20/02/11 - Fishponds

Weight – 97lb 10oz
Catch – 13 Carp.
Weather – Cloudy. Chilly light breeze
Match – Glenfall – 2nd

12 turned for today’s match. Graham Beevor & I sorted the pegs, because we both wanted to see less anglers pegged in the arm of the lake and ended up putting pegs 1 & 4 in, although in hindsight I would have swapped peg 4 with 3 to give peg 22 on the opposite bank more room.

I would have been happy with most pegs today and pulled peg 1 at the bottom of the arm, but at least this time I had more space to play with. This peg is a cracking pleasure peg, but in a match can be a bit hit or miss. After yesterdays practice session, I decided to be less aggressive with my feed and also swapped .15 & 16 B911 to .14 to 18 B911 on my pole rigs.

Settled on 5 swims, #1-the far bank feeding 8mm pellet, #2-13m at 1o’clock feeding micro pellet, #3- 12m at 11o’clock where it started to shallow up towards the end of the lake. The same rig would be used at 10m along the right bank at the bottom of the shelf. Swims #3 & 4 where both feed with 4mm pellet & corn. Swim #5 was down the left hand margin, but I never even tried here.

I started on the waggler & lead towards the far side as I let the pole swims settle, but nothing. After 40mins I could see a few fish being caught as I switched swim #2 with double red maggot, but it was another 10mins before I caught my 1st carp, which was a relief. Another followed 30mins later, but it was slow. Dave Bradley on peg 4 and Craig Davidge on peg 15 were setting the pace from the pegs I could see. My concern after my slow start was the wind had being blowing out of this end of the lake yesterday so I wasn’t convinced there would be many fish in the area.

After 3 hours I was up to 3 fish and felt I was about 4th from the anglers I could see, but there were 5 others I couldn’t see. To be honest I was chopping and changing too much, when I should just be patient. I had kept feeding 4x 8mm’s every 5mins to the far side and during the 4th hour I had 4 carp all on double corn and the tip. In the meantime I decided to up the feed over swims #3 & 4, instead of catapulting 15-20x 4mm’s every 15mins, I was now feeding every 10mins.

With 2 hours to go, the breeze picked up a little and it was starting feel cold, which lead to a few bank walkers trying to get warm. I decided to bin swim #2 to concentrate on swims #3 &4. I was still behind Dave & Craig, with reports that Graham Beevor was catching regularly from peg 10, as was Tim Allen on peg 12. So it was looking like I was fishing for 3rd.

My pole swims produced 4 carp (3 on corn and the other on pellet) which I surprised about, since I was expecting to catch more particularly towards the end of the match. I finished with 2 carp in the last ½ hour and knew I had beaten Craig who stopped catching with 90min to go. Although Dave was protesting he hadn’t caught much, but I knew it would be close.

Dave was 2nd to weigh after me and his 92lb was as close as expected. Grahams peg must have been solid, because he won with 174lb, fishing into the corner. I actually fancied his peg today, because yesterday there were some big fish crashing around and the wind had been blowing that way. Tim’s catch had been over estimated (never have Andy Bradley as a bank runner – he cant count). Craig claimed 4th spot with 65lb, leaving me with 2nd.