27/06/11 - Glebe - Pool 1

Weight – 129lb 4oz
Catch – 35 Carp, 8 Bream
Weather – Sunny, very windy, rain, cloudy, flat calm – take your pick!
Match – Match Fishing Scene Float Only – 5th out of 20 (3rd in section)

1st trip to the Glebe in Leicestershire, which is a club complex with 8 lakes as well as 2 other lakes at Mallory Park run by Roy Marlow. It’s a really well established and well looked after fishery and today’s match was on Pool 1, which is the biggest lake on the complex with 30 well spaced pegs on a boomerang spaced lake.

This MFS match attracted anglers from all over the country, as well as a few locals, most of whom had fished here before . It was certainly an expensive day, particularly with fuel prices, however I was awake early and Mark picked me up at 5am reaching Nuneaton just after 7 for breakfast.

Today will be the first of 3 visits this summer with another float only next month and the Angling Trust Masters in August, so I was largely guided by Mark about the best approach and he has had a lot of success fishing caster. So 30pts were ordered from Tony to be split between 3 of us, plus I had another 4pts frozen. Several tins of corn and bags of 6mm pellet completed the bait list, plus I some worms left over from a few weeks ago.

After an initial walk round the way the wind was blowing, we both fancied either end, although around pegs 15-17 can be flyers and I found myself on peg 26, with Mark on 27. With 20 pegs in we all had plenty of space, split into 2 sections. I certainly had a challenge on today. As well as Mark, Pete Bailey was in my section as well as the end peg 30 which won yesterday’s match with 200lb.

Obviously with 14pts of caster tactics for the day would be shallow at 13m with 3 or 4 red maggots on a 16 B911. I also set up a line at 5m feeding pellet & corn, as well down the margin, under a bush which obscured my view of the rest the lake to my left and I only had 3 anglers to my right.

When the match started there was a gentle breeze, which soon got stronger. In the 1st hour I had 5 carp and already got though 3pts of caster! Moving into the 2nd & 3rd hour was a struggle, yet Mark kept catching. At the time I really couldn’t understand why. However on reflection, because I was in danger of going through my caster too quickly, I had cut back on the feed, plus the wind was becoming increasingly strong, making it difficult to feed. Also I should have used a heavier float to provide a bit more stability. So after 3hrs I had about 40lb.

I periodically tried the 5m line, which produced silly bites on corn from what turned out to be skimmers. Whilst on this line I upped my caster feed and started to get more swirls so the fish had returned. I then remembered I still had some worm so started using worm heads and tails, with the fish preferring the tails, probably because they wriggled more.

The next 3hrs was far better, alternating between worm and maggot. The wind dropped and in the last 2hrs I probably just beat Mark, but he had too bigger lead to overtake. However, the end peg only had 3 fish in the last hour, whilst I put in 40-50lb including my biggest fish of 9lb, beating the end peg by 20lb.

The 5m line didn’t really produce and I had 1 roach from the margin which dropped off. In the end had a really enjoyable days fishing, certainly learnt a few things about the venue and have a clearer understanding of what I need to do for next time.

I got beaten in my section by Pete Baily and Mark, which is nothing to be ashamed about. My section was 1st to be weighed and for a while it looked like I would be 3rd overall since no one was admitting to more, however pegs 6 & 8 both beat me so I ended up picking up the section by default.

1st 194- 5 Pete Bailey – p23
2nd 168- 5 Mark Poppleton – p27
3rd 153- 1 Bob P – p6
4th 141- 6 Tim Suttle – p8
5th 129- 4 Ken Rayner – p26
6th 118-10 Nick Merry – p20