14/08/11 - Fishponds

Weight – 213lb 8oz
Catch – 29 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny, with variable wind.
Match – Club – 1st out of 15

With 15 booked in today, it usually means the fishing is likely to be a bit hard. I found myself on peg 1 again (where I was a couple of weeks ago) and intended to attack it in the same way, i.e. catch mostly on the paste and maybe a few fish on the pellet waggler.

The match didn’t quite go according to plan. After 1hr 45min I was still fishless, which was a real surprise, since the wind was blowing down the arm. I had been concentrating on the paste, but expect for 1 lost fish and a few iffy bites the carp simply didn’t turn up.

Throughout I had been firing 8mm’s to the far side and already given the pellet waggler 10mins an hour ago without success, however now I started to see swirls and dark shapes milling around the feed.

For the next 3hrs, it was virtually a fish every cast, with either a hair rigged 10mm white boilie or 8mm pellet. I only had to a break when the main line snapped above the float but the fish were properly having it.

With hour to go things slowed down, partly due to the wind dropping, but also our club chairman let go of his pole whilst attached to a carp. Said carp and 8m of pole came the full length of the lake down towards me and I had to go around the other side to help retrieve the pole. It took 10mins to get the fish back again, but with 20mins left it went completely flat calm and the fish became very finicky. A quick look on the pole/paste still failed to produce.

In the end the win was very convincing. Had I stuck with the pole/paste I would probably struggled to frame, but the fish wanted to be up in the water. This is my biggest weight on the pellet waggler and it made a nice change from catching on the paste. It is also my 4th pick up in the last 5 matches, so a definite swing from the struggles a few months ago.

1st 213- 8 – Ken
2nd 83- 0 – Andy
3rd 81- 0 - Chris