Bockamin pools Sunday 24/6/12

This weekend saw us at the Brockamin Pools near Worcester we had the bottom pool booked for a Cradley heath club match, one of the lads had fished here the day before on another club match saying that 66lb was the beast weight with a few 40-50lb backing weights. I had not fished these pools for around 3-4 years but they contain some real big monsters in the 15-25lb bracket so if you fish this pool on the pole you have to gear up, there are 2 islands on this pool with around 50 permanent pegs and around 70% of them have an island to fish to. I peg 24 which is down the left hand side of the pool with the last peg able to throw to the island, the wind was blowing down the pool towards corner peg 29 which looked really good as it has lots of room to itself, the wind was quite strong blowing right to left and a jacket on jacket off day as some heavy showers came over but in-between them it was quite warm. I was going to attack the point of the island with the method feeder & pellet waggler and set up a heavy pole rig for the margins,
The method feeder was a 28gram Guru X-safe with 8lb mainline, 0.20 hooklength to a 14 pr27 hook with a bait spike for mini boilies although I had others set up with bait bands for pellets.
The pellet wagg was a 4ssg job with a Mayo connector and gripper stops, 5lb maxima mainline to 12 pr27 hook and a 0.20 hook length with a lasso set up for the pellet.
The margin pole rig was 4x12 Preston Durra 10 float in the 4ft deep margin, 0.22 line straight through to a size 4 Tubertini 175 hook finished off with red hydro elastic.
For bait I brought some micro pellets for the method feeder, 4 pints of 8mm pellets for the wagg and 4 pints of dead maggots for the margin, I had also brought some corn and meat but they stayed in the bag when I drew an island peg, plus various boilies for the hook.
I started the match on the method feeder cast 30m to 2 wooden stumps that stuck up from the end of the island while pinging the odd 8mm pellet over the top, it took around 15mins to get my first bite a nice 5lb common was safely in the net took on a white 10mm boilie. By the end of the first hour I had managed 5 carp all in the 3-5lb bracket all on the white boilie and from what I could see around me I was doing ok as there were odd carp coming out but no one with the amount I had, so if it ain't broke don't fix it!, I stuck with the method for hour 2 and ended with 3 more carp and 2 nice bream of around 4lb each. Over the next half hour I only had 1 carp and I felt it was time to have a look on another line, Colin to my left had around 4 carp, Kev 2 pegs to my right was having a few skimmers on the pole line but Mark in corner peg 29 was starting to put a few fish together after losing the first 4 carp in the margins to a tree root!
All the time I was fishing the method I had been pinging 8mm pellets over the top and while I was on the method when the sun came from behind the clouds I could see the odd fishy swirl or shape just under the surface, I was only going to give the wagg 10mins as the wind was quite strong blowing down the pool from right to left and I didn't want to waste too much time if I couldn't get the presentation right. I put a 8mm pellet under the lasso and cast out towards the stumps after feeding 5-6 pellets before the cast,( I think this feed first and cast over the top is most important on the pellet wagg as most of your bites will come in the first 20 seconds after the float has landed you are holding the rod instead of messing around with catty and will end up hitting more bites than someone who casts and feeds later ending up with more fish in your net! ), 5 seconds after the float hit the surface it settled and slid under I was in straight away a nice common of around 8lb was my reward, this was I herd moans & groans from the other side of the pool (christ he's catching on the wagg now!). A few minutes later while I was playing carp no2 on the pellet waggler I saw Barry who had made the jealous comment scrambling around in his gun sling setting up the pellet wagg, too late I thought to myself as I had got the fish my side of the stumps after feeding them for half the match before going for them.
The 2 corner pegs to my left were now starting to catch strongly as the match wore on there empty pegs and wind blowing into them started to bring them some big fish, I was catching steady on the wagg but with no big lumps the first fish being the biggest most of them in the 3-5lb range. With half an hour to go I tried the margin hoping for one or two big lumps to top up my smaller fish, I had fed the margin from the beginning with big pots of dead maggots every now and then with 4 maggots on the hook I lowered the rig in and awaited the action, after around 15mins down the edge with nothing to show but a couple of roach I thought I was wasting time so I spent the last bit of the match on the wagg hooking my last carp 5mins from the whistle. I ended a very enjoyable match with 22 carp and 2 bream while I thought I had done well Mark Farley on corner peg 29 had caught lots in the last half of the match big things from down the edge as well but he had lost a lot also, Colin Knock to my left had caught well from his margin in the last hour playing one real big fish for a long time with shouts of "look at the size of that" from the opposite side as he netted it meant it was going down to the scales to sort this out at this end of the pool.
By the time I had packed up my gear the first half a dozen pegs had been weighed in with Chris Owen being the best so far with 88lb from peg 4 mainly margin fish caught in the last hour, there were a couple of 30-50lb weights before Ollie on the top point of the second island had 65lb. Kev Clarke had a cracking bag of fish off peg 22 fishing pole and worm all day for 19 Bream and a solo Carp for 78lb ( the carp was around 8lb ). My bag went 122lb which put me in the lead, Colin on my left had 95lb with fish to 15lb and then the guy who I thought had won the match Mark Farley put 105lb on the scales he told me he must have left at least another 50lb in the water due to a combination of starting off too light and some tree roots in the water! Baz opposite me had 56lb then a 64lb and a 72lb it was looking good for me, Stu was the only other weight of note off the first island with 64lb, Stu said he lost a Carp of 12-13lb after playing the fish for a good while he netted the fish only for the landing net to rip and the fish drop back into the water breaking him in the process on the frame of the net as it swam off!!! OOPS or words to that effect. I had a great days fishing and I was happy to have won although I had drawn a good peg 1st, 2nd & 3rd were all in a line at the wind assisted end of the pool, the end of a good day was finished off with us retiring to the Fox pub to talk about the one that got away.