Blythe Pairs Winter League Sunday 30/10/11

This weekend saw us back at Blythe Waters for the start of this years pairs winter league which me and my travelling/fishing partner Jon (Stavros) Baker are the defending champions the title we won earlier this year in May. This year we had decided to limit the league to 9 pairs as we are only going to use one pool Cherries, last year we had it on two pools to re-leave some of the pressure off the Cherries pool as the league was getting more popular with 13 pairs which is to many to have on one pool so we used Bridge pool as well, so this year was a first come first served basis. We had planned to come up for a practise the in the week leading up to the match but I failed to get the time off work so we were going to have to rely on passed knowledge of the venue, the weather was still very mild for the time of the year in fact the temperature went up to 15c and I fished in a t-shirt all day is this 2 days before November! We walked around the pool before the draw and it was like a lot of pools around the country at the moment suffering from a low water, the scaffold tubes that hold the floating boom down that runs along the length of the pool were now around 2 1/2ft out of the water where normally they are around 1ft out so the pool has lots around 18 inches. I sent Stav up for the draw so I could blame him if we got bad pegs he came back with peg 20 for me and 29 for him two very good pegs so it was now down to us to catch a few and we had no excuses off these pegs not to do well, My peg 20 is the last peg in A section and a corner peg with a long right-hand edge to it's self and probably the shortest pole reach to the boom at 13m, Stav's peg 29 is around 14.5m to the boom and has threw up a few good weights over the years as with next door peg 30 the both stick out on a point making them able to reach the boom the peg either side 28 & 31 have to throw a feeder/wagg to reach it. I have won a Halesowen club match off peg 20 a couple of years ago with 78lb caught mainly shallow by the boom, a lot of people catch well from the edge on this peg where as well as the usual Carp there is also a few Chub that hang the reeds down the edge so this was how I was going to attack the peg. I planned to fish pellet shallow & on the deck up to the boom and fish worm & caster down the edge at 13m with a back up pellet/corn line down the edge at 6m where I could feed by hand.

Rig 1, 13m shallow pellet rig 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber, 0.16 Silstar to a 16 Preston PR27 hook with a lasso for a 6mm hard pellet fished from1 to 2 1/2ft deep with Preston 13 hollo elastic.

Rig 2, 13m on the deck rig for pellet or corn, 4 x 14 Maver Jona, with the same line and elastic as above but with a size 3 Tubertini 175 hook.

Rig 3, 13m edge rig for worm, Preston Durra 10 4x12 float, 0.16 line to a 3 175 hook, with black hydro elastic set on the deck in 3ft of water.

Rig 4, 6m pellet/corn line all the same as above but only around 2 1/2ft deep.

For bait I had brought the usual array of pellets from micro-8mm as you could be feeding 4-6mm pellets for a shallow line like today or feeding 6-8mm pellets for the pellet wagg on one of the wider pegs or micro's for the method on the same wide pegs so you have to bring everything at this time of the year to cover all eventuality's depending on your draw, I had also brought 2 pints of casters, 3/4 of a kilo of worms (which I failed to use a couple of weeks ago on a Chubbing match on the canal), a couple of tins of corn and a few 6mm expanders for the hook.

I started off by feeding a pot of worm/caster with the odd grain of in on the 13m edge line and fed a few 4mm pellets with the odd grain of corn on the 6m edge line for later, I mounted a 6mm hard pellet onto the lasso and shipped out to the boom with the rig set around 18 inches deep and started to fire 6-8 4mm pellets over the top. Only 5mins into the match and after lifting and dropping the rig every time I fed to try and simulate the loose pellets falling through the water the float carried on down the hole and my 13hollo elastic following, I shipped back a bit sharp to get the fish away from some roots that were trailing underneath the boom from some bushes that had been cropped off above but they had left the roots in. I had found these roots while plumbing up with the deck rig and for that reason I had put a short no4 into my pole and added my 14.5m section to give me a bit more reach so I was feeding a line around 1m away from the roots along the boom, the fish was soon in the net a common of around 3lb and a welcome start to the match so early on. Another 2-3 mins later the same again only a smaller 1lb sample this time and the next put-in I didn't have time to feed before the elastic was pulled from the pole, the first hour followed suit with 10 carp all falling to my shallow attack most of them in the 1-2lb bracket a bit on the small side but as far as I could see up the top end of the pool I was doing a lot better than everyone else I was not complaining. As I re-fed my worm line for later on I saw Stav land another fish in the distance which I had seen him do a couple of times the first hour out of the corner of my eye so at least we were both catching, but as I was the furthest peg up the pool I couldn't see the guy's on the disabled pegs & bay pegs in my section so I just had to get my head down and catch as much as I could. Back out on the shallow rig and Carp no11 was soon hooked but this one hadn't read the script and ploughed straight through the trailing roots off the end of the boom, after trying different angles to pull the fish out of the roots I was sure the fish had gone just leaving my rig attached to the roots some 13m away and as I pulled for a break my 13hollo elastic broke at the bottom end of my pulla kit and shot over to the boom, Great de-elasticated. After a bit of swearing I calmed down and got another top kit from my holdall deciding to up the elastic to black hydro to get the fish away from the boom a bit quicker as the fish grow big in here up to 20lb! It took me around 20mins to get a bite back on the shallow rig and it looked like the disturbance of loosing that fish had spooked them off a bit but at around 5-6lb it was a better stamp of fish, another 20mins passed before I landed another fish this one around 4lb so maybe the bigger fish had moved in pushing the stockie's out of the way in-between these two fish I had pulled out of a couple making me think that the elastic was a bit too strong? But what do you do fish lighter and risk them getting stuck in the roots again? I decided to have a look on the edge worm line and rest the shallow line for a while, first put-in with a worm head on the hook I hooked a fish that shot off along the edge of the reeds towards empty peg 21 I applied as much side-strain as I could without my pole breaking but couldn't stop the fish ploughing through the reeds and shedding the hook leaving me stuck up again only this time some 16m away! Shit! luckily this time I only lost the rig 2 put-ins loosing 2-0 to the carp! After sorting another rig all I hooked was a couple of small roach & a skimmer so I put a big pot of feed in and had a quick look on the 6m margin but after only 5mins without a bite I was back on the worm line, this time the float buried and I pulled as hard as I dared a 6lb common came out spitting water around 30 seconds after being hooked! A've it. Another carp of 3lb was all I could extract from the worm line before all the bites dried up another 15mins later on the shallow rig and I was now struggling to get a bite of any description, with around 3 1/2 of the match gone I picked up the deck rig put a 6mm expander on the hook and shipped out to the boom within 30 seconds I had a 3lb carp and a 1lb skimmer next put-in. Just when I thought I had found them again the 2 bites in the deck was all I could muster and a quick look on both my margin lines produced just 2 small Roach, now we were into the last hour so I was going to stick to the shallow rig which I had most of my fish on and over the next half hour had 5 small Carp in the 8oz-1 1/2lb bracket. With around 15mins left I hooked a bigger fish which found the roots hanging below the boom and the same as the one after the first hour I had to pull for a break loosing the rig this time but leaving my elastic in the pole, that was the end of the action for me but Ollie on peg 19 next to me hooked a fish a few minutes before the whistle he had only had 4 Carp all day but this one wasn't playing ball. A few minutes after the whistle a big swirl erupted by Ollie's net as he tried to net the beast I saw the tail of the fish it was BIG, after another attempt with the net Ollie managed to get the fish in and I shouted " Has anyone got a saddle for this one Ollie could ride this one home" later the scales revealed the fish to be 18lb 8oz! I told you they grow em big up here!. I packed in and walked down to the bay end of my section pegs 8 & 10 where Steve & Chris had fished both of them saying it had fished hard with Steve only having 1 Carp and Chris having 2 lumps in the last half hour to get him our of jail as he was dry until then, it looked like this end of the lake had fished hard as the first three pegs on the disabled pegs in my section weighed in no one broke double figures, Steve's 1 Carp was 4lb and Chris's 2 late get out of jail lumps went 20lb, there was another 20lb+ weight before Ollie put 35lb on the scales with that last lump doubling his weight he had got 4 other Carp to go with it. I had got 20 Carp but with around 13-14 of them under 2lb a big weight was not on the cards but I was more than happy to win the section with 51lb 8oz, I had to have a word with Carl the gaffer about the roots in the peg and the gear I had lost he said he would sort it out, I could understand the ones I lost up the edge on the reeds but there is no need for roots trailing off the boom it would take less than a minute to cut them out with a knife and a boat! Carl himself had caught a few fish on the feeder and up in the water to put 36lb on the scales to put him in the lead in his section Stav said it would be close as he might have around the same weight, there was a couple of 20lb+ weights in the section then Stav put his fish on to reveal 40lb odd and with only 2 left to weigh in his section he was sitting pretty, the other 2 weighed 16lb & 12lb to give Stav the section win and us the perfect start to the league with 2 section wins and a perfect score along with 1st & 2nd on the match. Rock on a great start to the league long may it continue.