Fish'o'mania
Well all in all I had a disappointing weekend and having to re-live Sunday and Monday again is going to be painful.
Saturday's Fish'o qualifier was fished in breezy and grey conditions, for the morning, which cleared to a lovely day by 5 o'clock that day. The buzz was brilliant before the match and everyone was keen for a draw in the 80's on speci or peg 4 match which was solid with fish ready to feed before the big spawn. Would my drawing hand let me down? Well I really fancied the burr bank on speci if I was to win the match at all and an end peg obviously wouldn't be frowned upon!
Into the draw bag I went and 17 stuck to my hand, where I qualified for the classic final from. Is this an omen? My favourite area on the venue and with a spare peg 18 next to me I was pleased with the draw. I got to my peg and sat and composed myself for 10mins. Martin Churchill, Paul Law and Andy Kinder all came and settled my nerves and reinforce the lines I had plumbed up and talked me through my feeding for the day. I was settled until Phil walked past and shouted 'Hamish I bet your a. hole is going on there'. I laughed it off but he was right!!
I set a pole line up at 6m that was going to be my main attack with pellet and corn. 3 rigs were set up a light float; 0.4g Billybob on 0.17 to 0.15 powerline. I then set up a 0.5g and 0.75g dweezil on the same lines all to a B911 XS. I had a method clipped at 25m and a 13m pole line set up to fish for first 2 hours whilst feeding the short line to get the big fish I would need to win in the peg. I had a margin line which was 3ft deep which I didn't speculate I would catch on and ended up only going down there for a couple of minutes a time.
The all in went and I chucked the method for the first hour whilst feeding the short pole line by hand with pinches of dampened 6mm pellet and corn. A couple of skimmers and not a sign of a carp I came on the 13m line and picked up some more decent sized skimmers but it was slow. After 2 hours I came on short line with about 10lb in nets I knew I was fishing for a section unless this line comes alive late on. I struggled and chopped and changed things until I managed 3 carp in the end to give me a total weight of 38lb. This was ounces out of the section money so a 2nd in section I was happy with and a couple of those the next 2 days wouldn't go a miss.
Maver Classic Final 2013
Well all in all I had a disappointing weekend and having to re-live Sunday and Monday again is going to be painful.
Saturday's Fish'o qualifier was fished in breezy and grey conditions, for the morning, which cleared to a lovely day by 5 o'clock that day. The buzz was brilliant before the match and everyone was keen for a draw in the 80's on speci or peg 4 match which was solid with fish ready to feed before the big spawn. Would my drawing hand let me down? Well I really fancied the burr bank on speci if I was to win the match at all and an end peg obviously wouldn't be frowned upon!
Into the draw bag I went and 17 stuck to my hand, where I qualified for the classic final from. Is this an omen? My favourite area on the venue and with a spare peg 18 next to me I was pleased with the draw. I got to my peg and sat and composed myself for 10mins. Martin Churchill, Paul Law and Andy Kinder all came and settled my nerves and reinforce the lines I had plumbed up and talked me through my feeding for the day. I was settled until Phil walked past and shouted 'Hamish I bet your a. hole is going on there'. I laughed it off but he was right!!
I set a pole line up at 6m that was going to be my main attack with pellet and corn. 3 rigs were set up a light float; 0.4g Billybob on 0.17 to 0.15 powerline. I then set up a 0.5g and 0.75g dweezil on the same lines all to a B911 XS. I had a method clipped at 25m and a 13m pole line set up to fish for first 2 hours whilst feeding the short line to get the big fish I would need to win in the peg. I had a margin line which was 3ft deep which I didn't speculate I would catch on and ended up only going down there for a couple of minutes a time.
The all in went and I chucked the method for the first hour whilst feeding the short pole line by hand with pinches of dampened 6mm pellet and corn. A couple of skimmers and not a sign of a carp I came on the 13m line and picked up some more decent sized skimmers but it was slow. After 2 hours I came on short line with about 10lb in nets I knew I was fishing for a section unless this line comes alive late on. I struggled and chopped and changed things until I managed 3 carp in the end to give me a total weight of 38lb. This was ounces out of the section money so a 2nd in section I was happy with and a couple of those the next 2 days wouldn't go a miss.
Maver Classic Final 2013
After my decent draw and section result the previous day tied with my recent form at the venue being quite good I went into the classic this year full of confidence. However this was soon scuppered as I drew the worst peg in E section on speci lake the first day. I managed a paltry 32lb for dead last in the section. This consisted of 2 small 6lb carp and skimmers from my short pole line on corn over pellet.
A day where I tried everything twice before I found a fish at 6m in only 4ft of water on corn. Strangly the skimmers here would not take a pellet but the corn was going. The carp finally moved in but due to the shallow water were bolting off, the one took my 12-20 retro the best part of 25m out of the pole tip before the size 14 hook pulled. I plopped my method in and made sure I put bait runner on to save from losing a rod. I did this whist changing my hooklength to a size 12 hook. The tip whizzed around and a small carp quickly came to net. Instead of going back on pole I plopped the method in at 5m again and again it went round with 5min to go this carp went a bit silly and gave me no time to go back in.
I was not happy but with match lake going crazy the day before and me being on it the next day I was looking forward to catching some fish!
The drawbag once again was cruel to me. I drew 53 on the match burr bank a poor area. On arrival to my peg I found I had no margin lines either due to bushes in the way and protruding into my peg. The shallowest water I could find was 3ft 6inch. This is far too deep to catch the F1s that were in the bushes and sat on top of the sunken platform when I got to peg.
The first 2 hours was an infuriating time getting plagued with liners, fowl hookers and perch intercepting my bait!! Richie Hull was having the same problem next to me. I went out to 13m and fished 6mm pellet shallow and managed a couple of small carp, 1 F1 and some silvers but I was getting plagued with these silvers and going nowhere.
The last hour I plumbed a line at the end of the platform and filled it in with pellet and corn. I then did a cheeky little trick of making a load of disturbance by taking my net out of the water... theory being the big clever carp would then come in and feed as they think the angler has moved. I had 5 carp in the last hour on the paste and lost 3 by bullying them out on orange bazoocarp laccy. This gave me a weight of 58lb which was nowhere in the section and summed up a miserable final for me. Always next year I suppose and onto the whitehall matches next weekend. I have set myself some targets to meet this year and need to get my head down and meet them!!
