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.

 

Droitwich Cup - Broadacres 4th September 2011 (representing Whitehall)

Weather: 12C-16C Overcast and drizzly rain for the most part, torrential rain at the start.
Water: Clear with colour starting at a foot deep
Peg: Non permanent E6
Baits: Ringers 4mm Expanders dyed red, Fisheries own red strawberry (stupid) pellets, Worm, Caster and RedMaggots
Weight: 7lb 12oz (2nd in Section)

A damp Broadacres played host to the Droitwich cup where 6 teams of 7 anglers go to head to head on  the big pool and charlies pool at broacres. Having done o.k. on the big pool in the Whitehall league match at the venue I was hoping to draw on that pool as snake lakes are not my cup of tea. My drawing hand let me down once again!

So off to Charlies pool I go, A strange old pool which saw me fishing from an island over to another island with another island behind me?! Sound confusing, you should of been there. The three lines that immediately screamed out to me was the far bank, the bottom of the near shelf and the bottom of the far shelf.

Red = Tight to island line.
Blue = Bottom of shelf lines

This pool was not dominated by carp, although it was banded around that you would need a few to get a section win for your team here. So a cocktail was created in order to cover all bases. Half a bait tub of worm was chopped to a slop and then 1 pint of casters and half of red maggot was added, to boost this a bit more dampened fishery pellets were added along with a squirt of red dye. This was used as my feed for the entire session on all lines.

My silvers rigs needed a bit of dusting off to say the least and a size 18 hook looked tiny after spending my summer dragging out mud pigs. The 2 shelf rigs I had plumbed up identical at just under 4ft so I opted for a 0.2g Hillybilly Billybob float, these are stable floats due to the diamond body shape and high density foam body however in the smaller sizes are ultra sensitive for silvers. This was on 0.13 powerline to a 0.11 hooklength to a 18 Drennan silverfish pellet hook, I matched this with white hydro. My rig for over to the island was a bit beefier as I may have to drag some fish from this snaggy area, I found 12-18 inches of water so a Hillybilly ratcatcher 2 was obvious float choice. This was tied to 0.15 straight through to a 16 B911 on double 5 latex.

To start the session I potted in a medium cad pot of my feed onto the near shelf and then went with a pot and a 1/4 of a worm over to the far bank. Fish were coming in straigt away and as I was plumbing up on the island I was having liners but they were spooking from the pole tip. Leaving line was not an option due to me having to poke the pole under the reeds to get tight over. I persevered and managed a few F1's and a small chub.

A change to the pellet and first put in I had a carp on, it wanted to go straight for a sunken tree off the point of the island, however I managed to steer it well away. A healthy 2 1/2 lean common was not a bad start when only one other carp had been landed to my knowledge, but this swim wasn't right. I decided to come off it and put in a half a big pot of mix to try and get the fishes heads down.

I went on to my near margin swim (about 4m) and it was solid with F1's and 6 fish came to the net quickly followed by a couple of small skimmers, feeding a small cad pot after every other fish seemed to keep bites coming and 1/2 worm was doing the damage. This then went quite so I re-fed my island swim and gave the far shelf a go. As my near shelf was this was then solid and 5 F1's and a tench came to the net in quick succesion.

The remainder of the match saw me changing between the 2 shelf swims with the near shelf being slightly more productive with small fish coming to the net frequenlty. The island swim was giving me nightmares as the fish were coming to the feed but were spooking from the pole tip. I reckon I would have had my section had I swung a small method in on the pole as the fish were certainly there. I was surprised to have a 2nd in section and give the team some good points on a grueling day, I got beaten by a paste head who sat it out for the proper carp down the track. As a team we had to carry a last place which dented our chances of winning but a 3rd overall wasn't bad and 3 of the 7 picked up, including me for a default section win.