My new Blog

This is my first attempt at blogging, so i will kicking my page off with a match fished last sunday at Packington Somers on Molands Mere Pools. This match was round of The Solihull Angling teams of 3 Summer league, with the team consiting of me, my old mate mark Franklin and guesting this week for us was non other than super star Pete Bailey
This was my first outing since getting married and getting back off the honeymoon, so a fair bit of prep had to be put in on my kit and elastics were changed, new rigs were made and plenty of bait was prepared.
This is my second visit to the venue and i won the round last year in the same league with 21lb of skimmers on the feeder to the far bank and a number of talks with Pete had confirmed that same sort of tactics would be needed for this years match.
On match day Pete kindly offered to drive us to Packington and we arrived in plenty of time, enough time in fact to have a sandwich and a leasurly walk around the pool. Plenty of carp were showing on the far banks around the islands, with only a few smaller fish topping.
At the draw i picked an envelope and lets the lads pick the peg numbers out the envelope. Mark had permanent peg 17, Pete had 6 and I got 52.
Last year i won off peg 48 so was confident i was in a decent area. On arriving at the peg i set up the following gear: -

-Maver Powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, No.3 tip, 6lb senor, medium drennan cage, 18" of 0.16 to a 16 B911.
-Maver Powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, No.4 tip, 6lb sensor, small method feeder, 3" of 0.20 to a 14 QM1
- 3 top fours off my Maver 401
- Rig 1 - 4x18 DC11, bulk of No.8's with 2 no.11 droppers, 0.14 mainline, 0.12 hooklength to a 16 B611
- Rig 2 - 0.4 homemade pencil float, well spread bulk of no.9 stotts and 2 no.11 droppers, 0.14 mainline, 0.10 hooklength to a 18 B611.
- Rig 3 - 0.5 PB23, bulk of 8's with no.10 droppers, 0.14 mainline, 0.14 hooklength to 16 B911.

The 2 feeder rods were cast and clipped up about a metre off the far bank, where there was a good 3ft of water. It went down to 18" tight ot the island.
Rigs 1 and 2 were plumbed up at 13 metres where there was at least 9ft of water. Rig 1 was set 2" on the deck, and rig 2 set dead depth.
Rig 3 was plumbed at 5 sections were the inside shelf just started to drop off down to the middle of the pool.
Bait for the day was 1/2 kilo of worm, 2 pints of casters, 1/2 pints of dead red maggots, 1/2 pint of dead red pinkies, some micro and 4mm pellets, some 4 and 6mm expander pellets pumped for the hook, a kilo of Super G green and a kilo of Voodoo mixed for the feeder and method.
The day didnt start massively well for me. i got my box sorted but managed to walk off the side of the platform and give my left foot a right good dunking which stayed soggy all day. i then realised i'd left my landing nets in Petes car with my stink bag as you have to use the fishery nets. these 2 factors meant i was struggling for time and only just got myself ready for the start (but my side tray would need organising after the whistle).
I dont know if anyone else is the same but my head really goes if i'm not ready for the whistle and can't cast a line or at least feed something when the whistle goes.
Anyway when the whistle did go, 5 feederfulls were deposited on the feeder line with the feeder packed with worm and caster, 3 big balls were cupped in on the pole line with a sprinkling of caster, then half a pot of neat worm and caster over the balls. i then hand fed some pellet and castor over the 5 section line.
I was going to start on the feeder and first chuck gave a suprise slight wobble on the tip and skimmer number 1 @ 6oz was in the net after 5 minutes. this was a much better start than anticipated so i was chuffed to get off the mark. next cast resulted in another bite and another skimmer of roughly the same size.
The first hour (by far the best hour of the match) went brilliantly with 4 skimmers, 2 crucians and 2.5lb tench in the net. I was flying.
But things slowed down and the next 4 hours was where the hard work came in and bites had to be worked for.
The feeder slowed just after the first hour and i noticed my pole line was fizzing nicely so i had to try it. rig 1 was baited up with a nice chunk of worm and despatched out on the line. things werent quite right on this line though, i had a few tentative touchs and finally latched into a decent bite that resulted in a small crucian. out again but i couldnt get another decent bite on that line and used 20 minutes trying. this line was topped up with a handfull of worm and caster and the feeder line was tried again. but same as the pole i could only get 1 or 2 fish on this line too. the pole line was regularly topped up with neat worm and caster only, no more groundbait as Pete advised they didnt like groundbait over there heads.
So i stuck to a pettern of catch a fish or 2 and swap lines to at least keep something going in the net.
I did have a run of 3 decent skimmers at just over pound a piece on the feeder after about 3 hours, but had to resort to swapping lines for the remainder of the match.
The feeder line definately died with 45 mins to go, so i spent the last part on the pole line and actually managed to get 3 crucians in that time and a skimmer on the whistle.
Its always nice to be landing a fish when the final whistle goes!!!!!
Overall i was fairly happy with the match, although i didnt know it at the time a couple of lost fish on the feeder and pole would cost me points in a fairly tight section. i ended up with around 25 fish with the tench being by far the biggest in the bag.
Only 20 minutes after the final whistle a very frustrated Pete was already behind me, fully packed up and waiting to go!!! on investigation it turned out he'd had a mare and lost 8 carp to the nearside lillys, but got 2 carp and some bits in the net. he left the net to be wieghed in by someone else such was his frustration!!!
When the scales arrived round to my peg, Pete learned he'd actually weighed 17lb and secured 3rd in his section!! his misery started to lift and he seemed a lot happier with himself. for him its one of those days to leave behind and not worry about. i'm positive it wont affect him at all!
we also learned that mark had won his section with a pole caught 21lb. i thought i'd got 11-12lb and 9 and 18lb had already been wieghed in my secton. my net pulled the needle round to 16lb 3oz, and i was pleasantly suprised. no more wieghts followed until the penultimate peg who put 19lb on the scales to push me to third. I'm sure the 2 fish i lost were worth the points for a section win.
In hindsight it didnt matter as we won on the day as a team by a clear 4 points and (eventually) took £30 home each for our efforts.
On reflection i fished a decent match, but lost fish cost me the section. i felt the pole was worth more fish as it was fizzing nicely for most of the match but i could only muster minimal bites from it. i fished rig 1 from 6" over to dead depth with worm, caster and maggot but couldn't improve things and i was more than happy with the presentation. Rig 2 was even worse than rig 1. i didnt try my 5 section line at all, and in fact stopped feeding it after 1.5hrs as i was getting through my casters quickly between the pole and feeder and didnt want ot run out. another pint of caster in my bag would have been very handy!!!!
Packington is a lovely venue and one i'd like to fish more but its a bit of a jaunt from home.
One final note, the fishery staff weigh you in at your peg and toally handle the weighing in process. They tip the fish into the weigh sling over the water with the sling in the water then lift it out to registe the weight. But water is constantly draining out of the sling when they call the weight!!!!! i cant see how this is any way accurate! but i suppose they do the same for everyone!
Anyway, Cobb House fishery this Saturday, my local, so hopefully i should have some excellent news and pictures next week!!!!!