Something New - Match Report Whitehall Carp/Silvers Doubles

Right'o been asked to do something new and that is a match report for our Whitehall league matches as well as how I have fished the match. So watch out; anything out of the usual, anything side splittingly funny and anything I have seen during out matches will be reported. So Steve stop loose feeding pole sections, Mick stop swearing, ya b*****d, Ash lay off of the booze and Hopey speak up I cannot hear you from 3 pegs down.

Well onto the doubles match, Dave asked us all to be a little early meeting for breakfast as draw may take a while to do. But where was Dave? On the loo apparently, unbelelievable after poor Ash and Dan had got there without any sleep and both smelling like a brewery pickled in jagerbombs! Alf was in the cafe when I got in and we had a little chat about recent outings and how hard fishing has been. The rabble soon followed and the banter started flying, especially when Spraggy walked in to ask how I was attacking the pool today after me telling him its all maggot in the week and then saying I was feeding lose groundbait and fishing 'shalla' he didn't look best pleased.

On to the pool and the standard crazy parking was back with Carl parking in the way of Hopey, this was brilliant and he was biting like a good one already! The draw was made and I guided my half cut partner to his peg and issued him a couple of my method rods and pointed out which way for him to sit on his box. I then sorted myself out and was sat next to Billy 'the greyhound' and Dave 'club champion' Warren.

All of the low bank decided on fishing silvers which meant we would be competing against each other and I didn't rate my chances against these 2 seasoned (grey haired wrinklies) silvers anglers either side of me. I fished it pretty straight forward with a top 2 and 2 line straight in front of fished with groundbait disks ad pinkies by hand and single maggot on a 20 drennan silverfish maggot to 0.08 to a 0.10 mainline on all my rigs. I set up a rig at dead depth and then 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 depth to cover the fish coming off the bottom. I had a line at 8m to fish 'the shell' but caught naff all off here... rubbish!

The match started with the carp boys looking like gnomes. Cut a long story short they all maintained this look throughout the match apart from 2 anglers. Well 3 anglers but one was after silver fish, oops! We had to keep shouting over to the carp boys as they were looking motionless at times. 3 carp were snared late on in the day off of the end peg 4 by Steve Williams. Mike Spragg was very close to losing his place in the club by sitting by Hopey and catching some phenomenal silvers including a bream of 4lb and an ide of 1lb for his total weight of 8lb odd. Dave next to him followed suit and Richard 'Olly' Oliver (not sure how he got his nickname) netting 7lb and 6lb weights. This game newomers Steve and Olly the win on points, well done lads!! I caught a load of little fish but they were properly small and didn't weigh a thing. Think I had close to a 1000 fish for my 4lb. I caught most at between 1/2 depth and 1/4 depth. It was the case of continually light feeding and rig movement to get any bites at all! Hard work but rewarding. I even got some windmill feeding in at one point ooooooosh!!

Hey ho not the best result for me but I enjoyed the day, but it was to get better in the Whitehall after the match. A few of us were unsure about the date of the first match so we thought we better clarify this with Hopey. 17 or 18 times would do and Hopey gave us all the best bites of the day launching into a tirade of abuse that nobody was safe from. I think our first match is the 12th May now though but I would encourage you all to call Mike to clarify this point!! Look forward to seeing you all then and having a cracking match to report on afterwards.

Until then...
 

Classic Qualifier Maver Larford Lakes - 14th April

Weather: Overcast and mild but very windy
Water: Starting to colour up
Baits: 4mm fishery feed pellet, 4mm and 6mm miracle baits expanders, fishmeal and orange miracle baits pellet crumb and krilled dead reds.
Weight: 75lb 4oz (1st)

 

After last weeks match win I went to Larford with a bit of a spring in my step and seeing another top class field of anglers I was looking forward to a competitive match. I drew OK and was just down from last week opposite the island.

 

Now I think I could have won this match, again I have agonisingly lost 5 carp throughout the match, 2 to a snag and a few F1s coming off at the net. This has probably cost me 15lb-20lb. I also was happy catching skimmers and odd F1s and carp on long pole line before coming down the edge as I couldn't see or hear others catching. If I had known the end peg 6 was catching I would have gone to my edge line or short pole line sooner to find some quality carp to bump weight up.

 

I fished a simple match with pole and pellet at 13m, a short line which I didn't go to for any period of time and an edge line. I started chucking my bomb rod around the island but didnt have a touch on this so went to the pole after 45mins being biteless. At 13m I started very simply with a med cad pot full of 4mm dampened feed pellet an a 4mm miracle baits expander of the hook.

 

At this point my mate Ash came around and started to point out others were playing carp when the float dipped and a lift saw white hydro streaming out of the pole. Slowly shipping back allowing the carp to tire itself I got back to the top kit and found it had snagged me to my left, not a great start! I returned my rig, an 0.3g Billybob by Hillbilly mounted on 0.13 powerline, and lowered this into my 7ft swim. 6 4mms followed by catapult. I started catching F1s and I could tell Ash was enjoying watching a master at work, so much so he went for a bloody walk around the complex and returned to take the mick out of me yet again losing a carp to a snag!

 

The float started going under regularly and skimmers were coming to the net with ease and quickly followed by the odd small carp. The fish were really responding to catapulted feed every fish and my feeding didn't change all day to keep skimmers and small carp coming. I wanted to try upping feed but with water only just warming this could have been the kiss of death!

 

Mid way through the match and the carp started coming quicker, a 5lb fish was a welcome edition to my net at half way through the match. Matt to my left had a 'proppa whoppa' on and was playing it for a while. I looked back over and he had another, I said you've found those big fish haven't you! His reply was, "this is the same one mate". Later weighed at 13lb, could have done with a couple of those!

Finally I went down the edge after feeding with a big pot of groundbait and maggot at 13:45 and caught 3 smaller carp upto 2lb on the bounce. I thought I was in here and althought it slowed a bit was catching and managed a couple of decent carp. The last 30mins I had one more carp down the edge, I fed half a pot once bites slowed but could not get the carp back down the edge. I was furious with myself but really couldnt see where the fish had gone. I tried fishing a meter off feed but the fish were simply not there. Below are the results from website, my next visit is Sunday 28th April in preparation for my fish'o'mania and classic final on Larford the next weekend!

 

Classic Qualifier - Match Lake

Saturday, 13th April 2013

 

Twenty one anglers fished the Match lake in the hopes of a qualification placing.
Winner on the day was Carl Brookes (Maver), who drew end peg 6 in front of the cafe. Fishing pole and pellet at 13m, carl landed F1's and carp to finish the day 20lb clear of the next man with 96-15-00.

Second on the day was Matt Barnes (Miracle Baits), who drew the far end of the shallow bank peg 26. Fishing pole and pellet at 13m and dead red maggots in the margin, Matt found carp and F1's to weigh 75-04-00.

Third placed Matt Greening (Woody's) drew peg 24 and opted for pole and pellet at 13m landing 65-01-00 and a place in the May final.
Fourth placed Luke Hughes (Maver) drew peg 10 landing 63-09-00 of F1's and carp to bomb and pellet fished at around 25m.

Position	Name	Peg	Method	Weight
1st	Carl Brookes (Maver)	6	Pole and pellet	96-15-00
2nd	Matt Barnes (Miracle Baits)	26	Pole and pellet	75-04-00
3rd	Matt Greening (Woody's)	24	Pole and pellet	65-01-00
4th	Luke Hughes (Maver)	10	Bomb and pellet	63-09-00 

Weather: Sunny and quite mild
Water: Ice in the edge at start of match, was a bit of colour coming in.
Peg: 30
Baits: 4mm and 8mm fishery feed pellet, 4mm and 6mm miracle baits expanders, fishmeal and orange miracle baits pellet crumb and  krilled dead reds.
Weight: 51lb 3oz (1st)

Position	Name	Peg	Method	Weight
1st	Matt Barnes (Miracle Baits)	30	Pole and pellet	51-03
2nd	Steve Charles (Steven's Tackle)	12	Pole and pellet	42-02
3rd	Simon Jones (Maver)	14	Pole and pellet	25-09
4th	Jamie Meakin	16	Pole and pellet	24-04

My attention is now firmly on practicing for my fish'o'mania qualifier and for the upcoming classic final both at larford lakes. I therefore am going to spend a bit of time on the larford complex honing the methods required if I am lucky enough to bag a good draw on the finals.

Well my drawing certainly didn't let me down with end peg 30 with wind blowing into it sticking to my hand at the draw. Many groans and moans were audible at the draw. To be fare this is my first really good draw of 2013 with a couple of bum draws at larford previous weekend.

Onto the match and my set up for today was going to be relatively simple, however at the same time I need to cover my options at this time of year to find feeding fish. Firstly I set up a bomb and pellet rig and a groundbait feeder set up. The bomb rod selected was a 10ft 6 maver powerlite with a daiwa regal z bait runner loaded with 8lb maver jurrasic. I used a nice light 20g bomb and an 18" 0.19 hooklength to a 16 Guru QM1 hook.

Onto pole lines and I fished 3 lines; 14m in 71/2 ft of water, top 2 and 2 in 31/2 ft. Finally 2 edge lines to my right one 3 ft from bank in 18" of water and one 2m out in 3ft of water really to see if they dont come right in to the edge.

At 14.5m I fished a light and heavy rig as it was calm however wind was forecast so planning for this at start of match would save time when you should be fishing during the match. Light rig was a 0.3g Hillbilly Billybob on 0.13 powerline to a 0.11 hooklength and a 16 B911 f1. Heavier rig was the same fished on a 0.5g float. Top 2 and 2 again was a 0.1g billybob on 0.13 straight through to a 16 B911. Down the egde I used one of my special grass bank margin floats as shown to me by Andy Kinder and provided by hillbillyfloats.co.uk. This was on 0.15 line straight through to a 14 B911 on maver retro 12-20 elastic.

Baits for today were very simple with 4mm pellet for pole lines and miracle baits expanders for the hook. 8mm fishery pellet for feed and for hook on bomb line.

 

 

For the edge I was keen to experiment with the interesting orange pellet crumb that miracle baits produce. My theory was simple, the grass bank has an orangy red sand, I wanted to mimick this as a cloud in the water. When the fish feed in edge they will be stirring up an orange cloud, therefore seeing this fish will see this as safe to feed in and come into edge. This paired with tried and trusted krilled red maggots should produce.

 

Onto the match then and I will state now I was disapointed with my weight and was really having a sweat at the weigh in as I know I should have one this match! I chucked the bomb to start feeding 2 8mm's over top every minute. I had an f1 first chuck which fell off at the net, bad angling but there were fish there. The guy to my left picked up 2 early carp off of the island so I started chucking shorter in line with where he was. Unbelievably I hooked and lost 2 more f1's in first 45mins and came back with hooklength covred in weed, twigs and even a bloodworm speared on the hook.

 

I had 1 skimmer in the net and was getting infuriated. I had fed around 20 4mm's on my long pole line and went on this at 11:30 and started catching small skimmers regularly with the odd small f1 mixed in. Fish were really responding to lifting and dropping with float not settling before bite on few occasions. I was feeding initially by kinder pot but then switched to catapulting after every fish. These seemed to queue the skimmers up so I was catching regularly.

 

I was starting to see less and less carp on this line and the skimmers were small and taking a long time to get in from 14.5m. I started feeding my top 2 and 2 line at 13:00 with loose 4mms by hand. At 13:30 I switched to this line and picked up a couple of f1s. I also fed my shallow egde line with miracle baits pellet crumb and maggot. I saw swirls appear down the edge at 14:00 but left it until 14:30 to go onto this line. I caught 12 small f1's down this edge and fed after the first 5. I reckon it would have been ok to go onto this line earlier as the fish were feeding very confidently down the edge. The all out was called and if the match would have gone on for another 30mins until 16:00 as it usually does run to I would have easily put another 15lb-20lb on my weight.

 

I was annoyed that no proper carp showed up on this line as this would have really bumped weight up. Not as annoyed as I was with the 8 F1s I lost on varios lines. If this had cost me the match I would have really kicked myself, however I cannot affoard this on the fish'o and classic finals.

 

 

 

Larford Lakes Classic Qualifier Specimen Lake - Monday 1st April 2013

Weather: STILL COLD!!
Water: Clear in the sides, could see about 2ft down. Choppy because of wind
Peg: 66
Baits: 4mm fishery feed pellet and 4mm expanders. Krilled reds.
Weight: 19lb 9oz 4th and section win

I fished Larford good Friday in a charity pairs match, completely hungover which was not a good start, and poor Steve Mayo had to accompany me as a partner. I was begging for a draw after been put on match lake. I fancied somewhere in the 20's where it had been producing, and where I have never managed to draw, alas my nemesis stuck to my hand.

Peg 10 match the cruel bitch that inflicted misery and strife on me in the classic final last year and the last day of the summer festival giving me last in setion on the later! This peg is shallow, last year it was 2ft at most; however, I had 4ft and some more room so could this be the day I crack it... No... just under 6lb which beat everyone to my left but got stuffed by those to my right in the section. I caught 2 f1's and 5 skimmers; all within the first hour which meant I was very miserable for the remaninder of the match not getting a bite on anything.

Onwards and upwards to the monday's match. Speaking to Andy Kinder on the phone he assured me that the chalet bank was fishing well with skimmers coming to the long pole in the later stages of the match. However this didn't happen as the results below show:

Position	Name	Peg	Method	Weight
1st	Peter Bennett (Banbury Gunsmiths)	82	Corn in the margins	84-07
2nd	Richie Hull (Garbolino)	58	Cage feeder	63-00
3rd	Andy Kinder (Maver / Marukyu)	78	Short pole	46-03
4th	Matt Barnes (Miracle Baits)	66	Method Feeder	19-09

A strange match with weights really dropping off, the 2 end pegs walked it with Pete Bennet fishing just out of the edge and Richie catching all bream net on the cage feeder. Unbelievably Andy had caught 5 carp on top 5 line in last 20mins otherwise he was going nowhere. A lot of DNW's and weights around 10lb meant my measly 19lb nabs 4th

I started by setting up rods for today, I had a maver powerlite feeder at 11ft matched to a shimano stradic to fish the cage feeder and set up another 11ft powerlite feeder method rod with my Daiwa regal-Z baitrunner for the method. For my pole lines I set up a light rig and a heavy rig for 14m, a 0.5g and 1g hillybilly dweezil on 0.13 powerline to a 0.11 hooklength with a 16 B911 F1 hook. However when fishing I had to change to a 1.5g dweezil to comat the wicked tow. These were matched to tops with white hydro running on a side pulla. I also set up a top 5 line as these carp had to come in, a Kinder proved, and 1 or 2 can be all it takes to get a place in main frame from nowhere.

Bait wise I was experimenting with my new miracle baits gear. For the cage feeder and method I mixed the pellet crumb in fishmeal and the green version 70% - 30% for a darkened mix. These plugged my dead reds in the feeder. I mixed the groundbait the night before and over wetted this and riddled it twice. By the morning it had a brilliant fluffy texture and when tested in margins exploded with fiz once hit the bottom. I also used the miracle baits expander pellets in 4mm and 6mm.

I started the match chucking at 25m or so and getting some bait in with the groundbait feeder. 5  small drennan gripmesh feeder loads of groundbait and dead reds went out. I chose to fish the feeder quite short as I have found at larford the fish come closer and closer when more bait has been going in. I was getting strange signs straight away. Interestingly the method had not been working and a long tail of 18" - 2' on the cage feeder had been working. As the venue had been hammered the last few days I wondered if the fish were hammering the groundbait in the feeder then. I chucked the method and couldn't tighten up. Strange I thought; as I wound in the rod lurched round into solid resistence. After a quite pathetic fight a 4lb carp was a welcome first fish. Lots of 'tuts' rang out around me. I chucked the method again and for the next hour was picking off the odd small skimmer between 6oz-8oz.

As I was catching I did not want to come off this line, my golden rule not to come off feeding fish, and others were not catching at all. However these skimmers are tiny for Larford specimen lake standards so I was going nowhere catching these. I must have sat on the skimmer junior school. Therefore I feed my pole line with a half a pot of 4mm fishery pellet with a squeeze of miracle baits pellet crumb.

Back to the tip line and these skimmers dry up after the 20th micro skimmer. I pick up the pole at around 13:30 and at 14:00 I was back on my tip rod. I tried the cage and the method but didn't have a sign, so started chucking a small method about my peg looking for the odd carp. It quickly became clear that it wasnt happening for anyone with people walking the bank asking how things were going. Nobody bar the end peg 82 had a carp and I knew Richie was having a few skimmers. So I was in for a shout. at 15:00 after spraying 6-8 4mm's on my 14m pole line every 8-10mins I went back on pole line. My float towed through and buried and a little hybrid graced my net. Straight back out and not a touch. I played with rigs, shotting, laying line on the deck and even put shot on the deck to induce a bite however it wasn't going.

Whilst battling with the long pole I was feeding 5-6 hard 6mms on my short line. I went onto this line with 30mins to go. Usually within 5mins you have had some signs or are heaving in a lump however it wasn't to be. I stayed on this line hoping and praying but it didn't happen. I knew I had beaten those around me however I needed to snare a couple of carp and needed to be sat on the bigger skimmers to get near the main frame. When the conditions are what they were you cannot always make it work and have to catch what is in front of you. Apart from maybe catching more smaller fish I don't think there is anything else that could have been done.