A glorious week in the sun, spoilt only by work, allowed myself and Mick to fish the Affordable Open at Alders Farm, however the weather gods decided to put in a mixed day of showers and little wind. I awoke to find the rain beating against the back door at it was a slight shower as I pulled up to the tackle shop at Alders Farm.
After dropping off a no6 section that required a repair and a quick chat with Trevor Price it was down to the café for a cup of tea. Nice and friendly this match fishing lark. Just the way I like it.
All the usual suspects were in attendance today but it made a nice change to see the Nottingham lads again Colin and Carl, having just returned from fishing in Spain. Carl's legs obviously never saw the sun. A couple of others had joined us and a healthy 12 in attendance.
At the draw I fancied one of the shallow pegs 26 to 30 but 28 and 30 had gone by the time my hand went in and I had to settle for 23. A peg that can fish well and can also be frustrating. Mick had drawn well again and peg 4 was going to be his home for the day. Trevor drew peg 26 whilst Josh had 13. Terry settled into peg 3 with Charlie on peg 1. Colin and Carl drew 6 and 20 respectively with Nick Wooding on 8.
My plan was to start off shallow at 11m and hopefully feed a line at top three with corn before moving into the edge during the last 2 hours. Bait was hard pellet feeding fishery 4mm on the 11m line. Stinky Corn over corn at 4m and meat down the edge.
To be honest I hoped to catch at 4m for most of the match if I could, I had a decent 3ft on this line before sloping out to 4ft at 11m. A MW .3g Diamond and a size 14 PR36 with a bulk 12 inches from the hook.
At the all in I potted in some meat down to the platform of 22 and threw a dozen grains of corn onto the 4m line and a swirl as soon as it hit the water. I shipped out and pinged a few pellets onto 11m and within a minute I was into my first fish. However it was a small twister. Another followed and that was enough. I picked up the corn rig and placed it at 4m. Before it hit the bottom red hydro was out and a two pounder was in the net. Another pop and another fish. I was feeding four grains every 20 seconds and if it went quite I would feed a handful of 4mm pellets. In the first hour I had 15 fish for around 30lb and was happy with that. I knew that if I could keep them coming then I could do 200lb, my target weight. Hour two and three were the same, 2lb fish with the odd 3lber in among them and I reckoned on a ton. I did have a quick look down the right hand edge for 4 fish but was waiting too long for a bite and felt I could catch more fish for the same weight at 4m. Hour four and five I was really getting a lot of bites but was missing a lot and pulling out of a few fish, probably foul hooked but I did feel some were hooked in the mouth, so I shallowed up a couple of inches and was back into a rhythm. These fish were slightly bigger at around 3lb average and I did have one around 8lb to bolster my weight. I felt I had around 180lb at this stage and looking around the best I could hope for was 2nd overall. Colin was getting some decent fish on the paste as was Carl. Trevor was catching well even though he was kept busy walking back to the tackle shop to deal with pleasure anglers and so was Mick on peg 4. In fact Mick lost time trying to retrieve a top kit. He landed a fish that fell out of his landing net and took his top kit with him. He is not having much luck lately.
If I could have a good last hour who knows. I kept plugging away at 4m and was now digging through my bag for any corn that was hiding away. I found a couple of tins that must have been out of date as they had rust around the ring pulls. Still I managed to open them and started feeding again. It was during this spell that I decided to up the feed to 8 grains every 20 second and this seemed to spark a quick burst of regular fish to the net. Same stamp of fish 2-3lb but more regular hooking of fish. I was fishing just on bottom and bites would come immediately the float settled. If not out again. I did try a shallow rig over this line but it did not work. The fish were settled on the bottom and did not want to move up even though there was plenty of cruising fish during the day. In the last hour I think I put another 50lb in the net and knew I had reached my target weight.
Overall
1st Colin Spencer Peg 6 Paste 324-04
2n Trevor Price Peg 26 Stinky Maggot over GB 278-07
3rd Keith Ashby Peg 23 Stinky Corn over corn 261-11
4th Charlie Lancaster Peg 1 233-04
5th Carl Williams Peg 20 Paste 219-13
6th Josh Blavins Peg 13 Stinky Maggot over GB 203-03
A surprise 250lb+ weight for me and a third match third on the trot but more importantly I took another MK Nugget off Mick and the score is now 10-5.
I think the carp have just about finished spawning for now and with the down turn in weather should keep things normal for a few weeks. I have no matches next week as work gets in the way but as soon as I can get back on the bank, I will let you know.
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