i use a lasso for a hard pellet i was wasting time putting new hook-lengths on when the fish broke the lasso off in the landing net, when using the lasso you need to use a fine micro/hair landing net to stop the hard bait falling through the holes and snapping off when the fish goes mad in the net. Unfortunately at Cob House the nets they provide you with have got big holes so i all but gave up on the lasso after the first hour as i lost three hook-lengths during that time. Like i said earlier its hard to keep track of who's catching and who's not when everyone is catching but i new Stav was having his fair share so was a guy on the same bank on peg 18 but that is only because they were opposite me someone on my bank could have 500lb and i wouldn't have seen them. At the all out i had somewhere in the region of 132 fish but new i had a better weight than the first time i had fished the lake with 120 fish for 120lb this time i had some better stamp fish.
When Scott & Carl came with the scales the first to weigh on my bank had 120lb, next 101lb then 90 odd on the next peg to my right, i thought that i had 150lb - 160lb but i was quite shocked when Scott gave me 192lb 6oz to put me in the lead, the guy to my left had 105lb then the lowest? weight of the day 70lb? the guy fished the feeder all day, the last peg on my bank had 144lb. Over on the on the other bank the guy next to Stav had 166lb, then Stav ( uncle festa) had 189lb 8oz ( phew that was close i nearly had to give him a quid back), we were lying first and second with 2 left to weigh but the guy on peg 18 had caught well all day and put 198lb 50z on the pellet & paste, a mate of mine Lee was in the corner peg and put 144lb on the scales. What a cracking match with ton's all over the place & only 10lb separating the top 3, so with me second & Stav third the jobs a good un' ( 2-0 up Stav get your gold coins ready). So if you haven't already been and want to catch lots of fish in great surroundings get yourself down to Cob House the cafe is great and the staff Scott & Carl will always put you right, thanks lads we had a great day Cheers.
Thursday 30 September 2010
Woodlands View Open Tuesday 21/9/10
Day 2 of our fishing week took us down to Woodlands View for the Tuesday affordable match which we found out would be on Ghost pool as the Starlets Vets were on High & Arles pool and the Midland Bears were on both Deans pools. Its been a couple of years since i last fished a match on Ghost so i was looking forward to it as some good weights can come from it, it is rarely used in opens due to only 22 pegs on it and is normally booked for clubs during the weekends. All through the summer months the top method has been to fish 3-6m or down the edge with 6 or 8mm hook pellet over a bed of 4mm feed pellets or corn. Only 8 people had turned out for the match so a least we would have a bit of room, i drew out peg 4 & Stav peg 19 but to be honest it looked like the winner could come from any peg today with this much room.
I set up 3 rigs one on the deck at 3m, one for up in the water from 11 to 14m & one for down the left edge near to the next pallet by some reeds, for bait i had got 2 bags of 4mm fishery feed pellets, 4 tins of corn plus various 6 & 8mm hard & expander's for the hook, i had also got some dead maggots left over from Sunday.
I started on the 3m line to see if the fish were there early but after only 2 early carp on this i left it for later and went out on the shallow rig after only 30 mins, the guy to my right on peg 6 got off to a flier having a fish a bung on the short line but kept saying they were only small fish up to 3lb. I started to have odd carp & f1's shallow at 13m but not as fast as i would have liked, an early look down the edge where i had been potting maggots produced only a couple of small perch. The guy to my right was still catching then the guy in the corner peg started to catch big lumps on both his short & edge line quite regularly. Stav on the opposite side to me was having odd fish on the deck & shallow long but without setting the world on fire, the rest of the pool was fishing ok but the guy in the corner peg was catching a lot of big fish quickly. The rest of the match went much the same just picking odd fish off here and there until the last hour & a bit when i went back down the edge for the 3rd time to see if any carp had turned up on my margin maggot line. I started to catch carp in the 4-6lb bracket with some sort of regularity with 3 maggots on the hook, the two guy's that were catching earlier were still catching & i thought the guy to my right must have 200lb+ by now! I caught on my maggot edge line until the final whistle where i caught a lot of fish in a short space of time. The guy on peg 2 had packed away before the whistle saying that he had lost more than he had got out complaining of lots of foul hookers so i was first to weigh, i was surprised when Ade added up my weight up and gave me 124lb 4oz mostly in the last hour when i must have had 70lb. The guy on peg 6 was as shocked as i was when Ade gave him 144lb i was sure he had got 200lb+ he was playing fish all day ( he must have had his canal kits on! ), there was a french guy in peg 8 over here for two weeks for fishing with his mate he had 126lb!. The guy in the opposite corner had caught well after a slow start catching some big lumps but we were all shocked when he put 254lb on the scales i would have sworn that his mate next to me had got more than him?The other french guy next to stav had 60lb odd and stav 78lb, the last guy on that bank had 105lb. So we had a few fish but no coin i just wished the fish would have come down the edge earlier? ( at least i was 1-o up on Stav in our series one big fat £1?).
I set up 3 rigs one on the deck at 3m, one for up in the water from 11 to 14m & one for down the left edge near to the next pallet by some reeds, for bait i had got 2 bags of 4mm fishery feed pellets, 4 tins of corn plus various 6 & 8mm hard & expander's for the hook, i had also got some dead maggots left over from Sunday.
I started on the 3m line to see if the fish were there early but after only 2 early carp on this i left it for later and went out on the shallow rig after only 30 mins, the guy to my right on peg 6 got off to a flier having a fish a bung on the short line but kept saying they were only small fish up to 3lb. I started to have odd carp & f1's shallow at 13m but not as fast as i would have liked, an early look down the edge where i had been potting maggots produced only a couple of small perch. The guy to my right was still catching then the guy in the corner peg started to catch big lumps on both his short & edge line quite regularly. Stav on the opposite side to me was having odd fish on the deck & shallow long but without setting the world on fire, the rest of the pool was fishing ok but the guy in the corner peg was catching a lot of big fish quickly. The rest of the match went much the same just picking odd fish off here and there until the last hour & a bit when i went back down the edge for the 3rd time to see if any carp had turned up on my margin maggot line. I started to catch carp in the 4-6lb bracket with some sort of regularity with 3 maggots on the hook, the two guy's that were catching earlier were still catching & i thought the guy to my right must have 200lb+ by now! I caught on my maggot edge line until the final whistle where i caught a lot of fish in a short space of time. The guy on peg 2 had packed away before the whistle saying that he had lost more than he had got out complaining of lots of foul hookers so i was first to weigh, i was surprised when Ade added up my weight up and gave me 124lb 4oz mostly in the last hour when i must have had 70lb. The guy on peg 6 was as shocked as i was when Ade gave him 144lb i was sure he had got 200lb+ he was playing fish all day ( he must have had his canal kits on! ), there was a french guy in peg 8 over here for two weeks for fishing with his mate he had 126lb!. The guy in the opposite corner had caught well after a slow start catching some big lumps but we were all shocked when he put 254lb on the scales i would have sworn that his mate next to me had got more than him?The other french guy next to stav had 60lb odd and stav 78lb, the last guy on that bank had 105lb. So we had a few fish but no coin i just wished the fish would have come down the edge earlier? ( at least i was 1-o up on Stav in our series one big fat £1?).
Friday 24 September 2010
Larford Arena Pool? Sunday 19/9/10
This is the start of fishing week for me & Stav as week have both booked the same week off work and plan to go fishing 3-4 different venues through out the week. This match was a Cradley Heath club match booked on Arena pool but when we fished the C.I.U team match last week we thought we had got the match moved onto the Speci lake but we found out Friday that the other pools were booked so we would have to put up with it. Now before i start my write up on the match you will be well aware of the bad press that Larford has received in recent weeks and i agree with some of the comments on T/A and totally disagree with a lot of them, Yes there is a problem with the fishery what it is i don't know because i am not a fish doctor/ scientist and i think that a lot of people that surmise what is going on should keep there uneducated guesses to themselves that's how nasty rumors start! Yes we tried to get our match moved off the pool because it is fishing poorly and the staff at Larford to there credit tried to move us but got the dates mixed up with a cancellation so we were stuck with it. While i thank the staff & Phil Briscoe for trying to move us but when they know there is a problem and still charge £7 a peg with no compensation or another date when it is fishing better that's wrong! Now i have known Phil for a few years now and he assured us on Sunday that the Match and Arena pool's are going to get restocked very soon ( no good to us today ), but i know that Phil has put his heart & soul into building up the complex and its reputation over the last few years not to mention £100's of thousands of pounds and to have it go bad on you in this way must be gutting.
Enough of me on my soap box but there is still a match to fish which might be a struggle but someone has to win it, i had spoke to 2 mates Dan & Ian who as i said last week fished the Larford festival about how to go about tackling the hard Arena pool and they both said fish maggots 3-4m on the deck. They also said that during the festival week the fishery rules of no leads or feeders was in place(Arena pool is normally a float only pool) but as they had relaxed the rules in an attempt to boost weights they had both said they would fish the method at short range (on the pole line). Only 16 brave souls had turned out for this match so at least we would have a bit of room with 40 odd pegs on the pool, Dan & Ian said the hot draw is peg 24 on the end of the natural bank that has got lovely looking set of lily pads it had won the pool 4 out of 5 days on festival. Into the draw bag and out popped peg 30 on the burr which looked no worse than sum & not as good as others, i have only fished the pool once before on a late December fur & feather so i was none the wiser.
To tackle the peg i set up 4 pole rigs & a method feeder.
Rig 1, maver 1.ogr f1 float, 0.16 mainline to 0.14 h/l & 16 tosciro hook, set around 8ft deep at 5m & 11 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, same float 0.16 straight through, a size 3 175 & 13 hollo elastic ( incase the carp turned up in numbers???).
Rig 3, Preston durra 10 4x12 float 0.16 straight through, 3 175 hook for down my left margin to the next empty pallet.
Rig 4, Maver 4x12 Jurassic dibber, 0.14 to a 16 pr27 for lassoed 6mm pellet, 13 hollo elastic for up in the water.
For bait i had brought a gallon of feeder maggots half alive & half dead (the dead's are for up the edge so they don't crawl away), a bag of 4mm feed pellets for shallow, some g/bait for the method + some hook-baits.
For company on peg 28 i had Steve Robson who was the last peg on our the burr bank ( corner peg flier) & the other side on peg 32 was our leader Ollie, at least if we were not catching we could listen to Ollie's radio as he is a Man U supporter and they were playing Liverpool today.
On the whistle i put a pot of dead maggots down to the next pallet and started on the maggot at 5m, i stared to catch odd silvers after around 10 mins small roach & perch then after 20 mins i had a small carp of around a pound. There was no one catching carp so after the first hour i had got 2 small carp + a few silvers, i new Satv was catching silvers as well on maggot but i new to only 1 carp caught on the feeder by Ada on the opposite bank. So with next to no carp being caught it was just a case of getting my head down on the silvers ( if it ain't broke don't fix it).
After 2 hrs i had not had anymore carp on the pole but i was happy catching silvers most of which were swingers but the odd one was a netter, then Ollie had a carp on the method in the 4lb range and 10 mins later another i now had to go on the method as all my hard work on the silvers had all but gone. I threw the method out on the pole line at 13-14m where i had been firing the odd 4mm pellet for a shallow line with 2 dead reds on the hook, it took around 30 mins on the method to get a bite a nice 8lb carp was in the net. Ollie had 3 carp and JB on peg 34 had 1, the odd carp was now showing all over the pool and at the end of the 3rd hour i had another carp of 3-4lb on the method. Then JB done the same as Ollie he had 3 carp on the method in 3 chucks, i had a go shallow on the pellet for 10 mins as there was a few fish showing up in the water but it didn't feel right as the fish were shying away from the pole tip in the clear water even with a long line on. I went back on my 5m maggot line and caught a few silvers plus another small 1lb carp, i now had a choice to make stay on the silvers & hope for a carp or two on that or stick on the method till the end? I decided to sit on the method as the fish seemed bigger but i had no more bites at all, Ollie had 2 carp on the bounce on the end of his rod, JB had a carp on his pole line and another on the method. We were now into the last 20 mins of the match when JB hooked & landed a carp from the margins, i had been putting the odd pot of dead maggots down there from the start but hadn't tried it due to the water clarity & Steve had fished his corner margin from the start with a nice set of lily pads as well without a fish although he could see carp down there! I thought why not have a go as there was no action at all on the feeder not even a liner, i had a bite first drop in from a small roach then a small carp of 1lb oh no what had i been doing not trying it earlier but with 10 mins to go i never had another bite down there?
It had been a very hard but strange match as you got the feeling there was a lot more fish in the pool than had been caught, i had ended up with 6 carp 1 skimmer + a few silvers, JB & Ollie had around the same number of carp with no silvers but 4 of my carp were 1lb fish and there's were normal 3-4lb fish. I think JB had 6-7 carp as did Shaun on flier peg 24 so it was going to be tight at the weigh in, Steve in the corner was first to weigh who had a bad match having only 1 lump carp & bits for 11lb odd. I was next to go with 26lb 4oz which i reckoned had around 7-8lb of silvers in it, Ollie on the next peg had 22lb odd then JB putting 32lb on the scales to go into the lead. Stav had a busy match on the silvers with only 1 carp & a couple of chub fishing shallow long with maggot for 22lb odd just beating Ollie but a few oz's , Brian on the next peg having mainly carp for another 22lb weight ( that's 3 so far). John Bab on the end peg 44 on the burr had another 6-7 all carp haul for 28lb odd putting him in second place so far, the opposite side on the natural bank had fished a lot harder with 16lb the best weight until we got to Shaun on the flier peg 24 and his carp haul going 27lb to just beat me for 3rd place. The Arena had fished as hard as we had been told it was going to but at least it was a close match with no one running away with big 100lb+ weights, i don't know that if fishing the maggot was the right way to go or should i have fished the method for 5hrs? and just waited? Ollie had fished most of the match on the feeder and i had beat him but lost out to JB who had a couple on the pole but most of his fish on the feeder but at least i had plenty of bites on the maggot.
At least me & Stav Hadn't got to go to work in the morning we had just got to spend the day getting the tackle right for the forthcoming 3 days of fishing!
Enough of me on my soap box but there is still a match to fish which might be a struggle but someone has to win it, i had spoke to 2 mates Dan & Ian who as i said last week fished the Larford festival about how to go about tackling the hard Arena pool and they both said fish maggots 3-4m on the deck. They also said that during the festival week the fishery rules of no leads or feeders was in place(Arena pool is normally a float only pool) but as they had relaxed the rules in an attempt to boost weights they had both said they would fish the method at short range (on the pole line). Only 16 brave souls had turned out for this match so at least we would have a bit of room with 40 odd pegs on the pool, Dan & Ian said the hot draw is peg 24 on the end of the natural bank that has got lovely looking set of lily pads it had won the pool 4 out of 5 days on festival. Into the draw bag and out popped peg 30 on the burr which looked no worse than sum & not as good as others, i have only fished the pool once before on a late December fur & feather so i was none the wiser.
To tackle the peg i set up 4 pole rigs & a method feeder.
Rig 1, maver 1.ogr f1 float, 0.16 mainline to 0.14 h/l & 16 tosciro hook, set around 8ft deep at 5m & 11 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, same float 0.16 straight through, a size 3 175 & 13 hollo elastic ( incase the carp turned up in numbers???).
Rig 3, Preston durra 10 4x12 float 0.16 straight through, 3 175 hook for down my left margin to the next empty pallet.
Rig 4, Maver 4x12 Jurassic dibber, 0.14 to a 16 pr27 for lassoed 6mm pellet, 13 hollo elastic for up in the water.
For bait i had brought a gallon of feeder maggots half alive & half dead (the dead's are for up the edge so they don't crawl away), a bag of 4mm feed pellets for shallow, some g/bait for the method + some hook-baits.
For company on peg 28 i had Steve Robson who was the last peg on our the burr bank ( corner peg flier) & the other side on peg 32 was our leader Ollie, at least if we were not catching we could listen to Ollie's radio as he is a Man U supporter and they were playing Liverpool today.
On the whistle i put a pot of dead maggots down to the next pallet and started on the maggot at 5m, i stared to catch odd silvers after around 10 mins small roach & perch then after 20 mins i had a small carp of around a pound. There was no one catching carp so after the first hour i had got 2 small carp + a few silvers, i new Satv was catching silvers as well on maggot but i new to only 1 carp caught on the feeder by Ada on the opposite bank. So with next to no carp being caught it was just a case of getting my head down on the silvers ( if it ain't broke don't fix it).
After 2 hrs i had not had anymore carp on the pole but i was happy catching silvers most of which were swingers but the odd one was a netter, then Ollie had a carp on the method in the 4lb range and 10 mins later another i now had to go on the method as all my hard work on the silvers had all but gone. I threw the method out on the pole line at 13-14m where i had been firing the odd 4mm pellet for a shallow line with 2 dead reds on the hook, it took around 30 mins on the method to get a bite a nice 8lb carp was in the net. Ollie had 3 carp and JB on peg 34 had 1, the odd carp was now showing all over the pool and at the end of the 3rd hour i had another carp of 3-4lb on the method. Then JB done the same as Ollie he had 3 carp on the method in 3 chucks, i had a go shallow on the pellet for 10 mins as there was a few fish showing up in the water but it didn't feel right as the fish were shying away from the pole tip in the clear water even with a long line on. I went back on my 5m maggot line and caught a few silvers plus another small 1lb carp, i now had a choice to make stay on the silvers & hope for a carp or two on that or stick on the method till the end? I decided to sit on the method as the fish seemed bigger but i had no more bites at all, Ollie had 2 carp on the bounce on the end of his rod, JB had a carp on his pole line and another on the method. We were now into the last 20 mins of the match when JB hooked & landed a carp from the margins, i had been putting the odd pot of dead maggots down there from the start but hadn't tried it due to the water clarity & Steve had fished his corner margin from the start with a nice set of lily pads as well without a fish although he could see carp down there! I thought why not have a go as there was no action at all on the feeder not even a liner, i had a bite first drop in from a small roach then a small carp of 1lb oh no what had i been doing not trying it earlier but with 10 mins to go i never had another bite down there?
It had been a very hard but strange match as you got the feeling there was a lot more fish in the pool than had been caught, i had ended up with 6 carp 1 skimmer + a few silvers, JB & Ollie had around the same number of carp with no silvers but 4 of my carp were 1lb fish and there's were normal 3-4lb fish. I think JB had 6-7 carp as did Shaun on flier peg 24 so it was going to be tight at the weigh in, Steve in the corner was first to weigh who had a bad match having only 1 lump carp & bits for 11lb odd. I was next to go with 26lb 4oz which i reckoned had around 7-8lb of silvers in it, Ollie on the next peg had 22lb odd then JB putting 32lb on the scales to go into the lead. Stav had a busy match on the silvers with only 1 carp & a couple of chub fishing shallow long with maggot for 22lb odd just beating Ollie but a few oz's , Brian on the next peg having mainly carp for another 22lb weight ( that's 3 so far). John Bab on the end peg 44 on the burr had another 6-7 all carp haul for 28lb odd putting him in second place so far, the opposite side on the natural bank had fished a lot harder with 16lb the best weight until we got to Shaun on the flier peg 24 and his carp haul going 27lb to just beat me for 3rd place. The Arena had fished as hard as we had been told it was going to but at least it was a close match with no one running away with big 100lb+ weights, i don't know that if fishing the maggot was the right way to go or should i have fished the method for 5hrs? and just waited? Ollie had fished most of the match on the feeder and i had beat him but lost out to JB who had a couple on the pole but most of his fish on the feeder but at least i had plenty of bites on the maggot.
At least me & Stav Hadn't got to go to work in the morning we had just got to spend the day getting the tackle right for the forthcoming 3 days of fishing!
Sunday 12 September 2010
C.I.U Teams of 5 Larford sat 11/9/10 speci lake
I had booked the day off work for this annual event the C.I.U teams of 5 which my club Cradley Heath Labour have fished for years many different venues like the Severn, Trent, Poole hall, Blodings pools but for the last few years has been at Woodlands view. We have had some good success on this match over the years winning it a few times and producing the winner on more than one occasion. The main thing we have found out over the years fishing this event is the the organization is next to none they send one bloke normally who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery, that's why over the last few years the event has been held at Woodlands because Mike Mason has done all the hard work for them. To repay Mike for all his hard work weighing in, sorting the draw out & working the results out this year they have canceled Woodlands and moved it to Larford? Now don't get me wrong i like Larford but if they think that Phil Briscoe will do all the pegging and sorting the results out at the end they are living in cook-oo land. Stav had gone away on holiday so i was traveling with an old mate Kev Clarke and when we got there we soon found out how downhill this event has gone, 8 teams had booked in for the event and one of them didn't bother to turn up leaving 7 teams of 5. When we first had this event at Woodlands i can remember having 5 pools booked with 1 person from each team on a pool and that was your section, we were worried that the pegging on Ghost pool would be tight as every peg was in that's 20 pegs so we had 20 teams now down to 7? It might have something to to with the organization??? Yes true to form they had sent 1 old guy to run the match that hadn't got a scooby?. I did our team draw then we drew our own pegs out of the envelope i ended up with peg 16 in the middle of the lake on the burr side. I thought that our team draw was good as we were on the last peg in every section supposedly giving us 2 end pegs 1 on the burr & 1 on the chalet bank?? wrong, the C.I.U had struck again Steve Robson should have been on end peg but they had put Chris Owen on the next peg to him but all the rest of the section was on the opposite bank? Kev who i had traveled with had drawn end peg 82 and with the wind blowing into it i told him that i thought he would win the match off his peg, our other 2 pegs were Bash on 50 odd and Mark Farley on 70 odd ( the exact peg numbers escape me). When i got to my peg i found out that Big Ritchie was next to me on 17 fishing for one of our other teams ( we had 3 of the 7 teams fishing and Beach-dale from Walsall had 2 teams?). I had spoke to a couple of mates Dan & Ian who had fished the festival down here for advise and set up the following kit, the pellet wagg, straight lead and the pole at 6m. Most of the fish had been coming to the lead & pellet with a few on the pole for some reason the pellet wagg was not catching many fish, i set up 2 pole rigs both 1 gram 0.18 & 0.20 respectively 1 with a size 3 175 & a 4 175 if the were having it in around 7 feet of water. For bait i had got 2 bags of Larford 8mm pellets for the lead & wagg line, a jar of hemp and 5 tins of 8mm cubed meat for the pole line, i had also got some super g groundbait & dead reds for the method if it all went tit's up!
On the whistle i put a big pot each of hemp & meat on the 6m pole line then threw out my 1oz fox lead with a 8mm lassoed pellet to around 30-35m and started to fire 8mm pellets over the top. Ritchie on the next peg started on the lead the same and had 6-7lb carp first chuck? I had to wait 20 mins for my first fish a 5lb job, after the first hour i had got 4 fish and Ritchie was on 3 i potted some more hemp & meat on the pole line and thought that we were doing as well as anyone i could see. Over the next 30mins i couldn't get a bite yet Ritchie had 2 putting him back in the lead 4-5, i had 2 more in the next 30 mins without response from Ritchie so i was back in-front 6-5. I had the next 30mins on the pellet wagg changing depths from 12" to 4ft but it was all to no avail as i hooked only 1 fish which came off after 5 seconds, we were now at the half way point in the match and the word on the bank was that it was not fishing too good. I thought to myself that i would have another go on the lead before i tried the pole as people around me were fishing the the pole but only catching the odd skimmer & no carp. I went back on the lead and had 3 fish in the next hour putting me on 9 fish and losing 1 in the process, luckily Ritchie had stopped catching but there was the odd carp now being caught on the pole now. With 1 hour 10 mins to go i had got 10 carp & 4 skimmers but there was still the odd fish coming to the guy's on the pole so i decided to give it a go for 10 mins, but if i didn't get a bite i would have the last hour on the lead. I had feed the pole line all match with pots of hemp & corn so i put a 8mm cube of meat on and shipped out, i was just about to go back on the lead with the 10 mins up and only 2 skimmers to show for it when i hit a bite that i knew wasn't a skimmer. I soon had a 6-7lb fish in the net on the 0.18 rig & 15 hollo elastic so it made me stay on the pole a bit longer, another 10 mins went by before the next bite which was a 10lb fish. The next fish i hooked made a b-line for Ritchie in the next peg ripping loads of laccy out and soon had me adding a couple of panic sections, despite me putting the pole under the water in an attempt to slow the fish down we soon parted company the fish and broke me! Out came the 0.20 rig & 17 hollo i had 2 more fish on this rig one being around 10lb then i hooked a fish with around 5 mins left to go that pulled loads of laccy out again i just held the pole under the water and prayed! The all out was sounded but i was still playing the fish, some 5 mins after the whistle and i had got the fish to the net twice but he didn't like the look of it and the hook pulled SHIT! I would have put the fish at 15-16lb and turbo charged. God i hate losing fish! At the all out i had got 14 carp & around 6 small skimmers which i was happy with as i felt that i had got more than the guys around me and that will do for me on a team match. When the scales came up from the bottom end of the burr Chris Owen on the end peg had 67lb but my team mate Steve Robson had suffered a battering on the next peg with 30lb odd but as i said earlier Chris was not in Steves section as the rest of his section was on the chalet bank opposite ( blind pegging). There was a couple of 5olb+ weights in Steve's section ending with Ritchie who had 48lb so Steve was well down in his section, I put my fish on the scales for 88lb 6oz and i went off for a walk up the section to see how the rest had got on. There was a 49lb & 52lb on the next two pegs up then the weights got worse as they got higher up the pool, so i had won the section with 35lb+ to spare and i was well pleased to win my section for the team, Job Done! all we could do was hope that the lads on the other side had got on ok. When we got back to the cafe to sort the results out i was told that i had won the match as 70lb was the best weight off the chalet bank, Result, but this is a team match and there is nothing for individual only a team payout. Kev had won his section with 46lb, Mark has suffered a bit in the middle section with 27lb and Bash had done well in his section with 48lb, it looked like it was going to be tight as all the teams had good and bad results. After a lot of working out we won the team event after tying on points with one of our other teams and tying on section wins so we had to go back to weight overall we had 244lb the others 213lb. A good day was had by all despite the low turnout and the lack of organization from the C.I.U , I was well happy with the way i had fished it ( despite losing that lump and costing me the ton!) and the team win was great. I might have an extra stella tonight to celebrate?
On the whistle i put a big pot each of hemp & meat on the 6m pole line then threw out my 1oz fox lead with a 8mm lassoed pellet to around 30-35m and started to fire 8mm pellets over the top. Ritchie on the next peg started on the lead the same and had 6-7lb carp first chuck? I had to wait 20 mins for my first fish a 5lb job, after the first hour i had got 4 fish and Ritchie was on 3 i potted some more hemp & meat on the pole line and thought that we were doing as well as anyone i could see. Over the next 30mins i couldn't get a bite yet Ritchie had 2 putting him back in the lead 4-5, i had 2 more in the next 30 mins without response from Ritchie so i was back in-front 6-5. I had the next 30mins on the pellet wagg changing depths from 12" to 4ft but it was all to no avail as i hooked only 1 fish which came off after 5 seconds, we were now at the half way point in the match and the word on the bank was that it was not fishing too good. I thought to myself that i would have another go on the lead before i tried the pole as people around me were fishing the the pole but only catching the odd skimmer & no carp. I went back on the lead and had 3 fish in the next hour putting me on 9 fish and losing 1 in the process, luckily Ritchie had stopped catching but there was the odd carp now being caught on the pole now. With 1 hour 10 mins to go i had got 10 carp & 4 skimmers but there was still the odd fish coming to the guy's on the pole so i decided to give it a go for 10 mins, but if i didn't get a bite i would have the last hour on the lead. I had feed the pole line all match with pots of hemp & corn so i put a 8mm cube of meat on and shipped out, i was just about to go back on the lead with the 10 mins up and only 2 skimmers to show for it when i hit a bite that i knew wasn't a skimmer. I soon had a 6-7lb fish in the net on the 0.18 rig & 15 hollo elastic so it made me stay on the pole a bit longer, another 10 mins went by before the next bite which was a 10lb fish. The next fish i hooked made a b-line for Ritchie in the next peg ripping loads of laccy out and soon had me adding a couple of panic sections, despite me putting the pole under the water in an attempt to slow the fish down we soon parted company the fish and broke me! Out came the 0.20 rig & 17 hollo i had 2 more fish on this rig one being around 10lb then i hooked a fish with around 5 mins left to go that pulled loads of laccy out again i just held the pole under the water and prayed! The all out was sounded but i was still playing the fish, some 5 mins after the whistle and i had got the fish to the net twice but he didn't like the look of it and the hook pulled SHIT! I would have put the fish at 15-16lb and turbo charged. God i hate losing fish! At the all out i had got 14 carp & around 6 small skimmers which i was happy with as i felt that i had got more than the guys around me and that will do for me on a team match. When the scales came up from the bottom end of the burr Chris Owen on the end peg had 67lb but my team mate Steve Robson had suffered a battering on the next peg with 30lb odd but as i said earlier Chris was not in Steves section as the rest of his section was on the chalet bank opposite ( blind pegging). There was a couple of 5olb+ weights in Steve's section ending with Ritchie who had 48lb so Steve was well down in his section, I put my fish on the scales for 88lb 6oz and i went off for a walk up the section to see how the rest had got on. There was a 49lb & 52lb on the next two pegs up then the weights got worse as they got higher up the pool, so i had won the section with 35lb+ to spare and i was well pleased to win my section for the team, Job Done! all we could do was hope that the lads on the other side had got on ok. When we got back to the cafe to sort the results out i was told that i had won the match as 70lb was the best weight off the chalet bank, Result, but this is a team match and there is nothing for individual only a team payout. Kev had won his section with 46lb, Mark has suffered a bit in the middle section with 27lb and Bash had done well in his section with 48lb, it looked like it was going to be tight as all the teams had good and bad results. After a lot of working out we won the team event after tying on points with one of our other teams and tying on section wins so we had to go back to weight overall we had 244lb the others 213lb. A good day was had by all despite the low turnout and the lack of organization from the C.I.U , I was well happy with the way i had fished it ( despite losing that lump and costing me the ton!) and the team win was great. I might have an extra stella tonight to celebrate?
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