Cob House Sunday 1/4/12

Today we were on Wyatts pool at Cob House near Worcester for a Halesowen club match and after the disaster on the canal last week I was looking forward to catching some fish, I know its a bit early in the year but this match had been voted for the fur and feather at the A.G.M due to us rotating the 3 different venues river,canal & pool. 24 of us had turned up for this one which was going to be a bit tight on the pool has Wyatts has only got 30 pegs and although we had had some good weather lately we were greeted by a white frosty morning so I didn't think that the big weights that come from this pool on the opens was on the cards, after another great breakfast in the Mayfly cafe we did the draw and I pulled out peg 4 and Stav got peg 26 ( flier where a mate of mine James had won the open from the previous Saturday with 202lb! ) I wasn't really bothered about the draw as this pool is normally even all the way around. The weight James had the week before had been caught shallow but with the frosty start I was a bit sceptical as to weather it would work today but after a quick word with Scott in the cafe he assured me they were still up, I have fished this pool a few times before and normally you can catch from 2-4m out but would it be too close this early in the year and with nearly every peg in it was a bit tight. The water level on most of the pools here is low at the moment like a lot of other pools and lakes in the area Wyatts is no exception you can still fish off the bank or you are allowed by the fishery to put a platform in the water which I prefer to do instead of sitting 3ft off the water level like a garden gnome, after setting up my platform in the water I could see there were fish cruising just under the surface all over the pool mostly on the long pole line as Scott had said it was just going to be a case weather they wanted to be caught or not. I set up 4 pole rigs to cover my peg
Rig 1, 13m deck rig 4 x 16 Maver Jona, 0.18 mainline to 0.14 hooklength and a 16 Tosciro hook, 13 hollo elastic set just touching the bottom in 7ft of water ( I thought this pool had no water in it! I have never drawn up this end before ).
Rig 2, 13m shallow rig 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber with the same line and elastic as above but with a 18 Preston PR 27 hook and Bait band on the hair.
Rig 3, top 2+ short 4 (3m), 4x14 Maver Jona with the same line & hook as rig 1.
Rig 4, I did set up a margin rig but with the pegs in both sides didn't fancy it and never bothered using it.
The bait for today was simple a 3 pint bag of fishery 4mm pellets which at £3 is great value for money (unlike some fishery's!) some 6mm hard pellets for the hair rigs and some 6mm expanders, 1 tin of corn, I did bring some dead maggots just in-case I drew an end peg or one with a empty peg I didn't so I left them in the bag.
At the all in I didn't feed any of my lines with a pot I just started on the 3m line with a 6mm expander on the hook and fed half a dozen pellets over the top every now and then, I have found out on previous occasions if the fish are there in numbers and you feed too much the fish just come off the bottom and you end up suffering from liners and foul-hookers. Despite feeding carefully and working the rig after 10 bite-less minutes I soon realised that the fish weren't on this line yet and picked up the shallow rig as there were fish cruising about further out, Ade next to Stav had one shallow first put-in so out went the rig at 13m with a 6mm white Sensas pellet on the lasso set around 18" deep I fired around 6-8 4mm pellets around the float spun the rig and my 13 hollo elastic came out of the pole as Carp no1 was on. The fish in this pool average 1-3lb this one was around 1 1/2lb and this set the pattern until the end of the first hour when my fish counter read 12 fish and while not setting the world on fire I was happy with this as I was catching better than those around me, Stav and Ade were also catching opposite so I just got my head down and tried to keep a good rhythm up keeping the bite rate up by altering my feeding and depths as the fish were clearly not going mad.
By the end of the second hour I had got 25 fish but I was having to work hard at it as after every 2-3 fish they would just vanish for 5mins until they came back or you found them again but by spinning the rig this seemed to get you more bites than just feeding and lifting the rig, now and then I came back in on the 3m line and managed 3-4 fish before they drifted off again I think this was due to the amount of people on the pool and a cold night. The rest of the match was followed the same pattern until disaster struck with around an hour to go I hooked into a fish on the 13m shallow line and as I shipped back with the 13 & 11.5m in my hands the rest of my pole came apart and shot into the pool (SHIT!!!!), I was just about to jump in after my top 7 sections when I realised that I had got my waders on and there was 4 1/2ft f water on the 3m line I had to stop myself from jumping otherwise I would have sunk like a stone. The pole remained afloat going forwards and back at one point I thought it was coming back but with nothing to grab a hold of the Carp pulled it back into the middle of the pool, my main worry now was that there was a rope next to me with the aerator attached and the Carp was dragging it dangerously close towards it and if it got tangled in the rope it would be curtains. Then Steve Robson a few pegs to my left shouted that he had got a lead rod set up so I ran and got it then ran back passed around my peg and around the corner of the pool as I had to get to the other side so I had something to cast over and try to hook my rig, when I got to the other side my pole was only a rod-length out and as I tried to cast over the pole with the lead I hooked my finger ( SHIT & BOLLOCKS! ) as I was pulling the hook out of my finger Bob who's peg my pole had come into managed to hook my rig with his and as I scrambled down the bank I just caught hold of the top end and I had got it back. Phew that was close I thought it was going to sink for sure the Carp was around 3lb and after dragging my pole around the pool for 5mins looked knackered I told Bob to put it in his but he wouldn't and after pulling my pole out of the water I made it back to my peg, I took Steve his rod back and after drying all my sections off I sat down and soaked up all the mickey taking as some of the lads had made some comments like " if you don't want it there is no need to chuck it in" or " he's trying to give us all a chance by throwing he's pole in". After sorting out another shallow rig I decided to have a look on the short with around 45mins left of the match I had around 6 fish on this before they tailed off then another 7 fish with the shallow rig on the 3m line before the all out sounded, I had ended the match with 62 Carp which was not a bad day after the episode with my pole Stav and Ade had also caught opposite but I couldn't see what had gone on at the top end of the pool. We started the weigh-in off on the other side and Stav was the first to weigh in anything of note with 89lb and Ade next to him had 70lb, the top end of the pool had fished hard as Barry Robson won the top 6 peg on that bank with 45lb and Martin Yardsley winning the top 6 peg section on my bank with 36lb ( that is hard for this pool ), there was two 60lb weights from Steve & John in my section before I weighed in my 62 fish that gave me 107lb 8oz for the match win. I was happy with my days fishing apart from nearly loosing my pole, the pool had fished as I expected with 24 anglers on it and a sharp overnight frost and all that was left to do was to retire to the Bell pub for a couple of Stella's and chew over the fat as Stav and I were first and second we had won some beer tokens?