15/05/10 - Fishponds

Weight – 130lb 14oz
Catch – 18 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny, westerly breeze.
Match – Rod & Reel Float Only - 2nd overall

Whilst loading the car, I realised I had forgotten something – my nets, but where the hell were they? Then it dawned on me, that whilst sorting a few bits out in the shed last night I took my stink bag, containing 3 keepnets and 2 landing nets, out of the shed, leaving them out overnight. Some light finger bar-steward had only nicked it. Unfortunately a blown down fence panel allowed them easy access, via our next door neighbour. I suspect it was nicked, because there wasn’t anything else light enough to take which is bloody annoying.

I arrived at Tony's on the way to the match with my tale of woe, upon where Tony did his best impression of Arkwright from “Open All Hours”, never seen him move so fast, rubbing his hands together.

Anyway back to the match. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, my club would be running a series of Saturday afternoon/evening matches. This round was a rod & reel, float only match, which would be interesting.

Fortunately I drew an open water swim so I set up 2 pellet wagglers (1x 4” hooklength & the other 10”), a conventional waggler to fish mid-depth (& the margin) and an on the deck waggler to fish 8m out at the bottom of the shelf. All rigs had .17 bottom to 16 B960, hair rigging 8mm pellet.

After all the cold & rain over the last couple of weeks the sun made a welcome appearance, so I was hopeful I could catch a few shallow.

Starting at 8m other than a liner no bites where forth coming. In the meantime I had been feeding 8mm ready for the pellet waggler and after 30mins saw my first swirl. 5mins later I lost a foul hooker on the longer hooklength, 10mins later and another lost foulhooker – bugger. A switch to the shallower rig and I hooked one properly, but then they disappeared.

After 2 hours I only had 2 carp and my short line had yet to produce. However, most around the lake were catching well, with Graham leading the way fishing hard pellet 2 rod lengths out.

I kept the pellet going in and come the 3rd hour the fish arrived properly. Found it best to fish the 10” rig, cast then feed, wait 10-15secs feed again, wait again. If no bites, then feed again just as I reeled in. For some reason feeding & then casting straight away didn’t work as well. The conventional waggler didn’t work over the waggler line, although I managed a couple of carp towards the pallet on my right.

Going into the 5th & final hour I was up to 16 carp, but the wind dropped and I struggled to get another bite, which was disappointing, because I knew I was catching Graham and ultimately the last hour cost me.

1st 148lb – Graham Millard
2nd – 130lb – Ken Rayner
3rd – 121lb – Roger Putterill
4th – 86lb – Andy Lord