Well unfortunately this isnt going to be the longest of entries as the match was a let down, and i can honestly say it was me not the venue (well mostly me!!!!). No pictures this week neither, as the camera was playing up!
This was only the second match i've fished since my Cob House TA match blow out, and the weeks of snow, ice and no fishing had given me plenty of time to get my hooklength box re-stocked with plenty of G-Point Pellets, B911's and B611's and plenty of rigs tied with freshly made floats! i was raring to go and with the Manor farm winter league finally scheduled to kick off the following Sunday (after 2 cancellations) manor farm was the venue for the day today.
I was really looking forward to the match and met John Watson for breakfast just gone 8am, and with a 9.30 draw we had plenty of time to eat, have a chat and walk round.
John is fishing windmill pool in the winter league so i'd spent a couple of weeks making some extra long pencil floats from 0.5-1g to cope with the deep water, upto 12ft. They have turned out really nicely and will hopefully do the business.
When the draw finally arrived there were 21 and anglers in the book, so Dave split the match with 10 on Island pool and 11 on Windmill. Windmill is a favourite of mine but with Island in it wont compete for the overall match win (although the money was split over the 2 pools)
I somehow managed to get to the front of the queue and peg 36 on island stuck to my hand. This is a great peg, left hand end peg on the bank, with the next guy on my right the other side of a rope, so i had 3/4 of this side of the island to myself. The water was like a mill pond with the Sun shining in the early stages.
I had plenty of time to set up as i only had to move my car 20 yards to get to my peg! i really wanted a pole match today but knew the island was going to produce the bulk if not all of my fish. So i set the following gear up: -
Rods
maver Powerlite feeder system @11ft, TD-R 3012, 6lb Sensor, drennan carp feeder, 0.14 hooklength to 17 B711
Maver powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, TD-R 3012, 0.20 Genesis, small 30g elasticated preston method, 0.18 hooklength to a eyed 18 B911
Pole
1. Light pellet, 0.4 slim pencil 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Ultima Power Silk mainline, 0.10 Power Silk hooklength to 18 G-Point Pellet. Spread bulk with 3 droppers.
2. Positive Pellet, 0.4 Slim pencil 2mm dumpy tip, 0.15 Power Silk mainline, 0.12 Power silk hooklength to an 18 G-Point Pellet. Simple bulk 15" from the hook.
3. Maggot, 0.3g silvers floats 1mm tip, 0.14 Power Silk Mainline, 0.10 hooklength to a 20 B611.
the second rig features a new float i've knocked up for the positive bulk rig i've been playing with on the last couple of sessions. the idea behind it is that a bristle is used to read the droppers as the float settles. but if your using a rig with no droppers and a single bulk, why do you need a long bristle. So i've made these floats with 2 mm tip so i can dot it to a pimple if needed and a very short 25mm long tip. The float settles straight away against the bulk and you can lift and drop the pellet very naturally in the last 12" of water.
These rigs were plumbed to dead depth at 12 and 10 o'clock, 14.5 metres in front of me. The maggot feeder rod was clipped up 3 meters short of a reed bed in front of me and the method clipped tight to some roots 15 yards to the left of the reed bed.
Bait for the day consisted of a pint of 4mm expanders, a pint of softened 4mm feed pellets (Cob House Coppens pellets. i prefer them to Skrettings as they seem to break down quicker) a pint of red and white maggots and 1/2kg of Voodoo for the method.
On the whistle i fed 30-40 expanders on 12 o'clock pole line and 30-40 feed pellets on the 10 o'clock line. and then chucked the maggot feeder.
The first hour went very slowly with only one slight touch on the feeder and with me leaving it in for a good 10 minutes and giving it a couple of twitches. I put another metre on the clip and gave the pole line a try for 10 minutes without even a touch. At this point, out of the anglers i could see 4-5 people had caught, all on the feeder.
Back to the maggot feeder and the closer chuck gave me a wrap straight away and fish number 1 was in the net - Phew!!!! The following casts in the next hour gave a few liners but nothing special, so again another meter of line was taken off the clip and the pole tried again. All the time i'd been on the feeder, the pole lines were topped up using a small CAD pot. 20 minutes on the pole this time still gave no bites so i started to flick a few maggots over the expander line to try and generate some interest.
Back to the feeder and the next 2 chucks resulted in fish and at half way i had 3 fish in the net. By now the guy on the opposite end of my bank had started to catch regularly and was pulling away. John had drawn peg 10 on windmill and i'd seen him get the landing net out quite regularly too.
The rest of the match ran away from me with me swapping between the pole and feeder to try and find some fish or make something happen, but failing miserably. I ended up with 6 fish and i didnt bother the scalesman. I felt very down heartened about the day as it was a great draw and i'm sure the peg was worth a lot more fish!
I dont want to make excuses but i've a had some thoughts on the day.
Match Fitness
This was only my second match in 5-6 weeks and i felt my 'match fitness' was way off the mark. Firstly my decision making was pretty poor, not only by the actual decisions i made but also by the lack of desicions!!!
I had a lot of water to go at in front of me with a good 25 metres of island to explore. In the end i only used the two lines i'd initially clipped up and left a massive portion of it untouched. BAD CHOICE! I also decided to set the pole up as i 'fancied' a few fish on it. BAD CHOICE - this only served to distract me away from the island where the fish actually were!
Also my work rate was prety poor. When i tried the pole i just sat there expecting it to work and go under. I'm sure there were probably a fish or 2 to be had (proven by the guy on the opposite end peg catching 4 fish on his pole line) but i was lazy and didnt play with my rigs to make them work, i couldnt be bothered to ship in and out to keep some bait trickling in so consequently the pole line produced nothing!
By having the 2 methods, feeder and pole, set up i managed to fish 2 methods poorly instead of one method well!
Talking to Steve Ford later on in the evening it turned out the water to the left of the reed bed is deeper than that in front and can hold the fish there. If i'd have had my proper match head on i'd either found the deeper water when i was clipping the rod up with a bomb on or i'd have explored the peg during the match.
John fished a great match and won the Windmill pool with 32lb including a lump of 12lb. He'd kept fish coming most of the match and was happy to catch silvers when the carp werent playing ball! If i fished the match again i'd leave the pole in the bag and concentrate on the island. Instead of plumbing the pole line i'd plumb the island and find where the fish were or would want to be!
Next Sunday is the first round of the winter league and i'm fishing boundary pool. This is a hard pool, especially when cold, but there are pleny of solvers to go at and some massive perch so plenty of bites are on the cards but you need to find some carp to compete for the section. this week has been a wake up call so i'm looking forward to next Sunday get back on top form and put a decent net of fish together!
Tune in next week!
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