Having had to miss the first match of the Alders Farm Winter League, I was looking forward to having a days fishing at a local venue. I am acting as a bit of a stop gap and filling in for teams that are short of an angler. At least I get a days fishing.
Today saw me fishing Pines Lake. A chat with Josh Blavins, would inform that the lake was fishing hard with bites at a premium. All the catches have been coming from fishing long and shallow with pellet hookbaits. Indeed the day before, Josh had won a MFS match with 136lb from peg 5.
Our team of Richard Brain, Josh Blavins and Del Smith and myself were quite hopeful of getting amongst a few fish, especially as Josh had drawn peg 5 again and I had peg 12 on Pines. The last couple of weeks have seen weights of around 40lb coming from it, so that was my target weight.
Richard had drawn peg 20 with Del on 6 on the match lake, both in decent areas and could throw up a days fishing.
I had come armed with a kilo of corn, around 6 pints of fishery 4mm feed pellets and both 6 and 8mm hard hook pellets plus a few expanders. I also mixed up some Atomic Cloud for the margins although I did not expect to catch from down the edge.
Tackle wise I set up 2 shallow rigs one a drennan dibber float taking 3 no 8 shot. The other a MW styrofoam float taking a single no 8. Both were tied to .18 Stroft and a PR36 with a band on a hair rig. A margin rig to fish to the right hand side at top 5 against the reeds. I had a good 2ft here and set to fish it with corn late on. My other rig was a DT Diamond taking 5 no8 shot, again .18 Stroft but this time with a hooklength. This was set to fish in 4ft of water on the bottom. I also had a flat bottom from top 5 to 13m and could double up this rig.My thinking being that if the fish are shallow some bait will get to the bottom.
At the all in I potted a large pot of 4mm pellet with around 25 grains of corn to 13m. A pot of pellet onto my right hand margin followed by a pot of Atomic Cloud and another half pot of 4mm's to top 5. First put in on the deep rig at 13m and nothing, so i started pinging 4 or 5 pellets over the top and after 10 minutes I was into my first fish which shed the hook at the landing net. Not the start I was hoping for. Another 10 minutes passed and fish number 2 was on but this time safely landed. With no more bites forthcoming I had a quick look over the 6m and margin lines with no joy. I was still pinging out and saw a swirl at 13m so picked up my shallow rig and I was soon into fish number 3. A bit better fish at around 3lb. Colin next door on 15 was struggling but still had 2 fish so its was close. Matt was getting a few from 16 but I could not see anyone else. After around 2 hours I had around 7 fish but I would catch only odd fish. I could not get them lined up. But by feeding regularly I was starting to get a few bites but by switching from up to down and back again I was keeping things interesting.
The next hour saw another 5 fish in the net, all taken on the new Maryuku Amino Choco spray. I had caught the earlier ones on a standard 6mm pellet and this change of bait seemed to work well. It is the first time I have used it during a match and so far so good. Hour 4 was a proper struggle for all those around me. I was going head to head with Colin, he would catch one then I would get another. It was still too close to call. I did think though that Matt was ahead of us both. Word was that Chris Telling on Peg 8 was catching well, as was peg 17. Josh was having a peg to peg battle with Nick Darke which would also be close.
My last hour was a real struggle for me. I switched to 14.5m in the hope that the fish had backed off and to my delight 5 more carp came to the net. Interestingly though all day I managed to catch most of my fish on the deck. I did have a lot of cruising fish between Colin and I but they were not feeding fish. However the odd one I caught shallow was always a better fish.
My estimate of 50lb was a little low as I ended up with 55lb 3oz, enough for halfway in the section. I managed to pip Colin by 1 fish but also lost another points by one fish, it was that close. Chris Telling won the section with 113-01 Tex was second in section with 103-01 but 3rd in section was only 60lb. Team wise we ended up joint 2nd on the day behind GOT Black.
Overall in the match itself.
1st Gary Thorpe 161-14
2nd Martin Greene 159-14
3rd Glen Picton 146-02
4th Ricky Quick 140-00
5th Del Smith 119-15
6th Tony Taylor 115-14
I enjoyed fishing within a team environment again and am looking forward to the next match on the 1st November, but before that I have a club match at Monks Lake in Kent.
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