Stockton Reservoir 6/6/10

Hi folks, today we are going to a new venue with one of the clubs me and stav are in (Halesowen A.C) Stockton reservoir which is run by British Waterway's and have never fished before, stav and 3 other of the lads went for a sneaky practice on the Thursday before the match they had caught a few fish on the method feeder and pellet wagg. We had got 29 pegs booked ( 30 odd to 63 ) and with 25 booked in to fish meant we had little room for spare pegs. After the 45 mins journey form our our end to Stockton we were in plenty time for the 9.30 draw so a steady walk around the pool was called for after we had pooled up. My first impression of the pool was that what a good looking fishery it was, not as big as some of the other BW's waters like Earlswood, Boddington & Drayton but what it lacked in size it certainly made up for in looks. We had tried to get as much info as possible about the place and we had heard that pegs 48 & 49 were fliers looking at the end of an island peg 49 was a corner peg as well with 48 & 47 out due to weed and being to close as to stop people throwing over each other. Once we saw the peg we thought that it would be all over if someone half decent drew it. At the draw i went into the bag and picked up a ticket that big ritchie had put back after he had picked up 2 that were stuck together it was peg 45, stav had drew peg 62 on the first island by the access. When i got to my peg i was faced with a very fishy looking island around 30m away which i thought would be and advantage with lots of pegs in and only around 7 pegs had an island to throw to. I had decided before the match to attack the venue much the same as i would at Earlswood with the pellet wagg, straight lead & method feeder, i had brought the pole as well ( sorry one of stav's old poles not wanting to break my match pole) but as we new the fish run big 20lb+ i only set up one rig for the margins with 0.22 line to a size 10 maver mt5 hook and red hydro. I set up 1 wagg rod and the lead rod leaving my splasher wagg and method rod in the bag? While i had been setting up i was watching a flock! yes a flock some 20+ Canadian geese preening them self's over by my island standing up and not getting there ankles wet? This meaning the water was very shallow so i thought that the wagg and lead would make less disturbance than the method? and it was way to shallow for the splasher wagg it would get stuck in the mud? I set up a 3ssg styro pellet wagg shoted with a mayo connector, 5lb maxima mainline, 0.20 slistar h/l to a size 12 pr27 and a half ounce lead with 8lb max mainline, o.22 silstar to a size 10 maver mt5 on my trusty old silstar heavy feeder rod. I had got 3ft of water in the margin and when i asked the guys either side of me they hadn't got much more out in front of them i didn't bother to go any further out, a couple of exploratory casts reveled that there was a lot of weed over by the island as every time i cast too close to a weed bed i could see just under the surface some 10ft short of the island the lead was covered in fine silk weed. For bait i had brought 3 bags of 10mm halibut pellets some g/bait, 5 tins of corn, some halibut paste, 1 tin of cat food & various bollies for the hook.
On the whistle i put 2 big preston pots of corn with a few lumps of cat fodder down my left hand margin and started on the pellet wagg, after around 10 mins 1 hooked my first carp which tore off through the weed bed (due to me not tightening the clutch up enough??) and i lost the lot? Great! fish 1, westy 0, waggs 1 a good start, after tackling up again i soon hooked fish no2 this one went into the same weed bed but after around a minute of see-sawing through the submerged weed bed my hooklength broke? Shit? fish 2 westy 0. Time to play no more mr nice guy, the next fish i hooked shot off to my right away from the weed bed and i put the brakes locked the rod up and pumped soon i was netting a 10lb angry mirror. Better, carp 2 westy 1? the next fish got the same treatment but a smaller 6lb'er was in the net, the first hour had passed and a quick call from stav reveled he had got 2 fish as well but couldn't see anyone else catching no one by me was catching either. The next 3 hours followed the same sort of pattern getting odd fish out and loosing odd ones too, but what i couldn't grasp was why had the british waterways had cut the bull rushes some 6 inches under the water instead of pulling them out by the roots??? This made the fishing harder as the fish were feeding on top of the cut off weed very reluctant to come out, i could see the fish feeding on top of the weed bed on my pellets tails up waving at me? With an hour to go i had got 7 fish and had lost 5 i needed to go into the weeds to get a bite i had shortend my hook-length to 5 inches and was casting on top of the weeds, if i didn't get a bite straight away and the wind dragged the float my hook bait was covered in weed. I had only had 1 bite on the straight lead and never bothered looking on my margin swim as the guys either side of me had tried it without success. With around 45 mins to go i had 2 more fish in the net then hooked a fish which kited off left the first fish of the day that had done so, after apologizing to bob in the next as the fish tried to run through his peg i applied some more pressure to it and got the fish into open water ( or so i thought? ) then as i pulled the top end of what looked like a 3lb tc carp rod appeared form the lake like Excalibur? The fish took one look at the rod promptly broke me leaving my wagg attached to the rod fishless and pulling for a break, the rod sank back down leaving me tackling up yet again. I landed 2 more fish then with 15 mins left to go i hooked another fish which shot off left SHIT the rod, i got up off my box and walked to the edge of my platform trying to coax the fish away from where the sunken rod was!! No chance as i pulled this time more of the rods top came out of the water the fish came off again!B*****s this time as i pulled for a break again the carp rod stood up on end some 20lb line which was connected to the island and swim feeder as big as a half pint glass came from the deep, what a mess? The whistle went and i sat on my box packing up hoping that the 7 fish i had lost wouldn't cost me as the word along the bank was that a few people had caught carp in the last hour. We started to weigh in from our first peg in the 30's the scales soon reveled that our bank had fished very hard with only 2 lads breaking 20lb+, my 11 fish went 82lb 5oz and from the word on the bank that would be enough to win. As i walked back to the car park ollie on the flier had got 5 fish for 35lb after switching to the pellet wagg in the last 2 hours, the best weight on our other set of scales was baz with 51lb and i had won the match by 30lb+ Great. The news got better later as i had won the match off one of the bonus pegs ( i could now afford buy some more pellet wagglers?) so with a couple of beers outside the pub at the end of the lane the results were done.
1st me 82lb
2nd baz robson 51lb
3rd ollie 35lb odd
4th s.robson 35lb odd
Stav had won his section with 31lb ( must try harder ) i was just glad that that the lost fish didn't cost me anything. PS If annyone reading this has lost a carp rod in Stockton res your rod is sticking out of the water on peg 45 TWAT.