11/08/12 - Glebe - Foundation Lake

Weight - 114lb 8oz
Catch - 40 Carp, 1 Bream
Weather - Warm & sunny, gusty breeze
Match - Angling Trust Master - 15th out of 66 (4th out of 11 - section)

Right the day had come around again and today was an opportunity to banish last years result when I completely and utterly blew out.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that only 11 teams had entered, instead of the 16 from last years event. The reason was a clash of dates with the Winter League final, also run by the Angling Trust a move which has seen quite a lot of criticism aimed at the Trust. A thread has already started on the MFS site and here was my response

"I have to agree with the comments so far. As an average angler I wanted to fish the Masters, because of the expectation of fishing against some household names. Instead we have 4 teams (all Marukyu) made up of local experts, 3 Internet teams and at least 2 teams (South West MG & Sconezone) who's roots originated from the internet. This means there was only 2 teams who have been attracted because it was Angling Trust event, which I think is disappointing and unless the Angling Trust, get it right next year, ie don't clash the dates with another major AT event, this match will lose its prestige. The fact there was no AT representative and the lack of support from the major teams you have to question whether the AT actually care, which I think is quite arrogant considering they insist we are AT members to fish.

Having said that, I enjoyed the day, thought I did enough to pick up in my section on Foundation, but ultimately the top 3 weights came from the top end, which left me a bit deflated, although I beat the local experts either side of me as well as beating top anglers like Rob Austin and Andy Kinder.

Next year, I will have to consider whether I want to do it again. I have fished 4 Glebe matches prior to the Masters to "tune" into the venue, which when you are travelling from Bristol represents a big investment of fuel, bait etc. So if the Masters simply becomes a match for locals & internet teams will it be worth the time and effort. Probably not, however it the match becomes as it describes the Masters, you need the top teams and top anglers to fish, in which case I will definitely be more interested in fishing next year."

I was fishing under the South West Match Group banner run by Mark and we felt we had a strong team (Mark Poppleton, Nick Merry, Paul Law, Pete Bailey, Darren Frost and myself). Unfortunately Paul feel seriously ill during the week and Andy Fox kindly stepped in last minute.

Just after 5am Nick picked me up and as it happened we both been awake since 2am. Sue had decided to let me sleep by staying downstairs, coming to bed at 2, but unfortunately she woke me and I couldn't get back to sleep.

With only 11 teams there was going to be plenty of room, but the Big Lake at Mallory Park was still the place to avoid, whilst Pool 1 was definitely the place everyone wanted.  As a team our initial thought was we had a good draw, with Pete on 24 pool 1, Mark had the "boards" on Pretties, Darren had 66 (end peg) on Pool 4, Andy had 101 on Pool 7 which was OK. This meant Nick was the unlucky angler to have peg 7 on the Big Lake, whilst I had 31 on Foundations.

I've only seen Foundation Lake once before a couple of years ago, when it was tree lined. Since then, the trees have been cut down to open up the lake to the elements, also the lake was drained in February with many fish removed (as well as added) and the information gleaned suggested the lake had carp averaging 3-5lb and very few silvers. The shape of Foundation is like a stretched pyramid with 6 pegs along the dam wall, 15 pegs running up the right side and 17 down the left side. There was also 3 islands running the length of the lake left of centre.

My peg was on the left side between the gap of the first and second island. Of the pegs down this end of the lake I was quite pleased, because the south easterly wind was blowing though the gap so at least I had some ripple to fish into, whilst the only angler (Andy Kinder) I could see opposite was sat in the flat calm water.

With plenty of time to set up I had a walk around the lake and really fancied the pegs at the top end of the lake. With the wind blowing into that end, there was also a nice ripple on the water and I really fancied the top 2 pegs.

The one thing that really surprised me was the clarity of the water and was concerned that my tactic of catching shallow wouldn't be right. Also the margins were only 2ft deep and you could just about see the bottom. Speaking to the locals they felt this would be a tough match with 100lb likely to be a good weight over the 5hrs.

On the all in I started blasting the 13m with caster and after 20mins I still hadn't caught, whilst Andy opposite and the anglers either side of me were already catching their third, fourth and fifth fish from their margins or 5m line. I have to admit I started to panic a little, because I really didn't want to blow out again!

I got my first fish from my margin on pellet, but that was it. By continually feeding the caster the fish finally arrived and I started to catch, but the fish were really spooky in the clear water. Although I had some ripple, the wind was blowing into my face, so occasionally catapulting caster 13m didn't quite make the distance and fishing with a longish line, meant the rig was blowing towards me and the fish were backing away from pole. The other issue was the size of the fish which were smaller than I expected and some of the fish had quite small mouths.

I didn't think was I was catching quickly enough and felt the fish were shying away from the triple or double maggot too often in the clear water, so decided to scale down from .17 & 16 B911, down to .14 and 18 B911, fishing with a single maggot. It was like flicking a switch and I suddenly started catching properly, however many of the fish still had to teased into taking the bait, by either dropping the bait in front of any fish or very slowly dragging rig around.

After 2.5hrs I was up to 17 fish and was fairly sure I had caught up with those anglers I could see, but my concern was the size of my fish, which were still smaller than I had expected. Roy Marlow turned up and reported that most anglers were admitting to 40-50lb, and I thought I had about 40lb.

Going into the 4th hour I was struggling again as the fish backed off. I had tried the waggler earlier without success, but decided to give it another go, but again scaling down to fish single maggot and I had my best period of the match. I was still concerned the average size of my fish was too small, but at least I was catching more than those around me.

In the final hour I lost a couple of fish and snapped my hooklength, a quick look into my margin on paste produced my smallest carp of the day, then my biggest (5lb). Switching back to waggler and I continued to catch, further looks into the margin produced odd fish, but they weren't any bigger than those I was catching on the waggler.

By the end I was really pleased with how it had gone and was sure I had at least 100lb, but although the anglers either side (both Glebe members) had few fish theres looked bigger. Fortunately I caught enough as they weighed 91 & 99lb.

Adam Wakelin won the match from the end peg (p22) on my bank casting a feeder up the lake into peg 20. Dave Swain weighed 125lb from the end peg (p15) on the right bank, with Wayne Melling taking 139lb from the next peg down. So the top 3 came from the top end of the lake and if I'm being honest was left feeling a little deflated, because I thought I had done enough to at least claim 3rd and a pick up, but ultimately you had 3 very good anglers on the top 3 pegs on the lake.

As a team, we had 3 good results. Pete won his section, Mark got 3rd and my 4th, but unfortunately we also had 3 below middle results, finishing 6th and the team pay outs went down to 5th.

1st 178-8 0 Adam Wakelin (Drennan)
2nd 177- 8 Aaron Moreton (Total Fishing)
3rd 177- 8 Dom Lanni (Marukyu Green)
4th 171- 0 Jarrad Smith (Total Fishing)
5th 164- 8 Kev Russell (Marukyu Green)
6th 156- 0 Pete Bailey (South West MG)
7th 152- 8 Chris Downs (Marukyu Red)
8th 151-14 Jay De Clouet (Marukyu Green)
9th 146- 4 Phil Ringer (Drennan)