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.