Meadowlands Warren Pool Sun 12/6/11

This weekend saw me fishing a Halesowen A.C club match at Meadowlands nr Coventry on the smaller of the two pools on-site Warren pool, this would be a new one for me and most of the members apart from the few lads that had been up in the week for a sneaky practice! Tut tut. The lads who had been up had found out that the pool had lost a lot of water due to the country wide drought and with the pool only 4-5ft at normal level it was very shallow in parts, the low water level combined with most of the carp spending the last week or so spawning didn't bode well for a big weight match. The lads had caught the odd carp & skimmer in the week with JB doing the best with around 35-40lb which tied in with a bit of info i got from Joe Roberts through a mutual friend he said that the last Saturday match was won with 40lb and the mid-week afternoon match was won with 47lb, he also said that on most of the pegs the method feeder was the best approach with the pole line coming better later in the day unless you can find a pocket of skimmers on the pole which would be worth going for the way it was fishing. The weather man had forecast heavy rain all day so i dug out the brolly which i hate sitting under and don't usually carry it but didn't fancy sitting out in it all day, the weather looked ok when i woke up at around 6am but after a good breakfast with my chauffeur for the day Johnny Bab we hit the motorway at 8am and i can honestly say it never stopped raining all day and we didn't get back until around 6pm! With a bit of time to spare before the 9.30am draw Jon and i went for a walk around the pool and the first thing that struck me was how steep the banks were making it look more like a natural pool than a man made commercial, there was a lot of carp milling around in the margins up the far end of the pool where it narrows down into dead arm but it looked like they were getting over the rigors of spawning. Just on looks i fancied drawing the left hand-side of the pool as it looked fishy with trees & bushes in-between the pegs and pretty straight, the bank opposite was more of a bay shape and with next to no features down the sides it didn't look as appealing, the last 2 pegs up the dead arm looked really good and i fancied one of these to take the money. At the draw i pulled out peg 31 in an area by the car park which were set back from the main pool in a bay with just three of us in this bay there were a few spare pegs up either side to stop people casting over each other, the peg looked ok but when you are fishing a pool for the first time you just don't know it might be solid or it might be crap? there was a big overhanging tree passed the empty pallet on peg 30 to my right other than that the peg looked the same as a lot of the other pegs. I set up 3 pole rigs and a method feeder to attack the peg-
Rig 1, 13m pole line, Maver Jona 4x12 float, 0.16 mainline to a 0.14 hooklength and a size 3 Tubertini 175 hook, all the shot bulked 8 inches from the hook in 2 1/2 feet of water, with 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 6m pole line, the same float as above but 0.18 line straight through to a size 4 175 and black hydro elastic.
Rig 3, 14.5m edge rig, 4x10 Preston durra 10 float, 0.18 straight through to a size 3 175 and black hydro elastic.
Rig 4, Shimano 9-11 Beastmaster rod, Shimano Stradic 4000gtm reel, 8lb maxima mainline, a 24 gram Guru x-safe method feeder to size 14 Preston PR27 hook and 0.20 hooklength.
For bait i had brought 4 pints of casters, 1 kg of worms, 2 tins of 8mm cubed meat, 2 pints of hemp, 2 tins of corn, a bag of Ringers micro pellet method mix and a few different hook baits for the method red and white 8mm boilies, 6 & 8mm pellets and a tub of 10mm Baitech pop-up boilies.
I planned to fish worm and caster on the 13m pole line and down the edge to the tree, i was going to feed meat & hemp on the 6m line in the hope of carp later in the match and i had clipped up the method at around 40m after a few casts around the peg it seemed like the peg was very flat and the same depth all over.
The rain was really pouring down and i was glad that i had brought the brolly to sit under as most of the wind seemed to be coming off our backs for the 3 of us on this bank we were protected a bit from the steep bank the guys on the other side had got it side or front on all day, which claimed at least 3 brolly's by the end of the day, nice (one of the reasons i hate them).
On the all-in i fed my 3 pole lines and chucked out the method feeder with a 8mm white boilie on sat back and awaited the action, after around 30mins i had my first bite which turned out to be a 1lb skimmer and looking around the pool i hadn't seen anyone get of to a flying start. After around 50mins i looked up to see John Bill 2 pegs away playing a carp when my tip flew around and i was into my first carp of the day, a nice 8lb common was the culprit and although it had been a slow start the way the pool had been fishing the last week it only looked like you would need 6-8 good fish and you would be in with a chance. That first fish made me stick to the method for another hour which only produced i more skimmer despite trying all different hook baits i couldn't find another carp, so with 2 hours of the match gone it was time to have a look on the pole i put on a worm head filled the kinder pot of my worm mix and shipped out to 13m trying to keep the pot out of the water i had to stand up to ship out down the awkward high bank! 10mins on the pole i was still waiting my first bite which came not long after in the shape of a 3oz roach, another 10mins and roach no2 was in the net with his mate, a perch of a similar size was my 3rd bite so after 30mins on the pole i had amassed a massive 8-10oz great this pool is supposed to be solid with skimmers but not in my peg. 10mins on the margin line only produced a small rudd and the 6m line just 1 perch on the meat i was soon back on the method as i thought if you got a bite on this it was more than likely to be a carp, looking around the pool it was fishing very hard with just odd fish coming out Stu on peg 6 seemed to have the most with 3 good carp although i could only see around half the pegs. With 3 hours of the match gone JB hooked his second carp on the pole and i needed to make something happen as i was going nowhere fast with no liners or signs of bites on the feeder i had another look under the tree down the edge, after 5mins the float buried and my black hydro went screaming across the lake at a good rate of knots the elastic was bottoming out i just hoped the 0.18 would hold as big fish in very shallow water don't like being hooked. After a good battle a 10lb fish was my prize and with around 1 3/4 hours left to go it looked like Joe Roberts had been right in saying that the fish turn up later on the pole line, but another 20mins went passed without anymore action and a look on my other 2 pole lines was called for. Despite trying different baits i couldn't get another bite on anything and JB was starting to catch on his pole line Phil in-between us had got 1 carp and with the last hour upon us i decided to stick with the margin for the remainder of the match, i hooked and landed 3 good carp in the last hour from under the tree all on worm to finish the match with 5 and around 3lb of bits. The carp were all good fish in the 6-10lb bracket but JB had got around the same in carp plus a few skimmers, Phil had ended up with 3 and a few silvers.
I walked around the right hand side of the pool to help John & Phil weigh-in as there was another set of scales on the tree lined bank we had only got to weigh-in one side of the pool, the first 2 pegs we got to were the two i fancied before the start pegs 15 & 16 up the narrow end of the pool but they failed to produced much with 16 & 26lb respectively, we heard that Stuart on peg 6 in the trees had got 8 carp all on the method feeder and looked to have a lot more than anybody else was owning up to. Ade's 26lb was the best weight up to Baz Robson who put 29lb on the scales but there was a lot of low weights, that 29lb was the best off that bank which just left the 3 of us in the car park bank to weigh-in i was the first to go putting 45lb 13oz on the scales, Phil had 19lb odd but JB just pipped me by 2oz with 45lb 15oz. Stu's carp went 51lb after a disaster at the weigh-in with Bob & Jeff missing the weigh sling with one of Stu's fish which slid straight down the bank and back into the pool OOPS! Luckily it didn't cost him as he won the match anyway Stu said it was his biggest fish 12-13lb which had been his first fist of the day, lucky for Bob & Jeff that it didn't cost Stu the match as Stu is 6ft 5in and built like a brick shit-house he was wee bit pissed off to say the least! Shaun Waite had 47lb for 2nd made up of 4 carp and around 20lb of skimmers the only one of the day to find them in any numbers JB in 3rd and leaving me 4th by 2oz fair play (Jammy b*****d), i was left wondering what might have been if the fish had come sooner under the bush the size of the fish 1 more carp and i would have won the match but that would have been cruel on Stu. We were all glad to get back in the cars and on the way back home as if anyone who reads this fished on this Sunday will know what i mean when i say that everything was soaked swimming with water it really slashed it down all day, it's going to take a week to dry all the gear out!

Cob House Open Wednesday 1/6/11

At last i managed to get out fishing midweek as Stav had booked the week off to do some work at home (in-between fishing!) and i had changed my usual Tuesday day off to the Wednesday we decided to fish the open at Cob house, today's match was to be held on Laugherne Island where we had fished a couple of weeks ago with a 1st & 2nd we were hoping for more of the same and i was hoping for an early birthday present as this was the day before my 21st!!! (HA!HA!HA!!!) please stop falling about laughing yes i know double it (42?). After another top class breakfast at the on site Mayfly cafe (i must get some more jeans as mine are getting a bit tight after these things!) we were ready for the draw, i got peg 27 just a few away from where i had won our club match from and Stav drew peg 20 in the wind assisted corner! nothing changes does it. I planned to fish method up the island pellet & corn at 6m and maggot down the edge much the same as i has fished the club match (if it ain't broke!), i also set up a shallow rig as peg 27 is next to an aerator which is at 14.5m but this limits you to only 1 edge as the rope that holds the aerator to the bank is right next to you and i didn't fancy playing carp under the rope with the expensive carbon stick! The rigs were the same as on the club match so i won't go through them in detail, for bait i had got a bag of micro pellets for the method, a bag of 4mm's for the short pole line with a couple of tins of corn and 4 pints of dead maggots for the edge plus a few live ones for the hook. I started the match on the feeder as per norm and after making 5-6 quick casts to get some bait in sat back and awaited the action but the first half hour went passed without a sign but looking around the pool there was only odd fish coming out, i had tried red, white and natural pellet without success i had also tried corn but had to wait until 45mins before my first pull-round and carp no1 was in the net. Next chuck and carp no2 was in the sack with both of them in the 4-5lb bracket things had started to look-up but i had to wait another 15mins for carp no3 they weren't playing the game, i decided to have a look on the shallow rig by the aerator as there was the odd fish cruising around and Rob Swain on peg 22 had a couple of fish shallow in the first hour. I had been feeding some 4mm pellets at the aerator all the time i had been on the feeder so shipped out to 14.5m with a 6mm lassoed pellet on and waited for the 13h to get ripped out of the pole! No nothing i tried from 6inches to 2ft deep but after 15mins of spinning the rig and pinging pellets at the float it refused to go under so i gave it up as a bad job and went back on the feeder, the guy's either side of me were both fishing paste at 8-10m with odd carp and skimmers but with the usual lots of missed bites. I picked off odd fish on the feeder but couldn't get a constant flow of regular bites i gave the short pole a go but with just 2 carp and 2 skimmers in after around 45mins of fishing it i was wondering if the fish had got other things on there mind, there had been a match on the pool 2 days before on the bank holiday Monday and coupled with the sign's of fish swimming around in pairs and groups i was beginning to wonder if it was just one of those days. I had a couple of early looks on the maggot margin line without any success so with around 3 hours of the match gone i was at a loss as what to do next as the pegs to my left all seemed to be catching better than me but the pegs to my right were not, the pegs to my right were having just odd fish as was i so needed to make something happen quick i decided to go shit or bust by upping the feed on both pole lines. With only 1 margin line to feed i potted 3 big pots of dead's down there while fishing the short pole lines as bites has totally dried up on the feeder, i started to catch carp on the corn over pellet not big fish 3-5lb but at least i was now getting a few fish the but the guy to my left was having bigger fish on the paste though. I was happy catching a few fish but with the last hour fast approaching i thought i had got around 60-70lb in the net which is not good down here, i had a look at the margin for the 4th time in the day as i had seen a few swirls down there again as i had before but managed to miss them all as i thought they were starting to spawn. The float sailed away and i was playing a better fish a nice 8lb lump, with 1 hour left to go i could see a few fish down the edge now so i decided to put a 3rd net in as there is a 5olb rule on the nets here, i managed to land 6 good fish from down the edge on the maggot in the last hour all in the 6-10lb class with the last one coming just before the all out. I was left wondering what i might have had if the margin lumps had turned up sooner i new i had got around the ton mark but had been at a loss for most of the day searching for bites, that is how this fishery goes you know that you need to catch lots of fish to do any good i know that it sounds mad but i was not happy with myself. Scott read out my weight of 116lb 8oz that put me 4th so far but he had not weighed-in half the pool yet! I felt that the peg was worth a few more fish around half way through the match the breeze got up a bit and i hit the island 4 times on the bounce with the feeder and i was clipped up! i was hitting the clip harder to compensate for the wind but hit island instead, i basically didn't fish very tidy at all. When feeding my margin line with maggots i was throwing them against the wind and they were spreading out too far i should have potted them instead to keep them tighter, when i started putting the maggot in a kinder pot i was getting better positive bites. The guy to my left had 104lb and the guy to my right had 68lb, Rob Swain had 76lb and Stav in the corner had 92lb moaning that there was too much scum leaves & twigs down the edge to catch there properly, the best weight on the other bank was 102lb so i had ended up 4th but was still beating myself up for what i thought was a poor performance, yes i know moaning at 116lb of fish? Still a bad day's fishing is still better than a good day's work any day! The top 3 all came from the same area to my left maybee this is just a better area? It is the same area i won our club match from?

Cob house Open Results Weds 1st June

14 fished laugherne Island

Dan Tresgine 158.4 Peg 35
Gary Smith 124.11 Peg 31
Scotty Poynton 119.10 Peg 33
Simon West 116.8 Peg 27

104,102,92,91,76,68,54

Moorlands Farm Silver Pool Sunday 29/5/11

This weekend saw me fishing a Halesowen A.C club match at Moorlands Farm Silver pool which would be a new one for me and a lot of the club members having never fished it before, i had done a bit of homework beforehand asking a few people who have fished it and based on the information i got it seemed like a straight forward pellet job fishing for the f1.s. There was one big problem i thought that would make this match a bit hard there was a 130+ peg Fish '0' Mania qualifier on the complex the day before! With all the bait and the pressure of the day before i was going to take it easy on the feed and fish light rigs, the general conscious of opinion that it was going to fish hard was confirmed as we were eating breakfast in the Moorlands cafe a couple of lads that had fished the Fish '0' the day before said that 50lb was the best off there! With 2 good anglers Grant Albutt & Steve Pearce packing in before the end signs weren't looking good for a fast action packed day, coupled with quite a strong side wind blowing down the pool towards pegs 46 & 1 ( which looked like good wind assisted end pegs ) we were in for a hard day by the looks of it. With all that aside it was still better than being at work so into the draw bag i went and out popped peg 10 which looked the same as all the other pegs apart from the end pegs of course, i new from my homework that the pool is very shallow with only 3ft on the long pole line and 18" at 4m but with the strong side wind i decided to scrap the long pole line from the start and try to get good presentation by fishing short. By asking different people i knew that the f1's and carp in the pool feed on the short line without having to wait too long before they come in maybe due to the narrowness of the pool? There is a 14.5m limit on this pool because that is the middle of the pool! So i was going to base my attack at 4m and down both sides, i did set up a shallow rig but never used it as i was told they catch odd fish up in the water but it rarely wins a match due to how shallow the pool is, the 2 pole rigs i used were:-
Rig 1, 4m line 0.30gr Maver Invincible series 7 float, 0.16 mainline to a h/l of 0.14 and a 16 tosciro hook, bulk shotted with 8 & 10 stotz 6" from the hook and a no 8 stotz back shot to try and combat the wind and tow, finished with Mosella yellow 7-10 elastic and a pulla bung.
Rig 2, margin rig 4m for both sides, 0.20gr float the same as above in around a foot of water, the same hook, line and elastic.
For bait i had brought the 2 pints of 4mm pellet from the on site shop as per the fishery rules and 3 pints of dead maggots to make up 5 pint bait limit as this is all you are allowed at Moorlands 1 pint of bait per hour, for the hook i had brought just some 4 & 6mm expander's a hand full of corn and a few live maggots. I was going to feed pellets at 4m and down the left-hand margin and just feed maggots down my left-hand side where there were a few reeds.
On the whistle i shipped out on the 4m line with a 4mm expander on the hook and started to trickle in just 6 feed pellets on both of my pellet lines and some 20-30 dead maggots down the reeds hoping that some of the proper carp would move in later on, less than a minute into the match and i hooked my first f1 of the day a 120z jobbie was in the net soon followed by another not long after. After the first half hour i had got 10 f1's and missed a few bites as is par for the course when fishing for these fish but just when i thought the peg was solid the bites slowed down to a stop, over the next half hour i managed just 2 more fish and i was left wondering what had happened surely i hadn't fed too much only feeding 5-6 pellets every put-in? I tried adding half a section replacing the long no4 with a short no4 and the no5 too see if the fish had shied away a bit but to no avail, i tried both margins with only the maggot line producing 1 f1 and a couple of small roach. The word on the bank was that it was fishing very hard as we all expected so although my peg had slowed right down at least i had caught a few most of the f1's were in the 8oz-1lb, all i could do was pick off the odd fish and hope that they came back in force or a few bigger carp moved in later on. On the maggot margin line i had a couple of 6oz skimmers a couple of nice 10-12oz perch in with the odd f1 i did briefly hook a better carp on but it came off after only around 10 seconds and a few yards of elastic we parted company ( i think it was foul-hooked), i just got my head down and kept ringing the changes on the 4m line with 4 & 6mm expanders, corn and maggot getting odd bites to keep my net ticking over but try as i may i never had a bite all day down my left-hand margin all match! With around 30mins of the match to go i started to catch as fast as i did in the first half hour putting around another 8 f1's in the net but with 10mins of the match left i hooked a good fish which tore off a rate of knots, with only a light soft elastic in the top kit it shot off down the pool in the shallow water which had me adding a couple of sections in an attempt to stop getting broke, after a while the fish started coming back with me using the pulla-bung but i could feel the rig doing the zig-zag sideways motion typical of a foul-hooked fish. After a short but hard fight a 4lb foul-hooked common was in the net and worth around 4-5 f1's i was hoping for another before the whistle, i hooked a f1 seconds before the all-out but as i struck at the bite there was a big swirl next to my float as another 4-5lb was spooked by the strike it looked like the better fish had come for a feed right at the end of the match typical! I had finished with 43 f1's, 1 carp and a few silvers. We started to weigh-in from the top end peg 22 down to peg 2 as we used 2 sets of scales 1 on each bank, one or 2 had struggled with the average weight 15-22lb and JB the best with 27lb odd, Jeff to left had 19lb my bag went 45lb 13oz putting me in the lead so far, Andy to my right had 23lb and with another 2 weights of 20-23lb further down put me first on my side of the pool. To my surprise Dave Wood in the much fancied end peg 46 managed on 20lb so things were looking good. A quick shout over to the other side reveled that Baz Robson had the best weight from that side with 35lb odd of better fish on paste meaning i had won the match. I was well pleased to have won the match after doing a lot of homework on a venue that i had never fished before taking time setting rigs up and trying to feed the peg right in the conditions, i fed 2 lines most of the day with pellets only giving up on the margin line in the last hour as i felt the fish would never come there but i didn't use 1 pint of pellets all day! It was great winning this match as it meant i had done the HA-TRICK winning all 3 of my last matches. The usual mickey tacking was all in good fun comments like " where are you going on your summer holidays this year what we have paid for?" or " you may as-well only work 3 days a week with what you are winning at the weekend".