20/03/11 - Fishponds

Weight –100lb 5oz
Catch – 15 Carp, 1 Bream
Weather – Mild, sunny and breezy.
Match – Glenfall – 1st

With work going well, I’m starting to get exciting about my fishing again and have already begun filling my calendar with dates for matches, including 3 trips to the Glebe in Leicestershire (2 float only matches on pool 1 – organised by Mark and the ACA masters). Next month I’m at Peatmoor Lagoon, Swindon for a Match Fishing Scene (MFS) website match, plus 3 matches at Todber Manor. As for my club, we are going back to Cuckoos Rest (which is 1 of those venues I wish was a little closer to home) and somewhere called Mill Pool, near Painswick, Gloucestershire.

Today 14 turned up and I thought a good day would be had by all, but as it turned out the fish were in a funny mood. I drew peg 6, which I was more than happy with, since it’s a peg I sit on regularly when pleasure fishing.

Because we are entering that period of change, when the carp will start to feed more aggressively, I wasn’t sure what bait to take, so in the end I took everything, except micros. I even knock up some paste the night before and added some tandori spice to give it an extra kick.

Knowing the peg well, setting up rigs was simple and settled on 5 swims. #1-my right hand margin, #2- 10m @ 2’o clock, there was only 6 inch difference in depth, so the same rig could be used. #3 was 13m @ 11’o clock, where it is deeper, #4 was 9m in the left hand margin which was only 2ft deep and the final swim would be 20-25m on the pellet waggler.

All my pole swims received some 4mms & a few 6mms at the start, and I started to fire 8mms in preparation for the waggler. Whilst I let that settle I spent 10mins on the lead and double corn, but never had a bite. In fact this was only the time I picked up the rod.

A look over my deep water rigs with pellet or corn, but nothing. Looking around everyone else was struggling as well. I felt the fish would turn eventually so decided to fire a pouch of 4mms every 10mins to draw the fish in. After 45mins I landed my first fish, a 3lb bream, which if I’m being honest was a bit of a fluke, because after 10mins without a bite, I went to ship back and found the bream hanging on.

Since I couldn’t get a bite in my open water swims, I needed to try my margins swims a lot sooner than I wanted. The deeper RH swim didn’t produce, so time to try the LH margin with paste, 2mins later I had my 1st paste fish of the year.

The rest of the match was rotating all my pole swims, with the LH margin. Because it was on 2ft deep, I couldn’t catch more than 2 fish, before the fish spooked. I also lost a couple of foul hookers, so eased back on the feed, which helped. Since the paste was working, I set up a new paste rig to fish the deeper RH margin, but never had a bite.

As for the pellet waggler, the ducks were benefiting more than the fish, a couple of casts didn’t produce, which wasn’t a surprise, since the fish liked the ripple over their head and my part of the lake was mostly sheltered from the SW wind.

As the match drew to a close I felt was comfortably winning, following a good 4th & 5th hours, but the last hour was a blank. Andy on peg 3 had 3 fish in the last 15mins and I wasn’t certain of winning, whilst I had more fish, I had a slightly smaller stamp of fish than usual and Andy had at least 1 carp of 13lb.

1st Ken Rayner 100-5
2nd Andy Lord 82-14
3rd Tim Allen 68-3
4th Chris Davidge 51-0

A strange day. We have had a couple of frosts recently, but with the mild day time temperatures I thought the fishing would be easier. Andy had caught most of his fish on the tip cast to the far bank, however speaking to Tim and Chris, they both said the majority of their fish came from the shallower water in the margins. It seems very few fish were caught in the deeper water. Obviously the shallower water warmed up quicker in the sun. People were suggesting the frosty nights had affected the fishing. I’m not so sure. Whilst the weather has an influence, so does the lunar cycles and the moon had recently been the closest to earth for nearly 20 years.