Sunday 18 September 2011

Whitehall League - Laugherne Island 11th September 2011

Weather: 16C-18C Light cloud cover with sunny spells.
Water: Thick muddy brown colour

Peg: (Next to Mick Whatling AGAIN!!) 8
Baits: Bag'em Machins Method mix and Bag'em Krill Seaker, Atomic Paste, Coppens 4.5mm pellets, Worm, Dead-Red Maggots, Sonubaits banded hard white pellet.
Weight: 150lb 6oz (3rd)

I have been looking forward to this match for a long time now and it really did not disappoint in any way. I got to cob house a bit early so I could have a cappuccino and a chin wag, I met Snelly in the cafe and started to boggle his brain with the approach to this match.

I fancied a draw on the point of an island or a gap to chuck the method for the first part of the match. At the draw peg 8 stuck to my hand and next to me Mick had drawn 10 and was gloating that he had a gap in the island, oh how I enjoyed seeing his face drop as he pushed his gear gingerly past peg 8 slap bang in the middle of the island!!

My approach was to have them from the island for the best part of 3 1/2 hours or more with the back up of paste at 6m just before the ledge. Then plunder the margins for some big munters late on. I went about setting up my box in the clay bank that had formed since the water dropping so much, I think people were willing me to fall in which is slightly unkind so I gave them a finger salute and got on with extended my box legs at all sorts of weird and wonderful lengths and angles.

For the island I chucked a small Kobra 20g method feeder over with my 9ft Garbo Rocket Picker with my dinky Daiwa Crossfire reel loaded with 4lb sensor. Hooklength was 4inches of 0.24 powerline to a 14 B911 for dead reds and a 14 B911 with a hair rigged band for the pellet.


My paste line was only 3 1/2 ft - 4 ft deep but with the wind and the tow that this pool often has I opted for a 0.6g sconezone jadz float and this was on 0.17 powerline straight through to a  size 12 B911. This was on black hydro, my favourite carping laccy. My edge line was shallow but I managed to find a 18inch hole between 2 fallen in bits of bank and the same depth 2ft from the bank the other side of me. I opted for a hillybilly ratcacher 2 float tied to 0.19 straight through to a 14 Kamasan Animal hook.



The session went as planned with me putting 40lb in the net in the first hour even with a break above the feeder on one BIG fish. Hour 2 saw the bites dry up a bit and I had 30 mins of casting without a touch which told me it was time for a change. I had been throwing dampened pellets over my paste line all morning so went over this line with the paste and was into a fish straight away. I had 4 fish on this line within 20 mins and I had about 60lbs in the net by the half way stage. At this point Dan to my right had started to bag up off the island so I had to chuck over there as the paste was not fishing right for me. I was into fish straight away and put another 30lbs into the net with 10 quik fish.

During this spell I had been throwing in roughly squeezed balls of groundbait down both edges. I now started to cup it in to be more precise with the feed and concentrate the fish. The one edge was tails and backs everywhere which was tempting but I decided that was a one way ticket to foul hookers and ruining that swim. I went down the other edge with 2 whole worms (minus their heads as to leak out some juices) on the hook. 8 edge fish later the all out was called and I foul hooked a beast which pinged off before I could shout fish on. What a match, very rarely things go so well to plan, especially on this pool. I thourougly enjoyed the match due to using a variety of methods and catching a variety of sized fish too.

In further news I have just come back from a second place at St Johns Angling's Tooby's with 43lb of method feeder caught carp with a bonus smimmer of 2lb and a crucian of 10oz. Using my long range casting gear set up from the Barston matches (detailed below) made casting a doddle. Method mix was Bag'ems Machins method mix with super XP green and dead reds, meat and banded white pellet for hook.

Not a bad day you may think, well I caught all those within 11:10 and 12:30. So the first part and end of match were rubbish, to put pay to that I was only 1 fish from 1st place!! I was on peg 3 and cast towards a hump I found on the bottom, just before half way and not just past half away across. I also tried down the edge and short method but it didnt work.


 

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