New year, a new club and a new venture for me into blogging.
After my first year with St.Johns Angling Society I had met 'Team Dave' also of Whitehall Inn Angling Club. I was sold on the description of the club pool and also the venues that were proposed for the club's matches in 2011. So into the new year and with limited time for getting out due to ice come February I finally got down to the club pool for some practice. My first trip down I plumped for peg 5 and promptly went about bagging on silvers at half depth and above as instructed by Dave Warren. My second venture to the Whitehall club pool was a social gathering with Mike and Team Dave joining for some silvers action. This time I went for peg 4 as there was a bit of movement in the margins, which I later pillaged for 6 carp to 11lb in 30mins. Again a bumper net of roach, rudd, ide and gudgeon was had on the white maggot at varying depths. Some sizeable roach were netted from peg 4 and a great day was had.
Onto my debut match on the Whitehall pool:
Weather: 3C - 6C overcast in morning with cool wind, clouds broke up midday and warmed up.
Water: Rich brown colour, strong surface ripple.
Peg: 5
Baits: White & Bronze maggot
Weight: 5lb-8oz
At the draw I was a little anxious, not knowing the pool too well at all. As you could imagine having a peg I have fished before gave me great confidence, however it was in an area that came in the last 2 in the previous weeks match.
Attacking the peg I plumbed up two swims on the deck at 4m and 7m. These swims were exactly the same depth of 9 1/2ft. Rig used for this was a 4x18 Carpa Porth, with a 0.5 olivette and 4 no 10 droppers. Mainline was 0.11 powerline to a 0.08 hooklength with a size 20 drennan silver fish pellet hook. This was paired to doubled middy hi-viz 3-4 through a match top 3. Second rig I set up was a 0.4 homemade thin pencil float shotted with no 10's evenly spaced along the line, line and hook was the same as above. This rig was initially set at 8ft, with the intention of getting the fish to half depth later in the day. This was matched to a no6 through a match top 3.
I had gone for a particle only approach, just fishing white and bronze maggot with a few red's sprinkled on top. The thinking behind this was to avoid the big carp in the lake and save time playing these fish on my light set ups or getting broken, I wanted to build a weight through the speed of fishing.
At the all in 10 maggots were potted onto my 4m line and I was straight into small roach of 2oz hard on the deck. I fed 8-12 maggots every 2 fish by hand. The first hour I was catching at a good rate and was catching quicker than those around me, however I did notice the size of my fish were considerably smaller than others. I then decided to see if the bigger fish were hanging around over my feed or past my feed at 5m-6m-7m. All I found was the same small sized roach and rudd but was catching at a slower rate. Back onto my 4m line on the deck and the same continued with small fish being the only apparent inhabitants of my peg. The last hour was slowing down for everyone around me, I potted in a full 125ml pot of maggot on my 7m line and had 8 fish in the last hour from this swim. I was disappointed I couldn't get the fish up off of the bottom, recent cold spell may have caused this. I was also a little disappointed with the size of my fish with a 6oz-8oz rudd being my biggest catch by a long way.
When the scales came round I estimated 5lb as I had 42 fish around 2oz so wasn't surprised to hear 5lb-8oz called out. I was interested to see the catches opposite me as they had been into bigger fish on the opposite bank. Although a lot less fish than me they had a good number of sizeable perch and roach in their net and were wrestling big carp throughout the match. These pegs produced good weights due to the average stamp of fish caught. These catches were had on maggot however the bigger fish were more prominent in their pegs. My theory therefore was all the smaller fish were scared over to my peg as the opposite pegs were full of monsters of the deep!! Groundbait was also playing a part in the winning bags that came from the opposite end of the lake from my peg. A consideration I must now take for the next time I fish the venue.
Back to the drawing board for the next match 19th March.
No comments:
Post a Comment