Catch Up

Well its been a few weeks since my last post and i have to admit a couple of frustrating weeks. so much so I'm currently on a self enforced break from fishing matches
First of all i decided to head to a new venue to me, Hillview just outside Tewkesbury. A fairly local venue,  25 minutes down the road, and a venue i regularly hear great reports about on Talk Angling. I fancied a change so gave it a go. On arriving i had a walk around and the venue looks really nice with 2 pools and 4 'canals' in a fairly compact site. The talk was that the 2 bigger pools were the places to be and with only 10 on the match the canals weren't going to be included.

a nice club house got a great sandwich inside me and the draw quickly came around and i really didn't have a clue where i wanted to be. peg 26 stuck to my hand which put me on the right hand bank of the right hand pool as you look at them from the club house. the peg looked nice with plenty of margin cover, but to be fair every peg on the complex looks nice! it was tight behind me with an elevated walkway 2 metres behind me and a good metre above the lakeside bank. Shipping would be slightly awkward but not too bad.

my homework told me margins to the next pallets, a shortish on the deck pellet line, then a long meat line with a view to catching shallow over it. i had bait suit.

my favourite aspect had joined me today and the wind was blowing, hard at times, diagonally towards me from right to left! and it was bloody freezing!!!! my bank was easily the worst affected as the other pool was protected by some very tall trees. then to cap things off even more, my number 5 collapsed on me as i was setting up. I've used my Maver 401 for 3 years with fantastic results, and this the first issue I've ever had with it so i cant complain too much! i did notice a crack in it the previous week and forgot to get it sorted so its my own fault really! anyway lots of glue and tape got it secured and i was reasonably happy.

i got off to a good start with a carp first chuck on the short pellet line, but that was the only bite in the first 30 minutes. the wind was creating quite a bad tow and i wasn't happy with it. going out long i had a 2lb tench first chuck on the meat on the deck. the wind was again causing trouble and i couldn't feed it with any form of reasonable accuracy to create a decent shallow line. after an hour with the carp, tench and a couple of skimmers in the net my head started switching off. the short line was only producing the odd bite, same as the long meat line, and the margins seemed barren. i did start a long pellet line and managed a few more carp off it. they weren't really responding to cad potting bait in regularly so i was dumping it when the few bites i was getting tailed off then resting it.

the remainder of the match went by fairly slowly with only the odd fish making an appearance. i wasn't coping with the wind and my decision making tailed completely off. i finished with 36lb in the net finishing well in the bottom half with venue regular Neville Groves taking the match win with 93lb 3 pegs down from me, and second place directly opposite me! well and truly spanked.

next match was to be at Cob House, and a match arranged through Match Fishing Scene. 26 guys were coming from all over the country to fish Laugherne Island. it was going to be tight but i still confident plenty of fish would be caught. i had been really looking forward to this match and put loads of prep in with plenty of hook lengths and fresh rigs all round.

peg 17 stuck to my hand which put me off the island at the far end of the pool. my usual cob house attack was set up with a long long pellet line, shorter paste line and margin set up, although i didn't think the margins would work with so many on the pool. i started on the long pellet line, and couldn't get it to go under. there were loads of fish moving and the weather although nice and warm in the day was still going cold at night!

Most people were struggling and it was obvious the pool wasn't coping all that well with 26 on it and very changeable temperatures. after 90 minutes i finally put a fish in the net on the long pellet. i had lost 3 fish before this though, but that was to be the story of most peoples match.

With the pellet not really getting me bites and the shorter paste line not working i decided to put the paste over my long line and see what happened. there was a breeze again which wasn't making things overly easy, but the paste anchored in place nicely started getting me a few bites (but only a few). it also made things easy from a tactical point of view as i was pretty much going to stay on it for the rest of the match. physically paste at 16 meters is hard work.

i finished with 6 fish in the net for 24lb, extremely disappointing, but I'd lost 10 fish over the course of the match. some definitely foul hooked, but some I'm positive were properly hooked. i was also disappointed for Cob House as i love the place and happily tell all that ask about it, but it hadn't performed on the day. fortunately plenty of the guys realised it really is a good fishery, but had an off day! (lots of venues all over the country weren't fishing to their best at all. lots of theories going around, but in my mind  the really hard winter, and big temperature changes from night to day meant the fish didn't know where they were! winter or spawning time!)

so 2 matches I'd looked forward to and fancied a good result from, I'd come away with nothing. On form I'm sure i would have worked harder and earned a result if only a section, but on both occasions my head had switched off and I'd let myself down. So a break is in order, get my kit sorted (new or repaired number 5) and have a couple of pleasure sessions to start to enjoy my fishing again.

Which brings me to last Friday. as i finish work at midday on Fridays, and wait for Mrs P to finish her work at around 4-5pm, i have time to myself. after a long week at work i fancied Arrow Valley for something. i was thinking about a long range feeder session as casting practise i never a bad thing! but a lovely warm afternoon after a week of hot weather meant the fish had spawned and i fancied catching some silvers in the form of roach. so a proper wag and mag session was in order. 1 pint of whites, half of reds, my old trusty MAP matchtek 13ft waggler, TD-R2508 and a small 2.5AA insert and i was away.

i chose the small shallower bay behind the sailing club as it always holds roach and is usually fairly sheltered. wind was minimal wit the odd swirl here and there. i could comfortably get my feed out to around 25 metres and it only took 2 chucks and 5 minutes for the first roach to find my net. and at 10oz a great start. so for the next 3 hours i pretty much put either a roach, perch or hand sized skimmer in the net most casts.

I was sat there totally enjoying myself, no pressure to catch bigger fish, catch faster and make sure i was keeping ahead of those around me! my only problem was making sure some feed found its way around it way around my float to make sure it went under again! i did play about with the shotting (i'd built 6 number 10's into the bulk around the float) to see if anything made a difference, and found 3 of the number 10's spread out give me a nice drop and a bite well within a minute. my smallest fish was around 3oz with a couple pushing a pound and everything in between.

i don't think there is anything much better in fishing than watching a waggler settle to a dimple, a few maggots drop around it and then the float vanish from view! the rod tip shudders as a roach realises its been fooled and then shimmers as it emerges in front of you! brilliant! 20lb later and the weeks hassles at work and previous poor fishing was gone, i was a very happy man! a couple more sessions like this (bream next time i think, then some carp) and I'll put another match in.

The weather has got noticeably warmer in the day and at night and most venues have spawned so the next few weeks should show a great weights being recorded.

One last note - there is every chance there will be an open at Arrow Valley in the next month or two. look out on the various fishing web sites for any advertisements!!
Happy dangling, all, catch you next time!!
Scott