As the alarm clock went off at 0500 for the Orchard Place match, I reconciled it with the fact it was the last of the long drives. Two hours driving to a venue and two hours back is fine with a bit of company but was really starting to take its toll on me. Social distancing and other's health issues compounding everything. Still we continue on.
Orchard Place is a set of lakes sitting in the middle of nowhere near Paddock Wood. We had secured the spit on Lake 6. Normally a brilliant area of the lake, but on arrival, the far banks of the lake were solid, nearly every peg was taken and still people were arriving. Bivvies scattered around the lake, bed chairs and rod pods everywhere. At least the spit was clear of anglers.
We only had 9 of us, so more of a knock up than a match, a few working, one moving house and a few others doing other things. But those in attendance were more than capable of winning, so I still had to work hard and think about my match. I had peg 2 drawn for me, along the straight on the left hand bank.
Not really where i would have liked to be and even offered to swap pegs with Tony behind me. I had Rod, Clive and Jim in my section. Dave, Tony, Chris, John and Terry would make up the other section.
My match would be based around 4 and 6mm hard pellets, a good simple match, feeding 4s and fishing 6s. I would be fishing for mainly f1s and odd carp, both up and down in the water at 5m, a couple of margin rigs and a rig for 2 plus 1 on the end of my keepnets.
On my laast match at Claygate, I also found an issue seeing the bites from F1s, the bites were really tiny and only a slight indication on the float. Since that match I came up with the idea of making a float that was stable enough yet had no bristle, just the stem painted up. Shotted with a small bulk of 3 no 8 shot set on top of the 6inch hooklength. Happy to say on the day, this float would be responsible for 85% of my catch.
Starting out on the prototype float at 5m, fishing on the deck in 4ft of water. putting 8 to 10 pellets around the float. Five minutes in and instead of the expected float burying, it lifted, a gentle lift and fish on. A pristine 2lb F1 was soon in the net. A few more fish followed but everyone else around me were struggling. Dave had a good 8lb carp but little else, Clive and Jim were sat motionless. With an hour gone I had around 10 small F1s for 20lb. The second and third hours flew by, just nicking odd fish at 5m. A look on my other lines produced nothing. The fourth hour proved the most successful with nearly a 2lb fish every 5 minutes. I reminded myself that in previous years the fish generally came late, but that was on the bank behind me and not mine. I was putting fish in the net and thought another couple of fish would take me over the ton mark.
I could see the other anglers on the bank behind me, catching a few lumps, Chris was giving it the "oooosssshhh" so I knew he had a few fish. John was catching and through the vegetation Terry was putting a few fish together. Dave and Tony were both getting a few carp late on as expected. I was trying close in and was hoping for a few lumps of my own to bolster my weight. A mistake, I should have stayed out fishing the 5m line, although not prolific, I was catching. Still another lesson learnt.
At the all out, I felt as if I had won my section, but did not know where I was in the match. Some were saying John had caught 20 plus carp, Chris was catching but no one was admitting to anything.
Overall
- Keith Ashby 108-00
- Chris Thomas 91-08
- John Holdsworth 73-04
- Terry Goff 56-08
- Jim Boase 43-08
- Dave Collier 41-04
- Tony Roberts 41-00
- Clive Pritchard 27-12
- Rod Turner 13-00
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