Well a few weeks ago I was having a real grim time with my fishing; my drawing arm was letting me down and I was messing up some pegs and not catching the potential of fish I should have in these pegs. It was really getting grim in terms of results; A crap time at hillview and cob house on opens and
Whitehall matches on Elmbridge, Hawford Bridge and Laugherne Island at Cob House I completely messed up and after I got battered at
Barston on an
MFS match and messed up at meadowlands on another MFS match things were looking grim.
At Barston I really messed up whilst fishing the method, which I class as a method I'm confident with, guys either side of me fishing shorter on the method when I was wanging it 90 turns. It was blowing a gail so my feed must have been scattered everywhere with shoddy casting! I managed 43lb, which wasn't a million miles off with 62lb winning section, but I was very much saved of my blushes by a 13lb lump on the method short late on.
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| My tip at Barston didn't move much!!! |
I was having a disaster and just not putting weights together with any conviction or much thought it would seem? Methods and venues that I thought as strengths were just not producing for me. I fished a
matchfishingscence match at meadowlands on Warren lake which I weighed in just under 47lb which was 3 carp and 11 skimmers. I was ounced out of 2nd in section by my welsh friend from Larford Glyn and Sconey won the section and later schooled me in edge fishing. I was fishing in near enough 3ft of water feeding groundbait, corn and maggot fishing the worm on the hook.
Now you might not think this is too bad. However when you find out I hooked and lost 4 fish (potentially 40lb) then it becomes a bit more disastrous! I was losing the fish on their first run with hook pulls so can only really attribute this to foul hooking the fish. Now I thought of shallowing up and fishing bunch of maggots after the 2nd lost fish but unbelievably continued thinking the fish will settle.
After the match sconey put 50lb odd on the scales, he managed 5 fish from the edge. When speaking to him he confirmed that coming off the bottom and pinging ensured he wasn't foul hooking as the fish came into the deep edge swim. DOH!!!
I needed to get my head right and catch some fish to get my confidence up. After taking some sound advice I went as much as I could to some venues I will definitely catch some fish and can fish to my strengths. First off the snake lake at Docklow lakes. Cesspit. Well enough said about that place!
Catching a few more...
Hillview Lakes
So with a bit of time on my hands I go over to Hillview with Mike and find myself at a venue I have fished just the once on a rover match with a load of locals. Well I know that the F1s shallow on the lakes was good and they had some lumps down the edge and I hate snake lakes so there was no way I was going on the canals. Mike Spragg went on canal 3 and bagged up finishing 2nd with 152lb - WELL DONE MIKE!!!!
I plumped for peg 5 on Morehen and caught about 70lbs shallow on 6mm pellet and with 2 hours to go started testing the edge and coming off my shallow line NEVER LEAVE FEEDING FISH!! I caught an 8lb lump and then a fish of about 5lb and then nothing down the edge line, which the locals told me after never produces. I tipped back as I needed well over a ton to frame.
Ockeridge
Second week of holidays I was off to Ockeridge. I drew on apple pool and had a lovely looking island 15.5m away from me. It shallowed up to less that 1ft and was really snaggy so fished on the slope at 14.5m in 2'5" of water. I fished 6mm expander over 4mm feed and soon shallowed up right up to about 10" where I was catching regularly most of the day.
Funnily enough they were not having it when catapulting feed in and preferred a kinder pot and the water would be swirling and pulling the elastic out of pole tip. If I didn't have a fish after dumping feed in I would pot in water and then bang fish on. I fished a 0.1g
Sconezone Jubleez on shallow line to 0.15 line an 0.13 hooklength with a 16B911 to a banded pellet. The fish seemed to hit a 6mm white sonubaits band'um faster than any other pellet. I lost a couple of these rigs in the far bank vegetation so had to beef up to black hydro 0.15 hooklength and a size 16 hook. I ended up with 138lb which put me no where as blokes had been on top kit down edges all day catching 2 180lb weights for frame.
Sorting out my Edge Fishing...
Next was onto
Cob House Fisheries where I fished the Wednesday open on Oak. Drawing peg 2 gave me a good draw however with a rover going on behind me bsome noisy black country folk I caught 2 fish in first hour. I was planning to catch on top 4/5 on paste and had a few smaller fish during the first couple of hours but they were not having it.
I fed the edges after the first hour and they started coming in. I caught the majority of my fish to my left feeding maggot and groundbait and fishing bunches of 8 maggots on the hook. My margin rig was a new
Sconezone V6 tied on 0.19 powerline to a 4" hooklength of 0.17 powerline to a 14 B911X. These floats are similar to the jubleez float and is brilliant for margins of 2ft or less.
I started catching really well in the last hour of the match and probably put 80lb into the nets in the last hour. People around me were struggling and losing fish. However I had figured out these fish were coming in numbers and boshing up the mag and groundbait. I came off the bottom and actually ended up fishing about 8" deep. I knew I hadn't won the match as Craig Cartridge on peg 15 (out and out flier) had caught all day. I weighed 168lb which was good for 2nd. I could have got a lot closer to the 200lb weight that won if I hadn't been surrounded by morons the first 90mins and I hadn't gone over in 2 nets possibly losing 10lb.
Shallow, Shallow and more Shallow!!
Now I had started to catch some fish and was feeling much happier and confident about my fishing but our club were due to fish at Hallow Angling Clubs water which is notoriously tricky. I hadn't fished the water the last season but the year before I won it with shallow fishing and mugging fish. Every where I read about was catching shallow and after my Ockeridge and Hillview visits I was too, even cob house saw me fishing off the bottom in the edge. So I had Hallow pools, match at laugherne island and moorlands farm coming up maybe shallow will come into my attack.
Hallow Pools
I started the Whitehall club match at Hallow pools at 5m to try and mug a fish on corn over pellet whilst feeding my long line with pouches full of casters. I had 3 rigs set up for this line the first was a Hillbilly floats 0.1g billybob set to fall through 4' of water. The nxet was a Sconezone jubleez in 0.1g set to fish from 2'6" upwards. The final rig was a sconezone slapz set to fish 18" upwards if they were coming to the noise and I needed to slap the rig. All rigs were 0.15 mainline to 0.13 hooklegths to a 18b911 with a hair-rigged mirco band.
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| Sconezone Slapz |
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| Sconezone Jubleez |
I started on the longer rig and was immediately plagued with liners and false bites. I immediately reached for the shallower rig with the jubleez float. The float buried straight away and a 1lb carp was soon subdued. The fish kept coming up and I was soon fishing at 18". They were not taking the pellet on the slap but were coming in to the caster feed being heavily catapulted in, leading to 1 bust catapult.
Half way through the match the fish had started to get weary and lots of fish were cruising around the pool. I cut the feed and started to flick the rig into the path of cruising fish. I shallowed right up to 6" with a white 6mm pellet being the best bait to snaffle a few fish. I just want to point out I wasn't dapping my bait on the surface I was placing the rig in front of the fish. I had a lot of rejections and fish swim straight past and found it was better to wait with pole on rollers and then ship out quickly, much to Dan Sydall's amusement, at groups of fish. I thought I had 40-45lb but was shocked to weigh 60lb.
Laugherne Island
I couldn't wait to fish Laugherne Island after screwing up on the Whitehall club match on the venue. I started 13m shallow using a Jubleez and a Slapz set of rigs with 0.17 to 0.15 powerline and a 16B911 with a hair rigged band for 6mm pellet. I fed 4mm pellet and started catching a few fish at 2ft. I then had to go out to 16m to catch a few more at 12". I continued to feed at 13m and the fish settled back on this line in the middle of the match. Between 1 and 2 I put about 50lb in the net catching steadily and feeding my edge line with 2kg on groundbait and 4 pints of maggots through the last 3 hours. I hardly saw a fish come onto my edge lines and the guy on the end peg next to me also couldn't cath down edge. I weighed in 95lb of shallow caught fish. I couldn't believe off of peg 14 I haven't caught down the edge as that would have easily bumped my weight to well over the ton and a space in the main frame.
Moorlands Farm Evening Match
I was asked if I wanted to fish the evening match at moorlands farm by Scott Poynten. I asked how its fishing, he told me shalla and edges so I of course I was going!! I drew peg 14 which is meant to be a good area and had a great edge line to my left, however yet again I have not been able to catch much at all down the edge.
I started the match at 14.5m feeding and fishing 6mm pellet. After about 30mins I got into the fish fishing at 2ft. I later changed to a Sconezone Slapz as they were coming to the noise of the slap and I was catching quicker on the slap.
I may well have slapped a little too much though as I managed to loose 2 top kits through the session with hooked fish taking them to the depths. DOH!!!
Once again I haven't been able to get them going very well down the edge. I had 3 smaller carp down the inside which added to my 80lb of shallow fish gave me 88lb of fish in total. Had I not lost my top kits and lost my rhythm shallow I would have easily had more. I also lost a double at the net and mistakenly fed my edge from start of match instead of just before I go on it to maximise the feed quantity I had to use in last 2 hours with the strict 5 pint limit.
Baggin' Mecca... Wyatts
Onto another Whitehall league match at Cob House and it was the prolific Wyatts pool! I had bravely said that if I don't catch 200lb today I will jump in after the match and buy everyone a drink back at the Whitehall... pressure on!
So I took an early draw and pulled out 26 which is roughly the area and definitely the right side of the pool I wanted. I set up my box on the right and side of the wooden platform in order to fish next to the platform in the edge.
I started on my top kit straight out in front of me in nearly 4ft of water on miracle baits paste feeding 4mm pellet heavily by hand. Rig was a Sconezone Jadz 0.6g as it was choppy on 0.19 straight through to a 12B911X. I had 3 duplicates of every rig set up for speeeeeed. I had 4 fish in the first 30mins, luckily for me they were between 7lb-8lb each.
After 45min fish were boiling by the platform, I hadn't fed here, so I had to go onto this as I wasn't catching. I had 2ft tight in which was ideal. Again feeding 4mm pellet and fishing miracle baits paste and some coppens pellet turned into a doughy paste so I could swing it in. Orange bazoo carp ripped out of the pole as soon as I lowered my rig, a 0.3g Sconezone V6 on 0.19 through to a size 10 B911X, into the edge. I had to pull the rig tight in to the side to get a bite. If the rig was a foot away from the bank I wouldn't get a bite quick enough.
I had spells of catching quickly but had a 30min spell where I had a couple fish and tried deeper water and shalla again quickly before the fish settled in edge again. I estimated 230lb after the match in my 5 nets. At the weigh in Nigel also had 5 nets and was claiming close to 200lb. When his nets went 130 odd I though I had maybe over estimated my fish?! The first 2 nets went to 95lb and then I lifted the 3rd. It was well over 60lb I cant believe I had done that after going over in oak a couple of weeks ago. I think it was my last 45mins net I went over in as I didn't want to go and get another net as it was close to the end. I had 155lb and was winning with 2 nets to weigh in. I had another 2 nets of 50lb+ which gave me 263lb. A win, new personal record and a new club match record.
.JPG)
