17/04/10 - Fishponds

Weight – 174lb 4oz
Catch – 23 Carp, 1 Bream
Weather – Sunny and calm
Match – Club - 2nd overall

My club has decided to run a few Saturday afternoon/evening matching during the summer, with 1 of the matches being rod & reel only – great and another being feeder only – not so great, but I think the idea was to provide more of level playing field.

Anyway back to today's match. Having got used to fishing 6hr match recently, a 5hr match was going to feel a bit odd, but at least we would be fishing during the best part of the day.

Peg 3 was my destination, which I was a little disappointed about, simply because in a match the arm of the lake, doesn't normally fish that well, particularly with anglers drawn opposite.
I had brought my pellet wagglers, but I didn't expect to use it. Instead I set up a shallow rig on the pole to fish 8mm pellet, but again I wasn't expecting to catch, unless the wind picked up and created some ripple.

My principle rigs would be paste rigs at 10m and down the margins, feeding 8 & 6mm pellet.

After 2 hours I only had 4 fish in the net and concerned there were no fish in the area, but Ian on peg 7 was sacking and was already up to nearly 20 fish. I had been feeding 8mm at 13/14m hoping to catch shallow and a quick look confirmed what I thought – it was a waste of time, so I gave up on this line.

Both my margins & 10m lines started showing signs of life, catching most put ins and I managed to keep the fish coming by rotating the swims until the end of the match, including some munters up to 13.5lb.

I knew I hadn't won, because Ian was admitting to 40 carp having caught for most of the match and my match record of 218lb was under serious threat. As it happen Ian didn't have quite as much as I thought with a slightly smaller stamp of fish, but he still had enough weighing 228lb. So congratulations and I wont be surprised to the record is broken again by the end of the summer. 3rd was Kev Millard on peg 11 who had 156lb, so some big weights as the fish feed up ready for spawning.

Although I lost my match record, my weight today is still the 3rd best match weight at the venue.