Water: Murky green/grey
Peg: 30
Baits: 4mm, 6mm, 8mm meat (half natural/half red), red corn, fishery (red) pellets, casters
Weight: 35lb 8oz
Onto the third Whitehall match and I felt before this match I need to start pulling my finger out with 2 mediocre results prior to this match I wanted a frame, if not at least a section win. Although I do approach every match wanting to win!!
So an early start with an 8 o'clock draw and fishing 9 until 2 made me think a bit more about tactics for the match. I heard the fish go quite big and don't see many pellets or past compared to other pellet driven fisheries so this screamed 2 things worm or meat. I have blown out so many times on the worm it had to be the meat for me and away I went the night before dying bits of meat red... I turned up the next morning looking like I had just murdered someone and with frozen meat that I was trying to defrost with the heaters in my car, much to the amusement of the lads there!!
The draw came around and 30 stuck to my hand, excellent a long range island chuck, lovely stuff. I sped the car around and started to set my gear up. Plan was going to be to mug a few carp on the meat at the bottom of the shelf early and then have a long line on the meat and a pellet feeder to the island.
Pole rigs for the day were my favourite big bait floats of KC carpa 2's. The bottom of the ledge plumbed up at 4ft and my 14m line was 4.5ft so a 4x14 float was used for both swims. These were rigged with 0.15 preston power line to a 0.15 hooklength with a 16 B911 both on grey hydro on a pulla. I fish the meat a bristle length over depth so the weight does not interrupt the shotting of the float and bites are usually quite savage anyway so the finesse is not needed. Also prevents striking at roach playing football with your meat on the bottom. I also set up a caster rig at 4ft on a 0.2g homemade pencil with 0.11 to 0.09 with a 18 drennan silver fish pellet hook to preston 11h set soft.
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| KC Carpa 2 4x14 |
My feeder set up was a 12ft Maver black ice with a shakey mach 1 XT with 3lb maxima line. This was ties to a quick change swivel where I could then clip on my feeder. I have been using the pellet feeders by preston recently as opposed to the method with pellets. I feel a lot more confident that my pellets have got to the deck in these feeders and they also offer more grip on a slope up to an island that the tradition method feeder does. I clipped one of these on to the quickstop and clipped up a foot away from the left on the island where a branch was overhanging into the water. I used a 6inch 0.21 hooklength to a size 14 Kamasan animal with a red hi-viz quickstop on a hair.
I started the session by potting in a full 250ml pot of caster on my 6m line followed by a good handful of 6mm meat. I then fished this for 30mins with one foul hooked car being the result... it was dead looking around me nobody was catching, Les had a few good roach and skimmers next to me on the same line so I boshed in some more casters on this line and stuck a big pot of meat and casters out at 14m. I had 6 quick roach and then the swim died off after catapulting in 10 casters after each fish. There were fish cruising in the morning sun at this point and I kept looking to the island for any movement but couldn't spot any.
Onto the long line, firstly with caster rig to see what was there... roach were there and I had 4 before it went dead. A switch to the meat saw a few liners and then the float sunk a solid strike saw solid resistance and the carp went tearing off right into the next pegs swim. Finally getting the 5lb+ fish into the net was a relief and I think the first carp landed although John Snelson had a huge eel.
Messing about on this line for a further 20mins saw nothing but a roach on 6mm piece of meat so it was time to chuck to the island. Mid day is about the time I wanted to start chucking however I hoped more fish would have been in the net by then I had about 7lbs so far which was about par.
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| Showing peg and lines fished (Red = Pole / Blue = Feeder line) |
Stuffing the pellet feeder with pellets and with 2 8mm cubes of red meat on the hook it took 4mins for the tip to violently wrap around. A 6lb battle axe came to the net. The tip flew around about 20mins after that and then the drag started to scream until it quickly hit the clip, I managed to unclip it to look up and see a big fish top out past the island. A long battled ensued and finally I got the leviathans head up and to the net. A good 15lbs I thought where as the scales read just over 13lb for the long and thin common.
Now I am a fit lad but boy my arm was aching after that. At this point it was 45mins until the end of the match. My next cast saw yet again the tip wrap around and playing the fish whilst talking to John Snelson is not a good idea... he managed to jinx me and the hook pulled at the net. Never mind next cast saw a slender 4lb fish in the net and with 5 mins to go another huge wrap around saw me playing a fish well after the all out had gone and what I thought was another double was just short of that mark.
With the length of the fish and the way they pulled I thought I had 40lb in my net easily. The scales came around and told a different story however I had more than enough for the win. I rued not chucking the feeder at the start however the match could have done differently if I had.
Final note is if you fancy some preston pellet feeders all you need is a boat and head down to Broadacres and on the small island there are 3 there dangling away like baubles.
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