Scotts Fishing Blog

Big Catch Up!!

2010-08-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

A few entries to catch up on this week and a couple of reviews to finish off. But, only a few pictures this week, my camera has decided to eat batteries draining them within 2 photos so will have to sort an alternative.

Cob House 10-07-10, Laurel Pool
Well it had been far too long since my previous visit to Cob House so it was long overdue. Laurel was the destination this week. I have only fished it once before, and managed 133lb from the margin so knew the pool was more like Wyatts (lots of bites and smaller fish) rather than Laugherne (with bigger fish). Weather leading up to the day had been roasting and a number of local venues were closing for a few days to give the fish a rest in the heat. But the previous 2 days had seen a little break and even a bit of rain so i was hope full of a good session.
9 people turned up for this one, so we would be well spread around the pool and have plenty of room. After a great sandwich on the way over (although cannot wait for the Cob House cafe to open for a proper breakfast!!) peg 17 stuck to my hand and put me on the back corner of the pool from the car park, with the wind off my back.
Paste has been working well recently all over the complex so that was going to be a big part of my attack today. Bait list was simple with 6 pints of 3 mm pellets, soaked, a couple of pints of paste made with soaked fishery pellets with a bit of flavouring I'm playing with and some 6mm expander's.
The attack for the day wouldn't see me with more than 5-6 metres of pole out, so a line was plumbed up at top 2 plus 2 at the bottom of the near shelf as it flattened out then a line to my left in the margin handily at top 2 plus 2 also, easy day on the cards. Each line had a paste rig and a pellet rig to give me options with all the rigs connected to double 8 slip latex.
On the whistle each line got a full pot of bait and the pellet rig went straight over the out-line. fish were obviously present and a roach first chuck got me off the mark. i knew i would have to put up with silvers for a small while until the carp bullied them out and 3rd chuck a carp duly obliged. 20 minutes in and a glance right saw my margin line colouring up already and as i wasn't totally happy with my out-line as it was too deep with silver intercepting the bait, so i was happy to come inside early doors.
There were carp in the margins but there were silvers too. with the mixed species present i put a big CAD pot on my kit and started banging the feed in. after another 20 minutes of silly bites with the odd carp mixed in i decided to give the paste a go in the margin. this certainly did the job, and the carp sorted themselves out. i didn't need to hit the bites as the shallow water saw the fish bolting off and hooking themselves.
i kept the big pot on but couldn't get enough bait in with the paste hook bait in, so i was throwing it in over the top to keep the fish interested. this pretty much set the tone for the rest of the match. I did have to play about with the feeding to keep bites coming quickly enough and for a while just the paste hook bait was enough to keep em coming.
There were fish coming out all over but i felt i was creeping ahead of most with a decent stamp of carp. last hour soon came around and my one swim I'd used pretty much all day did start to show a few signs of fading and Scotty J started to put the hammer down in his own swim. i kept fish going in the net but a raft of weed all of a sudden appeared (i think the fish had disturbed it from the bank) and started hampering presentation.
On the final i was happy with my performance, I'd caught fish all day as required on this pool and felt I'd beaten most but thought Scott would do me as he'd caught well on a top kit between his nets. I put 136lb on the scales, more than i thought, but Scotty J dropped me into second with 156lb. I'd had a nice day with lots of action but a small fish race isn't the kind of fishing I'll doing week in-week out! I'll be keeping my eye on the Cob Matches waiting for my favourite Laugherne Island to come up.

Hymatic AC - Lodge Pool
A Friday afternoon match this time at the local lodge pool. a small club water in Redditch. I've fished it loads of times when i was part of the club, but since moving to Worcester i haven't re-joined so haven't been for a good while.
The draw bag put me on peg peg 42, one of the end pegs of the islands with plenty of open water in front of me and a very long chuck to the main island. the long chuck was never going to be an option, but wit the proper margin pole out of the bag, a Trabucco Slim Power, i was not going to take any prisoners today. i set up a paste rig for straight in front of me at 9 meters then a pellet margin rig for about 6 meters virtually behind me to left to the corner of the island i was sat on. i also set up a method rod to chuck while the pole lines settled into the open water
The bait table featured lots and lots of pellets, 2mm's then a kilo of GB for the method, a couple of pints of paste and some 6mm hooker pellets. On the whistle each of the pole lines got 2 full pots of pellets and the method was dispatched to the open water. By the time I'd made a spare method feeder i reeled in and re-chucked. by the 5th chuck the tip went round but i bullied a small carp off the hook when it tried to get into a nearside snag. A few more chucks without any action saw the first 1/2 hour fly by. I'd seen a few fish come out on the opposite bank with people chucking tight to the reeds.
With the method quiet i went out to the paste line to see if anything had turned up. first chuck the float disappeared and i was a bit vicious on the strike as i wasn't expecting it. i struck into thin air anyway, but at least there were fish in the swim. Back out again, the float settled and ducked under and lively skimmer was attached. not the expected result but it got me off the mark. the next half hour was spent missing silly skimmer bites with 1 small carp mixed in.
I cupped some more bait into the margin line every 30 minutes and after the first hour i looked over to notice some activity in the swim. i couldn't resist a quick look and after some dips and movements the float slid away and a small (but very mad) carp put my rig into the marginal roots!!! great start.
Back out and this time the 0.20 line direct, orange bazoocarp in the kit and a big heft from me saw the first carp out into open water and in the net. things looked up form this point!! the margin line was producing a steady supply of bites, but from a smaller stamp of carp i can remember being in the pool. but i do remember the club stocking a load of very small carp a few years ago. they hadn't been showing much until recently, and boy do they give up a scrap in the shallow water.
I definitely didn't want to ruin this line as it would be banker later on in the evening, so I'd get a couple of fish off it, top it up with a full cup and have a go on the paste line then vice versa. the plan worked quite nicely and a steady steam of fish came to the net, although the middle part of the match did go a bit iffy and i lost a couple of fish as i was having to give them a big heft away from marginal snags. the smaller carp kept the weight climbing but there were a few of the bigger 5-8lb fish mixed in, especially towards the last hour.
I never felt the paste line gave its true potential with skimmers and only the odd small carp. I'm not sure why and pellet over the top prob would have worked better but i only have 2 kits for the margin pole and the second kit was for the margin. I did shot the paste float properly and tried a pellet on the same line and it did give better bites from the skimmers, but I'm not sure the carp were there properly on that line.
Anyway the clock ticked over and the whistle went at 7pm. I'd caught plenty of fish and lost a few too, but I'd not seen too much other action around the lake. the other end peg on my island has caught plenty too, but i was hope full to do well against him. my main issue was my mate Mark Franklin on peg 7 or 8. he'd caught immediately on the whistle chucking a method tight to the reeds and had caught fish throughout. My 2 nets went 88lb and I'm not sure the peg was worth a lot more than that. i needn't have worried as 59lb the next best weight and a fairly comfortable win was in the bag. as usual the golden peg eluded me, but one day I'll get it!!!!!
i wouldn't mind a couple more kits for that margin pole. it is proper awesome, the kits are mega wide bore and you could put a bungee chord through it and it would be fine. i think its nigh on impossible to break pulling away form a snag, sideways, and is actually stiff for a margin at its full 11m length.
if anyone knows where you can get Trabucco slim power kits from please let me know!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barston Bowl - 26/07/10
I'd seen this match advertised on the various web-sites but didn't book on as it was my birthday same day and i was going to CLA game fair at Ragley hall the same day, but a change of plan and it was Ragley on the Saturday, my name on the Bowl reserve list and my fingers crossed that I'd get on. a text from Nigel Friday evening saw me on the match and i was pretty chuffed with a load of big names down to fish.
Pete Bailey was fishing too and he offered a lift as he's only round the corner from me and he gets the works van - Perfect, as we had a fair amount of gear between us. Draw time time saw me queuing with the biggest names in the sport. I cant think of any other sport where an average Joe can compete equally with ex world champions of his favourite past times - Brilliant!!
The draw bag put me on Peg 118 on the road bank in the first part of the open water from the club house. Pete drew 34 which put him dead centre of the main island on the lake. I was happy with my draw as its where i wanted to be, and Pete was very happy with a peg on the best feature on the lake (although the story doesn't end up a happy one)

Tackle for the day was going to be kept simple with a rod and line approach only. I know from previous visits and recent UK champs matches that the fish move out with a lot of anglers round it, it was going to be a feeder match at range then a waggler shorter if other peoples pole lines worked.

So i had the following set up, from top to bottom -
1 - 12ft Maver Powerlite feeder system, TD-R 3012, 6lb sensor with a running line feeder set up
2 - 12ft Maver Powerlite feeder system, TD-R 3012, 6lb Sensor with method feeder set up
3 - Middy X-Flex Medium Feeder, Daiwa Capricorn 3500XTC, 6lb sensor with a method feeder set up
4 - Daiwa SR3 12ft waggler, TD-R 2508, 0.18 Maver genesis mainline with a 4AA waggler setup and 16 eyed B911 with a small pellet band.

The plan was to use the 2 powerlites at 30-40 turns and then the middy at long range. I've learnt recently there are gravel patches, with peaks and troughs in the open water at barston so i spent some time with a heavy lead feeling for silty areas and the rougher clearer areas. i was after the clearer patches to get a bed of feed down. I found a nice patch at 85 turns on the long line then a clearer area at 45 turns on the shorter line.
The bait table was quite simple with 2 kg of Super G gold and green with 4 pints of micros mixed in for the feeder lines and 4 pints of 6mm pellets for the waggler line. Hook baits were dead red maggots with 6 and 8mm red boilies.
On the whistle the short line got 10 feeder fulls with the feeder full of dead reds to get anything that swims onto that line, then the long line had a method dispatched with 4 dead reds on the hook. the first hour was going to be spent chucking very regularly. the feeder stayed in the water for 3-4 minutes maximum before it was wound in and sent out fully loaded again. it took 20 minutes for something to happen and the peg to my right has a n early skimmer and F1 before i latched into an F1 of my own on a red boillie.
Pete had 2 early carp tight to the island before I'd finished feeding my short feeder line and as we were sharing today i was a very happy man. Action wasn't amazing for the first hour and 2 F1's and a skimmer was a slow start. those around me had a few more skimmers than me from shorter lines so i tried mine.
it wasn't brilliant and 2 skimmers in half an hour didn't fill me with confidence. Pete's islands line died completely as those on each of the island began chucking and stopped anything getting to the middle of the island to his feeder!! i made an early decision to pretty much bin the short line but i would keep some bait going on it just in case.
Back to the method and dead reads again and some thing was stirring. in 3 chucks i had nice F1's and proper carp of 11lb, a very nice bonus that brought back up with all those around me, then nothing!!
The middle part of the match went by pretty quietly. i was keeping pellets going in regularly on the waggler line and tried it twice but the vicious Barston tow was flying through making it pretty pointless. I did keep the odd F1 and skimmer going into the net mainly on dead reds, with the usual favourite red boillie not producing.
The 4th hour was very quite and even a couple of tries shorter produced very little.
Until the switch went - my long line came alive in the last hour with a red boillie on the hook. i couldn't get the feeder in quick enough and it was wrapping within a minute. i was catching some lovely 2-3lb mirrors and reckoned i put 25-30lb in the net in that last hour before the final whistle ruined my fun!
I knew I'd easily beat those around me and with a £100, 10 man, section up for grabs i was actually quite hope full. Pete's peg was lifeless and i think he only put a few more pole caught skimmers in the net over the rest of the match. The scales came round and my hopes were gone as Tim Bull put 88lb on the scales for the match win. Section aren't paid by default in this match. I put 52lb on the scales to comfortably beat those around me. I didn't make the top 8 as published with 8th having 54lb but I'm pretty sure i was top 15 which i was chuffed with on a 100 plus pegger.
I'd stuck to my plan and even when there were pole fish coming out around me i was confident my plan would work.

Arrow Valley pleasure session.
Another Friday afternoon pleasure session presented itself to me and Pete joined me as he fancied some bream action and fun before his last round of the UK champs.
We decided to fish the same area where i won the recent open from. the plan was to chuck the feeder towards the island again and see what happens.

I set up a powerlite feeder system rod today, at 13ft with a TD-R and 6lb sensor. I've been using the Middy for a while for big chucks but went back to this rod to see how it performed as i hadn't used it at 13ft in ages.
Well it chucked a 30g method with an extra 10 grams of lead on it fairly comfortably and accurately to within 15 yards of the island (90 turns of the reel). Bait was a 2kg bag of Bait tech Something (i cant remember but its the Voodoo replacement!!!) and 3-4 pints of soaked micros mixed to give me plenty of bait for the session. Hook baits were dead reds and some red boilies of which i've never tried before here.
Pete managed the first chuck and i was expecting 20 minutes of regular chucks to get the fish going. the fish didn't want to play that game, and no more than 2 minutes later his tip went and bream number 1 was on and in the net. i suddenly got my act together and as he was cranking his fish in i sent my feeder out. as i was making a spare feeder up the tip tightened and dropped back - it was going to be one of those days - Bream number 1 for me too.
The next 3hrs was a constant cycle of chuck to the horizon (but accurately) and 2 minutes later the tip either wrapped or dropped back and bream was attached. It was slightly different to the match as some carp showed, 1 for me and 3 for Pete.

We easily put 200lb in the nets between us in an amazing session. we were constantly either chucking or cranking fish. There is another match booked for Arrow Valley on the 13th of September and I'll be putting an advertisement on all the fishing web-sites soon.

Hymatic A.C. - Barston Lakes.
Another session at barston for me on the annual Hymatic A.C. 'All Day' match. A Friday day time match where people take holiday from work to fish normal hours. Historically we've had some different format matches - 2, 4 hours session on one day, on either the same pegs, different pegs on the same lake or even different lakes for each session!! this time we kept it simple with 5 hrs at Barston on Pegs 4-32.
My plan and bait table was exactly the same as the Bowl match and the draw put me on peg 24, virtually opposite my Bowl draw. The only real difference is i didn't have the waggler out as the wind was howling and the tow was putting a proper bend in my rod when it was cast and settled. I also used the Powerlite feeder rod at 13 ft for the long chuck line as it did so well at Arrow Valley.
I went through the same routine and found clearer areas off the silt to fish too using a big bomb. On the whistle the short line was fed and the long line got a fully loaded method feeder. 20 minutes in and 6 chucks the tip went and an F1 got me off the mark. A 6mm red boilie was doing the damage with no need to try the dead reds on this occasion. another 2 F1's in the next couple of chucks kept my interest, then i had a golden spell with two 4lb carp and 10lb lump saw me put 20lb in the net in the first hour.
This was easily my best spell and the middle hours saw me put mainly small skimmers in the net, with only the odd F1. i couldn't get the carp to come back and play ball. I wasn't using a mould to make the feeders as i wanted more feed in the swim to get the carp back. Bites were regular but taking 5-6 minutes to materialise. the weight was ticking over but not massively, but then again i couldn't see anyone else really catching.
Again the last hour saw the light bulb switch on - the fish went mad and i couldn't get the feeder back in quick enough, even though this time it wasn't the nice stamp mirrors but mainly skimmers with the odd F1.
On the whistle i was playing a fish (which is always nice) and the match was over. I'd seen just the odd fish come out form the pegs i could see but end peg 32 had the island to chuck to and i couldn't see him so wasn't sure about the overall result.
As usual i took control of the scales to get things moving. peg 32 put 11lb of silvers on the scales and obviously didn't chuck to the island! I put 53lb for the win with Pete putting 32lb on the scales for second. we were splitting any winnings again so got our money back for our efforts.

That just about gets my match action up to date. As I'm poleless at the moment (getting my number 5 fixed) I've been picking and choosing matches and not been quite so busy. this has allowed to put plenty of preparation in and be totally covered for all eventualities, which is absolutely critical. And I've also enjoyed some time away from the pole and blowing the cob webs off my casting which has been pretty good especially at range. I've also learnt that having the right gear to allow long range work is vital, but you have to be able to use it properly to get the most out of it. Technique counts as much as the gear!!
I'm expecting my section back this week, so i better get rigs and tops kits ready to get back to some pole work.
Just to finish off a couple of reviews

Maver Match Pro 3 Clothing.
As part of Solihull Anglings sponsorship with Maver, the match squad get a set of clothing to wear whilst out and about. This year we have received a set of the new Match Pro 3 gear.
We originally got the Match Pro 1 stuff which for me has lasted really well the 2 years we have had it. the original set consisted of a water proof 3/4 length jacket and trousers, but the match pro 3 has a jacket and Bib n Brace. The original trousers were perfectly fit for the job, but it was much better to be back in a bib and brace and when it gets cold there will be no gaps between jackets and trousers!!
I've used the set a few times now and in a couple of heavy showers and so far I've been totally bone dry. The new set has Mavers own version of Gore-Tex and it certainly is fully waterproof and in the warmer weather has been comfortable to wear without over heating.
So far so very good and I'm looking forward to testing it out when it gets proper cold!

Garbolino Monster Carp Net.
I've had the net for a few months and have to admit it has had limited use. Due to its shear size I've found it difficult to find a situation where it can physically fit into a peg.
When i have used it, i cant fault it. The locking mechanism on the top ring is solid, and the quality of the net means it should last a very long time. it will definitely be coming with me to my matches and when an opportunity exists it will be first choice.

Well that's about it, i hope i haven't bored you!! I'm not sure what is coming up in the next few months but I'm sure I've got a couple of matches at Arrow Valley which I'll keep you posted on.

Tight lines, ScottyP

Arrow Valley Open - 03-07-10

2010-07-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

This week sees me at Arrow Valley, but this time its not a Friday afternoon pleasure session, its a match!!!! Our works club chairman is a fellow fan of Arrow Valley and keen to set a match up, so with the club links to the Redditch federation of Anglers who run the fishing rights a date was set and the match was on!!!
the weeks leading up to the match had seen very warm muggy weather, and a few lunchtime walks around the lake had seen some very slow pleasure angler action. Arrow valley can be very fickle and switch off very quickly so i was little concerned but a break in the weather and a bit of rain put some hope in my mind.
I had a plan going into the match that if i drew on the Shakespeare bank I would solely concentrate on the feeder either in open water or to the island if i drew on it. The Shakespeare bank (named so because of the Shakespeare fishing tackle factory just over the road) has a reasonable depth of water off it, and a good number of pegs have an island chuck, but most importantly I've never really done very well on the pole line on this bank so the pole isn't the option in my own mind. If i was in the bay i would concentrate on the pole, giving them some gear at the start then having the feeder as a back up if required. The bay has a lovely 8-10 foot of water on the pole line on most pegs, so suits a positive pole attack and in recent history has been holding the bream with good pleasure bags.
Bait for the day was 4kg of groundbait (50/50 Super G green and gold and enough of it to give a pole line plenty if required), 1 pint of dead reads, 1 pint of caster, 1/2k of worm, and a couple of pints of soaked micros.
The draw was well organised with everyone having to split to different car parks dependant on the peg number. I left it a bit late to arrive and didn't get time for any breakfast!!!! Anyway into the bag, and peg 54 stuck to my hand. Now referring back to the plan, bay or Shakespeare bank, peg 54 didn't put me on either!!!!!! 54 was actually past the bay slightly round the corner and an area I've never actually fished. The peg had the island in front of it but it was a long way away. I didn't fancy the pole on this peg as I wanted to concentrate on the island and feeder lines and not spread my attention (feeding regime) to wide. So it was going to be a tip match for me.

I'd set a few feeder rods up in preparation for the match: -

1 - Middy X-Flex medium feeder, Daiwa Capricorn 3500 XTC loaded with 6lb Daiwa sensor.
2- Maver Powerlite feeder system @12ft number 3 tip, Daiwa TD-R 3012 loaded with 6lb sensor.
3 - Maver Powerlite feeder system @12ft number 4 tip, Daiwa TD-R 3012 loaded with 6lb sensor.

Rods 1 and 3 had a Preston Innovations snap link tied to a 8 inch twisted loop with a 1/2 inch loop above it. Rod 2 had the same but the twisted loop was 12 inches long. The idea of this set up is too loop the hooklength into the small loop and the feeder is attached to the snap link giving a paternoster rig. Rod 3 had a short paternoster link for a positive rig/short hooklength set-up and rod 2 had a longer link for a more sensitive rig/long hooklength set-up. Rod 1 was primarily to be used for the method but has the option of a hooklength and feeder being added if the method wasn't working. The middy rod is great for long chucking as it has nice big throughout and more back bone than the Powerlites so is my first choice for long chucks and big fish
With a 2oz lead attached to the middy rod, a chuck tight to the island in front of me gave 104 turns on the reel. The bush to my right was 110 turns but i had to give it some welly to get it there. The bush was do-able with a lead, and i fancied the feature, but wasn't sure about the cast with a method attached, but i would give it a try. The powerlite rods were clipped at a very comfortable 40 turns. So the plan was to chuck a method to the island and have a traditional feeder line shorter.

On the whistle 10 feeder fulls loaded with worm, caster and pellet went on the short line then the method rod was prepped (50/50 groundbait and pellet, 4 dead reds on the hook) and launched to the bush in the distance- 20 yards short! Effort number 2 - 10 yards short! Effort 3 - 15 yards short. There was a gusty breeze blowing left to right and slightly towards me, which wasn't helping.
1st decision of the match 20 minutes in and i haven't actually fished yet - bin the bush, because i cant seem to get there or even keep it reasonably accurate and see how close i can get straight in front of me. First chuck 10 yards off the island, 4 second count and the feeder hits the deck, nice!!! re-clipped at 96 turns of the reel - if it works its gonna be a long hard day chucking!
The first hour was to be spent making very regular casts to build the line up and generate some interest. As soon as the method was cast and the rod set I'd prep a spare feeder, watch the tip for a minute then reel in for another cast, probably a 3-4 minute cycle. 3rd chuck on this line (my casting is pretty accurate, but the wind is causing some difficulties over such a big chuck) ,the tip moves, moves some more and starts rattling. a firm pull and I'm into bream number 1.

I've got the biggest tip in the middy rod to aid casting so I'm not expecting a bream to give a big wrap around so enough movement in the tip to convince me the fish is on will see me pull into the bite. It takes a good couple of minutes to pull the fish back and 3lb fish relaxes me after 40 minutes of the match. After the first hour I've 3 fish in the net and with regular casts the tip is showing signs of fish every cast.
I'm using the standard large Kobra method feeders with 25g weighting on them, but felt before the match if I were to draw in this area or the weather not be brilliant some more weight might be needed aid casting. So a cry for help on Matchfishing-scene.co.uk saw Pete Bailey tell me he had some stick on lead i could have a go of. These are foam backed chunks of lead with a 5g weight. So i gave my feeders a good clean and stuck 2 on 2 feeders, and 1 on 2 feeders. On the match i was using feeders with 2 extra weights on and they were brilliant. i tried a method with no extra weight on and couldn't get it close to the clip!!!! The glue on the weights was superb too because they didn't budge all match and they were getting some abuse at the range i was casting!

Second the second and third hour passed by nicely with regular casts seeing fish being winched back and after 3 hours i had 13 bream in the net. I was now leaving the feeder in for 5 minutes at least as a bite usually resulted and there were obviously fish around. I was loving it. I could see the top half of the Shakespeare bank and nothing was really happening so i was well in front of what i could see. I'd heard of 5 carp in the bay and 2 others catching fish so i had to keep the concentration up, and casting accurate.

Some times the breeze would get up (always when you've reeled in and about to cast) so on a couple of occasions i sat there for a minute waiting for it to drop before i re-cast. If the breeze stayed up i made my method feeders on the small side so i could put more energy into the cast, keep them more aerodynamic and hope fully hit the clip every time.
I'd caught all my fish up to now on either 2-3-4 or 5 dead reds on the hook, but the action noticeably slowed in the 4th hour. worried the fish had moved off, i upped my casting again to waiting no more than a minute after the rod was set to get more bait in. i also upped the size of my methods to help on the bait front. i had to really push the cast with a heavier feeder but I felt the swim needed it. Signs of fish returned but bites were still absent. I then tried a big chunk of worm tipped with a maggot as a change and first chuck the tip pulled right round and i thought I'd got my first carp on, but eventually another bream popped up in front of me!
End of the 4th hour saw me with 19 fish in the net. I never felt like i was bagging at any point, but i never stopped doing something. Casting and winding at such range takes time, especially with a fish on!
The last hour approached, and the 5 carp rumour turned out to be untrue, but there were definitely 2 people catching fish regularly in the bay, and 1 angler on the Shakespeare had 9 skimmers and a big carp. The wind dropped for the last hour so i put 2-3 extra yards on the clip and pushed the cast a bit closer to the island, which worked nicely as 2 big chunks of worm on the hook pushed my tally up to 26 fish on the whistle!!! What a brilliant days fishing! i was tired though as i hadn't really stopped all day. I did keep the short line topped up every hour with 5 big feeder fulls, but never tried it as i didn't want the long line to fade or allow the bream to move off!
Quickly packing up (put the rods back in the ready rod bag and tidy up) i moved my gear round the bay where the other anglers were and got ready to weigh the section in. One of the guys in the bay was saying he had 30 fish, so i was a bit gutted after my hard work. I was first to weigh and after 2 weighs registered 74lb 3oz. I was chuffed to bits. The guy with 30 fish weighed 59lb as he had some much smaller fish mixed in with his bream. i pretty much knew now I'd won it!!! there were 4-5 more 30lb weights in my section and everyone had had a brilliant days fishing and were asking when the next match was to be!! 39lb won the Shakespeare bank, but back up weights weren't brilliant with 12lb winning the 3rd section.

The only down side of the day was my Preston shuttle wheel collapsing on me when i started walking back. i was moving off the bank onto the path and it tipped slightly putting all the load onto 1 wheel which collapsed. i loaded myself with my box and rods and walked it back, then walked back again and loaded the rest of my gear onto the 1 wheel trolley and slowly and care fully walked that back! i was proper knackered by the end of it, but the winning in my back pocket eased the pain slightly.

Not sure where i am next, put I'll let you know how i get on!!

Hymatic A.C. - Astwood Fisheries, 11-06-10

2010-06-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well finally i've managed to get out on the bank for a match! its been a month since my last competative session and i was chomping at the bit to get out. my choice was to fish my works club match at Astwood fisheries on the Buddliea pool. This was to be a Friday afternoon match with a 1pm draw, fishing 2-7pm. Easily the best part of the day to fish.

I've fished this pool before but atleast 3 years a go. Its an out and out pole pool, with the island from 14-17 metres away with inches of water tight to it and 3-5 foot in the reeds/weeds growing a metre or two off the island. Its very well stocked with plenty of carp present and some proper beasts too. For the week leading upto the match I put plenty of preperation in with loads of hooklengths, fresh rigs and new elastics in my top kits.

We had a great turn out for this match with 17 guys fishing. The atmosphere is always good on club matches with plenty of banter flying around the draw. Pete Bailey and myself pegged the pool out and i must admit they pretty much all looked lovely. Some with bare bank, some with reeds and some with trees over hanging the bank and there were plenty of fish moving too. I fancied a good ton would be needed to win and most would catch plenty of fish. The higher number pegs were favoured slightly as this generally the better side of the pool.

When the draw finally got underway a little late peg 4 came out for me (i was holding the draw bag so one of the lads picked it for me). Pete drew unlucky for some 13 (but not for him) which put him on the favoured side. It was now quarter past 1, so only 45 minutes to gear up, game on!!

The peg looked lovely with plenty of reed cover over at around 15-16 metres with the actual island another 2 metres behind it. Pete did warn me that the reeds, although hold fish, are more trouble that they're worth as the bigger fish in the pool know exactly where to bolt to when hooked, around the back of the reeds!

With the match pegged with 2 pegs then miss one, i had the spare peg to my right, but the nearside growth wouldnt allow me to go more the 3 metres down the bank, but a small tree provided a very nice feature to throw bait too.

Attack for the day was going to be based around the island and margins. I was going to totally ignore the track as i couldnt see many fish being down there with the weather being so warm and the bank so full of features. So set the following gear up: -

1- Island Pellet. 0.18 PI Exceed mainline, 0.16 Exceed hooklength, 14 B911. 0.25 SP slim pencil with 1.5mm tip. Double 8 Slip Latex

2 - Island Corn. 0.18 Exceed Mainline, 0.18 Exceed Hooklength, 14 B911. 0.4 SP Fat pencil with 2mm tip. Double 10 slip latex

3 - Shallow. 0.18 Exceed mainline, 0.16 Exceed hooklength, 14 B911. self cocking 'Pea' type dibber. Double 8 Slip latex

4 - Margin - 0.20 Exceed Mainline, 0.18 Exceed Hooklength, 14 B911. SP 0.2g margin float with 2mm tip.

By the time i'd set these up time was almost up so had to settle with that. The peg actually plumbed up horribly with the bottom all over the place. In front of the reeds I had around 3ft of water, but the bottom was varying by around 6 inches virtually everywhere. I can only assume the reeds have been cut back and the stems are growing back up or something. Then 2 foot to the right of the reeds, at the same distance, but going under a tree the bottom dropped off to 5 foot! Anyway i got a couple of lines sorted where i was happy i was fishing as accurately as i could.

Bait for the day was fairly simple with 3 tims of meat, 3 tins of corn, 3 pints of feed pellet and plenty of 4 and 6mm expanders. The island pellet line was going to recieve a quarter of a pot of feed as i was going to fish it straight away and didnt want to over load the swim form the off. the island corm line got a full pot of corn and the margin line was going to be fed by hand with meat.
On the whistle the lines were fed and i went over with my pellet rig, with a spread bulk shotting pettern over the bottom 18" of water. fish were present from the off and the float barely settled before it banged under and a gudgeon came flying through the air off a slightly excited strike!! Straight back out the float barely settled again but the (greatly controlled) strike was met with a more solid resistance and a quick ship back of 2 sections saw my doubled 8 latex get the fish immiediately under control and a 14oz F1 was in the net.
I was topping the swim up with a cad pot of pellet every fish and a 6mm expander on the hook was getting immediate bites every chuck. After around 10 fish i started getting problems with lost fish and funny bites. I'd adjusted my rig after 5 fish with the shot bulked around 10 inches from the hook which helped but i was now getting bites on the drop even with this set up so after around half an hour I went out with the shallow rig and the F1's were very obliging, with a bite pretty much as soon as the pellet hit the water.
I was still losing a few fish and the mouths of these small fish werent in great condition. They had obviously been swung in when smaller and suffered damage. But i was putting plenty of small fish in the net and the wieght was slowly ticking over. I was doing well from what i could see around me, but i wasnt finding the proper fish this pool promises. I had topped up my island corn line on a couple of occasions and decided to try it to see if makes the difference, but a couple of very finicky bites saw only one F1 in the net in 10 minutes which was certainly not any better than catching the F1's shallow.
The shallow fish were still there and ravenous as i was struggling to find time to feed with the rig out in position. I reverted to baiting my hook up, attach my top kit, feed then ship out for an immediate bite. I was glad of my big bottle of Lucozade as it was hard work with the sun shining and me sneezing 10 times a minute as my hayfever causing me trouble!
This set the scene for the first 2 hours of the match, with only the small F1's gracing my net and although happy catching fish I was concerned by the lack of proper fish. I had heard some proper splashes around me and certainly a few from Pete over the other side. With this in mind i attached a CAD pot to my shallow rig and decided to up the feed and concentrate it with the aim of bringing up any better carp that may be hanging around nearer the deck.
After 15 minutes of this the F1's quitened down a little and i needed to work my rig a bit more, but the next bite brought a lot more elastic streaming out of the pole and proper carp was on. This first one luckily didnt head to the island and quickly shipping 3 sections back got the fish into open water and at 4lb was worth a few of those F1's in one hit. Same thing happened next cast and another 4lber was in the net with minimal fuss. I was beginning to think I was being wound up about the fish going behind the reeds when next chuck a proper fish went straight behind the reeds and i had to pull for a break.
The 3rd hour saw me put 2 more better fish in the net with the F1's mixed in, but it also saw me leave 4 shallow rigs in the reeds! I had been keeping the corm line topped up and the margin had been fed by hand all match, but i hadnt tried it yet. with two and a half feet of water in the margin i was looking for signs of fish before i was to try it. I had tried the corn line on a couple of occasions but i didnt yeild anything.
90 minutes to go and i decided to try the margin line after I left another hooklength in the reeds due to a crazy carp even though I hadnt seen any signs of fish in the margins. 30 seconds later the float vanished and the strike was met with a very very solid resitance and a big fish power out to open water. I added the 5th and 6th sections but the doubled 10 did and fantastic job and the fish really didnt get a proper head of steam up and 2 minutes later it was in the net. At around 8lb a cracking bonus. As soon as i hooked the fish and it was under control the margin line got two small handfulls of meat so i went straight back over the margin line for another. The float was definately showing signs of fish in the swim even though there was nothin obvious on the surface. 5 minutes later the float vanished again and another 8lb stamp fish tried to for freedom but the double 10 set up was having non of it and it was in the net 3 minutes after being hooked!
The last hour i put 6 more lumps in the net and was very happy with the way the match finished. Those around me seemed to have slowed down but Pete over the other side was in proper bagging mode and all i could see was a pole going out then seconds later it coming back with yards of orange bazoocarp elastic streaming out behind it.
Most people had caught fish, and a fair few people had lost plenty of fish too! I walked around to the high number pegs and began the wiegh in. There were loads of the F1's caught all over apart from in Pete's peg which was solid with proper carp. 3 nets later (3 nets being the big give away) he recorded a phenominal 236lb to blitz the match. My F1 net went 41lb which was around 50-60 fish then my big fish net went 75lb giving me 116lb and the match second with 91lb coming third.
Overall I was quite happy with my match as i was never going to get anywhere near the winning weight, but maybe an earlier look on my margin line might have put a few more lumps in the net. Incidently the big fish were in fantastic condition, lovely fish. The big difference for Pete was his peg allowed him to get into the shallow water tight to the island and find the bigger fish. This was at 17 meters so a brilliant performance.
A brilliant well matured fishery and one i will definately be visiting again.

Not sure what i'm up to next but hopefully it'll be next weekend.

Catch up soon.

Scott

Catch Up

2010-05-30T02:40:00.000-07:00

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

Cob House Bank Holiday Monday

2010-05-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Back to Cob House this week for the May Day bank holiday open. this match was run by one of the lads from Talk Angling (Bob Baker) and usually attracts a very good crowd. Bob runs a great match and with 35 anglers turnng up, everyone was to be spread around Oak, Laugherne and Wyatts. With 2 section on each pool and overall prizes the money was well spread and certainly worth the effort.

The weather was forcast to be the best day of the weekend, but Mr weather man got it totally wrong and it was wet, very windy and very cold!!!! cold enough for a couple of proper hail storms during the day!! what happened to a nice fresh warm spring period! (and i really really hate wind! it really does my nut in! hot, cold and wet i can handle, but i just cant cope with wind!)

Anyway the draw bag looked after me and put me on Oak 15, nicely out of the wind in a bay, with lots of margin to attack! Happy Days!

Then the dream shatters. Somehow someone had managed to turn up, loiter, chat, mingle and actually forget to pay his entries! that left the draw bag a peg short, so a re-draw was called! i was not a happy bunny, and initially thought that the silly individual who forgot the most basic of requirments to enter a match should not be included in the match at all!

but this is a sociable event amongst friends, so it wasnt an option to plonk the extra peg on an end somewhere or all of a sudden include a peg in the bag for the last few people who hadnt drawn yet to chose from, so the only option left was to call a re-draw!

So second time round my drawing arm put me on Laugherne 26, an area i fished last time. not a bad draw as laugherne is my favourite pool, but it put me right in the grips of the wind! Great! after a few minutes mumbling, grumbling and whining i got to my peg and started to gear up.

as you can see from the picture above, i had an earator in front of me at 14.5 meters and a couple of short margin lines left and right (i managed to take the picture during a short calm spell, but it was blowing through for the majority of the day)

so i set the following gear up: -

Pole

1 - Light Pellet - 0.15 Ultima Power Silk mainline to 0.14 Power Silk hooklength with an 18 G point pellet hook. 4x18 Garbolino DC13 with an olivette and number 10 droppers.

2 - Heavy Pellet - 0.18 PI Exceed mainline to 0.16 Exceed Hooklength with a 16 B911. 1g SP fat pencil with 2mm tip with an olivette and number 8 droppers.

3 - Shallow - 0.18 PI Exceed mainline to 0.16 Exceed Hooklength with a 16 B911. 4x12 preston tyson dibber shotted with a bulk at mid depth and the rig set at 2 foot deep.

4 - Paste - 0.18 Exceed mainline direct at a 12 B911. 4x14 KC Carpa Paste float with 5 number 10's spread over the last 4 foot.

5 - Margin - 0.18 Exceed Mainline, 0.18 Exceed hooklength to a 14 B911. 0.2g SP margin float with a 2mm tip and bulk of number 8's 10 inches for mthe hook.

Rods

1 - Maver powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, TD_R 3012, 6lb sensor wth a small PI inline method feeder

2 - Maver powerlite feeder system @11 ft, Daiwa Exceller plus 3000, 6lb sensor with a micro cage feeder.

3 - Daiwa SR3 12ft float rod, TD-R 3012, 0.20 maver genesis with a 6g middy popper and 0.18 hooklength.

i need to start playing with making myself some wire stemmed floats. i use the Garbolino's as they're great for windy conditiions, but they wont stand up to a days bagging session and i've got through quite a few of them over the last couple of years i've been using them.

the light and heavy pellet rigs were plumbed at 14.5 meters to the aerator and 6 meters to the right. the paste rig was at 11 meters at the bottom of the near shelf and the margin rigs 4m to my right and left in 3 foot of water. all the rods were clipped tight to the island.

Bait for the day was plenty of soaked 3mm feed pellets, a couple of pints of 6mm feed for pinging to the island, 4mm and 6mm expanders, a tin of corn and some Bait Tech Super G gold mixed into a very soft paste.

with the reliably unsettled weather still persisting (warm in the day, but with regular frosts in the morning) i didnt want to over do it at the start so the pellet lines got a 1/4 cup of pellets with some expanders mixed in, the paste line got 1/2 a pot of pellets with a couple of chunks of paste mixed in and the margins would get small amounts regularly fed by hand and the island would be pinged with pellets when the wind allowed.

I started on the aerator line and soon discovered the water was trolling through quicker than the river Severn, and i wasnt overly happy with my presentation, but i did get a couple of early bites and managed to lose a couple of early fish! Not a great start. The guy to my right managed 4 early fish on the method to point of the island so i was soon over to the island myself, but couldnt buy a wrap. with an hour gone i was losing 2-0 to the fish with nothing in the net and needed to make something happen.

i'd topped up my shorter paste line a couple of times and i decided anchoring some paste might get me a bite or two. it did the trick and put 3 fish in the net in the next half hour. this planted a seed in my head. i knew there were fish at the aerator but icouldnt present a decent bait to them with the pellet so decided a long paste attack might just turn the peg around. so i set up another paste rig with a 0.5g maver black ice paste float and plumbed it right next to the aerator. i then set the trap with a full pot of pellets and a couple of lumps of paste and left it for a couple of chucks on the shorter paste line.

A couple of touches but no bites made me move to the long paste line after a 15 minute rest and float shot under! decent carp number was on and i was a fairly happy man. the wind was still causing issues but a long line above the undershotted float meant it settled quite nicely in the tow and wind with a round an inch of bristle showing. I was showing my ametuerish paste skills off too as i was hooking a pellet and wrapping my paste around it so knew the paste would stay during shipping and setting the rig. but the fish didnt mind and i put some good fish in the net during the middle of the macth.

the long line did slow considerably going in to the last 90 minutes and i couldnt get a bite on the second long line. there were a few fish coming out of the margins but i couldnt get a bite there. i'd been pinging pellets to the island all match and had one wrap on the method but that was it.

the wind did calm slightly for the last hour and the tow slowed. i did run my light pellet rig through and it actually got me a couple of fish in the last hour amongst a final couple of paste fish before the whistle went. i ended up with around 20 fish, but the stamp wasnt amazing so i wasnt sure how i'd end up. i put 49lb on the scales and was actually quite suprised they went that heavy. i easily beaten those around me but the end pegs in the section did me so i walked away empty handed.

hindsight tells me to have some more heaveir rigs in my box, especially some wire stem patterns to give me some better stability and Laugherne will tow very easily! also i could have chucked the little cage feeder i had set up over the long line which might have got me a couple of extra fish.

But overall it was nice to catch some fish

Cob House - 24-04-10

2010-04-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

Another visit to my favourite Cob House this week, and Oak pool was the destination. Oak is one of the smaller match pools on the complex, and easily the shallowest with 3-4 ft pretty much all over. its very well stocked, as per the whole complex, with fish in the 1-3 bracket.

I've fished Oak once before on a Sunday afternoon pleasure session last year and had a few but not mega, so i used a few contacts to gather some more info. As with all the pools at Cob pellet was to be my main attack, but i now also knew that the fish were hard to pin down in one position because of the depth and the very silty bottom of Oak pool.

so the attack was going to be a couple of long pole lines for the pellet, a couple of shorter pole lines for some paste then whatever margins looked nice.

After sorting myself out with a very nice sandwich i got the fishery in plenty of time (in fact loads of time because the draw was at 10 and not the 9am i had assumed). so with plenty of time in hand, Scott took me up to the hatchery for another look round to see what was in stock. i'd visited 2 weeks prior and the hot tanks were full of fry, around 10-15mm long. well they were now triple the size and looking absolutely stunning. lots of ghost and koi carp! they also had loads of tench, golden tench and rudd in the holding tanks ready for delivery! tens and tens of thousands of fish in all!! it really i interesting the amount of effort and hard work that goes into the hatchery side of Cob House.

Anyway we eventually got round ot the draw, and with just 5 people in the match we had loads of room and a lovely day on the cards! peg 5 stuck to my hand, which is on the laughenre island bank and next to the aerator.

i had plenty of room, with 3 pegs spare either side. The aerator rope prevented me having a left hand margin line, but i had plenty of room to the right, but marginal vegetation would limit how far along i could fish.

I set plenty of rigs up to cover my chosen attack: -
1 - 0.25g SP slim pencil 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Ultima Power Silk mainline to 0.14 Power Silk hooklength, 16 B911 shotted with No.11 stotz so i could spread or bulk as necessary (light pellet)
2 - 0.3 SP fat pencil 2mm tip, 0.18 G line to an 0.16 G line hooklength, 14 B911 shotted with number 8 stotz for a positive bulk (heavy pellet)
3 - Self cocking pea float (not sure which make, got em off flea bay) 0.18 G line to a 0.16 G line hooklength with a 16 B911 set at 1 foot deep (shallow)
4 - KC Carpa Paste, 4x12, 0.18 G Line to 0.18 G line hooklength, 12 B911 with 3 number 8 spread over the line to keep the rig straight whe n the paste is in the pole pot during shipping (short Paste)
5 - 0.1 SP margin 2mm tip, 0.18 Gline to 0.16 gline hooklength with a 14 B911. Shotted with a few number 11 stotz

The weather had really turned out very nicely all week with high teens degree C during the day, but a light frost most mornings so i wasnt 100% sure how much to give them at the start. i ended up on the side of caution and gave them less that a 1/4 pot of soaked 3mm feed pellets on each long line, 1/2 pot of 4mm feed pellets and a couple of blobs of paste on the short line, and a half pot of 3mm feed on the single margin line i had plumbed up.
it didnt take long to get signs on the long pellet lines, but i was easily the last person to catch a fish out of the 5 of us. i was getting bites off both long lines, but the right hand line was quicker. i disciplined myself to only take 1 fish from each line as i wanted them to last. after each fish the line would get a small CAD pot of feed and i'd fish the alternate line. it was working well, and regular fish were coming to the net, but it definately wasnt hectic!
it was also a little strange as my left hand line produced only common carp and the right hand line produced only mirror carp!! there was an inch difference in depth between them, and the rig was dead depth to the right, and slightly over to the left so that might be the reason!
After an hour i had 8-9 fish in the net and boy-o-boy they fight hard in that pool. last week on Laugherne i was using the doubled middy 6-8 latex kits and landing 4-6lb fish with ease, but now on the same setup i was struggling to land 2lbers!! they really were awake! but on the flip side i was getting everything in the net. the bites were coming with a Cob House 4mm expander on the hook as i couldnt get a bite on a 6mm.
i'd been dripping feed onto the short line regularly, so fancied giving it a go to rest the longer lines and managed 4 paste fish quite quickly which included a nice 4lber. i also tried the margin while i was short but didnt get a bite.
Pegs 9 and 11 had loads of room in the margin with one side of the pool to themsleves and they were making the margin line work, but i wasnt too worried as they werent accelerating away just yet.
aftet the stint short i went back out long and found the left hand line very quiet. i was still making myself swap lines but it was taking a long time to get a bite. i started a third line long further to the right and left it for 20 minutes to settle. first chuck on there and i did have a bite but missed it. this line was as slow as the left hand line. the now middle line, was by far the strongest, but i didnt want to ruin it, so would catch a couple of fish long then come short for a couple of paste fish. this worked quite well for a while and saw me through the middle part of the match. with 2 hours to go i was quite happy putting a few fish in the net and enjoying myself, but knew i was behind the 2 guys on 9 and 11 and needed to do something.
the aerator was at 14.5 meters and i'd seen fish moving round it all day so i added a section and put 1/4 of a pot by it. as the left hand long line wasnt producing i'd left it for an hour with nothing going in on it, but decided to see of anything was there, an instant bite told me the long rest had done it good, and in half an hour put 5 fish in the net between it and the middle long line.
90 minutes to go and i gave the aerator line a try and it was solid!!! i finished off the match on this line with the heavy pellet rig, with it was banging under every chuck with some quality fish to 4lb. i did lose a couple as i was in bagging mode and lost 1 silly one under my own landing net. it managed to transfer the hook from its lip to the net, how it done is a complete mystery unless carp carry disgorgers around with them nowadays!!!
The whistle went and i was pretty pleased overall, i think i put around 35lb in the net over the last hour and thought i'd done well overall. the scales came round and my two nets went to 104lb. i genuinely didnt think i had that much at all, and was pleased to break the ton (first time this year i think).
peg 9 next to me put 80lb odd on the scales then peg 11 put 111lb on to beat me! i was a bit gutted because i'd worked hard all day rotating lines and then exploiting the long line in the last 90minutes, but it wasnt quite enough! second will do on this occasion!!

Cob House is really waking up now and the weights will ramp up considerably, so looking forward to the bank holiday Monday match on there this week. With Oak, Laugherne and Wyatts in i dont care where i draw as all the pegs are full of fish!

Tight lines, catch you all next time!

23-04-10 - Arrowvalley Lake Redditch

2010-04-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just a short and sweet entry before the weekend activities.
With a half day at work today, and the weather making a change for the better, i fancied a pleasure session on my favourite Arrowvalley lake in Redditch, 2 minutes from work. I say the weather was better, with excellent day time temperatures and pretty much constant sun, but we had a frost most mornings this week!!

Plan for the day was simple, very simple. i loaded the ready rod bag with a rod and my landing net handle, and took my box, carry all and a keepnet. Rod was my old trusty MAP matchtek 13ft float rod, brilliant for silvers, small TDR loaded with 0.17 Genesis and a Cralusso Rocket light waggler. I finished the rig off with an 0.10 Ultima Power Silk hooklength with an 18 B611.
i'd been very interested in these floats after seeing them in action so got myself a couple to try out and this was the perfect time. The rocket floats feature a wire guide running from the bottom of the float around and up the side of the float, this moves the attachment point of the waggler during the cast, aiding range.
The float was loaded to the tune of 3g, with an extra gram required to set it perfectly. i didnt have the proper waggler attachments so locked a snap link in place with a few number 8 stotts, then the final amount of loading set with a main bulk of numbers 8's and a couple of positive number 8 droppers.

Bait for the day was a bag of Dynamite Silver X Fishmeal Bream, and half a bag of Sensas lake, then half a pint of dead red maggots. Simple, again!!
I plumbed the depth with a normal unloaded waggler on the snap link to get a positive depth finding, then replaced it with the cralusso to set it properly. first impressions, they cast like a dream!!!
a 4g float isnt big, around 5AA, but it was casting 8-10g float distance!! So with the conditions of the day, an irregular blustery wind, i set my clip at a positive 35 yards and gave myself 3 turns of the reel to sink the line. groundbait mixed, with very good helping of dead reds added, i gave the swim 5 sausages of GB (and i'm getting pretty accurate with the groundbait catty now! england call up coming i reckon - i wish!!!) to get the swim going.
It took some time to get my first bite after around 30 minutes and a perch was the culprit. not a great sign with so many skimmers and roach present in the lake. I was giving the swim a couple of sausages of GB every 15 minutes to spark some activity. i managed 3 perch and blade roach before i connected with my first proper fish. At first i felt it was a skimmer but it gave a real good account of itself under the rod tip and a lovely hybrid was the culprit.

It really was a beautifull fish and my first hybrid from Arrowvalley that i can remember.
things werent amazing on the bites front, but they were regular enough to keep me interested. i was getting on well with the wagglers, with bites showing up nicely on the dotted down float. when the wind got up taking a shot off helped me keep the float in sight, and being able to change the tip insert for a red, yellow or black tip instantly is an absolutely superb facility.
i did suffer a few tangles over the session, which could be down to my shotting pattern, but i did find if i didnt hit the clip fully and straighten the rig out, it would definately tangle. i also found it a massive help to let the float settle for a second or two to allow the snaplink to drop form the side of the float down to the bottom of the float before sinking the line.
i ended the session with the majority of the extra shotting around the float with just a couple of droppers down the line. this was getting me the most bites in the 5 foot deep swim. i'd pretty quickly got through my bait, but felt the regular top ups were definately worth bites.
i finished with 2 nice hybrids, 2 bream, and few perch and roach for around 12lb and a lovely afternoon.
Roll on more Friday afternoon sessions!!!!!

Net Review part 2 - Willow Marsh Open

2010-04-19T11:42:00.001-07:00

Following being set up in the garden the nets first outing was to be at Willow Marsh for the Saturday open, a venue i've fished a couple of times but with mixed results.
Dragonfly pool was the destination but with a club match on the near bank the far bank later pegs were available for the open. Things would be tight, but with good results the previous couple of weeks a decent match should be on the cards (although you wouldn't think it with the amount of moaning going on before the draw had even taken place!!! lol)

Into the draw bag and peg 29 stuck to my hand, not a peg thats usually included apparently. I was hemmed in open water wise with and angler to my right and another 3 down on the bank to my left, but i had some room in my left hand margin.

Setting my gear up and getting my box right i attached the net and as predicted the top ring was securely locked in place by the knuckle and easily took the weight of my landing net resting on it. Fortunately i had plenty of room to my left so set the net out to that side. with 18" of water in the margin, the net barely sunk half way up the ring and promply collapsed. with a bit of persuassion from my handle it stood up but took up a hell of a lot of room. (i didnt put it straight out because i wanted a short line in front of me). my Maver carp net looked tiny in comparison next to it but i was happy with my set-up.

My plan of attack for the match was fairly simple with a single long pole line with pellet deep and shallow, a short corn line down the near shelf with corn and paste on the hook, and a margin line long to my left in the quiet water. Rigs were 0.18 with 0.18 hooklengths as the fish run very big and you dont need that many to make a weight.

Bait for the day was 2x1kg bags of frozen corn, 1 bag of 4mm pellets, some 6mm expanders and some paste (they were getting the corn big style. the venue record went with 32 tins of corn being fed!)

Within half an hour the net had collapsed again and what i'd forgotten about new nets it started to float! With some more persuassion it was easy enough to get right. On the whistle the long line got a big pot of pellet, the short line got a big pot of the corn with some paste and the margin got the same. Straight out onto the pellet line and the float didnt move for half an hour, but with plenty of fish moving on the surface i didnt put the catty down and was happy to leave the deep rig alone and come shallow (with only 1 bag of pellets aloud per match, around 2 pints, i wouls have to be really carefull to make them last)

Some movement in the margin prompted me to have a fairly early look after 45 minutes and a quick 3lber gave me some hope but i couldnt get another touch there. Out shallow and i managed a quick fish around 7lb. double 8 latex as usual doing a great job to get the fish with minimal fuss (i will say the middy 6-8 was definately under gunned for the fish at willow). things were very slow tho, and it was taking around half an hour to get signs from any more fish. i'm sure with more feed available i could have made things improve but i had to make that precious 2 pint bag last. the rig was getting lots and lots of work to try and complement the amount of feed actually going in with fake feed splashed by the float, bulk and expander!!!!!

I kept the short corn line and margin toppped up all match but didnt have any other bites from them. The fish were a good size each and the Garbo net was swallwoing them easily and the extra large top ring made transferring the fish in landing net very easy and they were swimming off as if they weren't in a net!!!!!

well there isnt a fat lot else to write about with regards to the match, i managed 10 carp in total plus 2 chub, all shallow apart from the early margin fish. it was very hard work and i had to keep ringing the changes with the rig depth. i did up the feed half way through and definatley had a better spell of 3 fish but knew i'd run out of bait way before the end and with not much happening anywhere else in the i couldnt let that happen. i knew i'd done pretty well but also know a couple of other lads had caught well too. i put 54lb on the scales and was really pleased to beat all those around me from such a restricted peg. the end pegs on each bank had 70, 78 and 80lb to push me to 4th overall and 1 out the money! Gutted!

the net had done me good, and swallowed everything i threw at it. it did keep collapsing on me and had to be readjusted but as i wasnt to busy i didnt mind to much. the handles and large top ring made weighing in really easy and the fish rolled out nicely and stayed calm in the weigh sling, probably because they had so much room in the keepnet.

Overall, i'll say again i think its useage will be quite restricted. in a tight peg it simply wont fit with a second net in and it needs to be out to its full length or it will collapse. i also now dont know what to do to store it. it fits in my stink bag, but i cant do the top up on it. i usually store my gear in the in-laws garage but i know there are mice in there so i dont want it chewed through. i'll have to have a think.

It is certainly a quality item, and looks the dogs set up. i'm hoping to do some big pellet waggler work this summer at earlswood and Larford for big fish so it will be absolutely perfect for that.

Will let you know how i get on with it in a couple of months!

Garbolino Squad Mega Carp Keepnet

2010-04-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well first of all i've got to thank Darren Cox at Garbolino and Match Fishing Scene for allowing me to get hold of the net and give it a review. Well here's part one, first impressions.

First of all its HUGE!!! and i mean seriously big. Here it is photographed next to a 3 meter maver carp keepnet, which in itself is more than big enough for standard carping.

The extra large top ring will easily swallow the biggest match carp, and its bigger brothers. the top ring features a sturdy locking mechanism that should easily ensure the top ring stays horizontal even with a landing net resting on it.

The second ring from the end features a couple of solid handles that can be used to pull the ring through for weighing in purposes. with such a massive top ring it is really easy to pull through.

The actual net material is really soft and finely woven so shouldnt present any problem with fins getting stuck. the net as a whole is quite heavy and the bottom few rings have a rubber coating to prevent any wear on the net when its in the water and being dragged out, hopefully full of fish.

My main concern was whether the net would fit in my stink bag, but with some persuassion it went in, but i'm pretty sure the lid wont zip up now. will have to investigate whether Garbolino do a specific stink bag for it.

Overall, its certainly quality piece of kit and should provide some very long service. i'm not sure where it'll find its best use, as most venues i fish arent stuffed with double figure lumps and a lot of venues now impose net limits, which goes against the need for a massive net.

BUT i will certainly be putting it to maximum use and will report back after its first use!

Cob House Open, 27-03-10

2010-04-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

Ultimate Ultima

I'm going start this entry off with a thanks to Ultima for some excellent customer service. i had noticed on a some spools of line in my box that the spool itself had a couple of defects where the spool hadnt been adequately frazed when the spool was moulded. i was concerned this may affect the line wound over this defect when being loaded onto the spool.

A quick email to ultima to highlight the point was greated with a pretty quick repsonse assuring me the problem had been recognised and had already been dealt with at the manufacturers. Also Ultima would send replacement line for those which i have in my box with defects, then on top of that they would sent some more line in dimaters i had yet to try!

Thank you very much Ultima, excellent service.

Cob House Open

Well after a long absence i finally made it back to Cob House to fish the Saturday open on Laugherne Island pool.

I was really looking forward to it as i'd been away for so long, the weather had dramatically improved in the previous week and Laugherne Island is my favourite pool on the complex (well prob my favourite pool anywhere)

As i've said the weather had improved from the arctic conditions we've been experiencing over the last few months and a walk round the open on wednesday on Wyatts confirmed the fish had started moving, with people even catching fish from the margins.

my preperation for this match started on my pole. i was pretty confident of a good day, so i raided the summer elastic store and rigged 3 kits with double slip 8 and 2 kits with some fresh middy Hi-Viz 6-8 latex. the weather for the day wasnt predicted as brilliant with blustery winds so i made sure i had some 1g rigs ready to go and plenty of hooklengths to 0.18 diameter to suit the hard fighting nature of the Laugherne carp to double figures.

Bait was going to be 3mm for feed with some 4mm for catapulting and 4 and 6mm expanders for the hook. i was going to take corn too, but forgot to put it in my bag! oops!

A very nice sausage and Bacon sandwich on my way to the draw got me ready for a good days hauling. With some extra advertisement through the online communities 19 anglers had turned for todays match.
The draw bag looked after me and took me to peg 1 for the day. its a peg i've fished before and managed a match win of it with 115lb, so my previous confidence was boosted nicely.

The predicted weather of high winds wasnt showing itself while setting up and all was reasonably calm. the peg is on the near end of the pool with no island cast but the whole end bank of the pool (up to half way obviously) available for use with a number of margin lines to be created. there were plenty of fish moving when we were setting up especially round the islands.

With plenty of options open to me i set up the following: -

Rig 1 - Margin 13m - 0.2 SP Margin, 2mm tip. 0.18 Garbo G line, 0.16 Genesis hooklength with a 18 B911.
Rig 2 - Margin 16m - 0.2 SP Margin, 2mm tip, 0.18 G Line, 0.16 Genesis hooklength with 16 B911
Rig 3 - Pellet deep - 0.4 SP Slim Pencil, 0.15 Ultima Power Silk, 0.14 Power Silk Hooklength to a 18 G Point pellet.
Rig 4 - Shallow - 4x12 Bristled preston float, 0.16 genesis direct to a 16 B911. set at 18" deep.
Rod 1 - Maver powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, TD-R 3012 with 6lb sensor, small inline preston method with 0.20 hooklength and 16 eyed B911 with korum quick stop.

The 13m margin line was 6 inches shallower than at 16m so i made a rig for each to ensure they were both perfect. The rod was clipped up at about 20m down the bank beyond pole range in the margin and would only come into play if i was struggling.

Plan for the day was to start in the deep water at 14.5m to see if there was anything moving there while the main margin lines settled. All lines recieved around 50 3mm's feed pellets and a few 4 and 6m expanders and the deep rig was despatched out to 14.5m where it settled beautifully, but stayed there and stayed there for half an hour. No amount of lifting and dropping tempted a bite and typically the wind had now decided to get up, and got progressively worse over the course of the match. Luckily being on the right end of the pool and the wind coming over my bank rather than into it kept my margin lines reasonably calm.

I really didnt want to plunder the margin lines too early and with no action in the deep water i decided to give the method a chuck to try and kick the account off for the day. i kept the casting tight too well within a meter of the margin but 5 casts later over the next 20 minutes only produced a couple of liners and locating a snag to which i lost a hooklength.

With around an hour gone and a fair few people with fish in the net i had to try and make things happen so the 13m margin line was the first margin to get some attention. first chuck the float barely settled before it was gone and lively 3lb mirror was in the net. i all of a sudden had a big smile on my face with images of 2 very full keepnets at the whistle! BUT they were short lived as i then struggled for another bite 20 minutes later. i was forced to move out to 16m to plunder the second line and fortunatley there were a few more fish there and i managed to put 4 fish in the net by the end of the second hour. i was by no means bagging but was certainly keeping up with those i could see braving the wind and putting some thing in the net.

i didnt feel like i was making the most of the margins at all, but perhaps i was remembering my last session on the peg a bit too much when i fished it in much better conditions.

the third hour brought another 5 fish, but smaller fish around 3lb each, much smaller than the laugherne average. i still wasnt happy the margin was producing to its potential and bites werent amazing. best hookbait by far was a 4mm expander with the rig bulked about 10 inches form the hook. there was a fair bit of rubbish in the peg and the bulk ensured the rig settled properly and gave the most positive bites.

i then made a decision with 90 minutes to go and force the peg a little and potted in 1/3 of a small preston pot of feed at 16m to try bring some fish in and get them to get here heads down. while that settled i had a look in the deeper water where i'd been pinging 4mm feed pellets since the early look on the line. i was suprised to see the float disappear and a 3lb common in the net! great! NOT - that was the only bite i had on that line. another quick chuck on the method didnt produce anything so with just over an hour to go i decided to concentrate on the long margin to make the most of it.

the extra feed had worked and a run of 8 fish in the last hour seriously boosted my weight and i was fairly happy. I had the best bites with bait held rock steady as tight to the margin reeds as i could get it, and sitting on the pole instead of it under my arm helped massively with that!

Swainy opposite me had been putting fish in the net fairly regularly over the coarse of the match and i thought it would be close.

Bob (nearly20mbob) had done very well last hour, so i wasnt overly sure how the final result would go, but i knew i'd done pretty well. i was first to weigh and put 56lb on the scales. i didnt follow the scales round as i had loads to pack up still but felt 56 wouldnt be enough to win.

Finally Scotty J made it back to the car park with the results and i found out i'd managed a match 2nd, with 62lb winning. the winner wasnt one of those who i'd thought with Swainy putting 50lb on the scales.

overall i was fairly pleased with the result but the win was well within the pegs potential. i had lost 5 fish over the match, all foul hooked as they came off within a few seconds but there isnt a fat lot that can be done about that. i think more positive feeding from the start may have unlocked the peg earlier. the double 8 slip and middy 6-8 have done the job again with all fish under total control from the strike to netting.

i also feel i shouldnt have fed the 16m line before i was ready to fish it as it choked the 13m. apart from the first fish i didnt have another bite at 13m and i think the fish never made it past the feed at 16m to settle shorter. All part of the learning curve i guess!!

Anyway Cob House again for me Bank holiday Monday with a rover with Oak, Wyatts and Laugherne available for use!

Manor Farm Winter League/Arrowvalley

2010-03-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Manor Farm

Well finally the last round of the Manor Farm Winter League made its way round and i was glas this league has come to an end. its been a grueller for me with 2 shocking matches on Boundary pool. Luckily team mate John Watson was feeling my pain and kindly offered to swap with me for the last match which puts me on the Windmill pool, my personal favourite on the complex

The weather leading up to the match had seen the cold continue but in a slightly less severe manor but with the early morning frosts continuing.

At the 9.30 the usual draw took place (and to be honest i'd been drawing pretty well) and my drawing arm didnt let me down when peg 26 stuck to my hand. This put me behind the smaller island wit the island in easy reach. i've drawn this peg before and have a blog entry on it from 2009.

I virtually ran to my peg and it looked lovely when i got there. there was very little fish activity on the surface but i knew the peg would hold fish. the island had obviously been cut back fairly recently as a lot of the over hanging branches i experienced last time were now missing. This helps the angler as you can get closer to the island but i was a bit worried that some of the fish holding features had dissappeared.

I set up the following rigs:-

1 - Pellet short - 0.14 Power Silk Mainline, 0.10 Power Silk hooklength, 20 G Point Pellet, 0.15 SP slim pellet with 1.5mm tip - This was plumbed to the front of the island at about 12m. even with the branches cut back i still found a good 4ft tight to the roots and stumps. this was shotted with a spread bulk over the last 2ft of the rig for a natural fall of the hookbait.

2 - Pellet long (positive) - 0.14 Power Silk Mainline, 0.12 Power Silk hooklength, 18 G point Pellet, 0.25 SP slim pellet with 2mm stumpy tip. This was plumbed at 14.5m up the side of the island next to some stumps. approximately 10" shallower than the front line. this was shotted with a bulk and single dropper for a very positive setup.

3 - Pellet long - 0.14 Power Silk mainline, 0.10 Power Silk hooklength, 20 g-point pellet, 0.25 SP slim Pellet with 2mm tip - plumbed for the same longer line but with a more natural presentation with a spread bulk and droppers of the last 18" of the rig.

4 - Deep Pellet - 0.14 Power Silk, Mainline, 0.10 Power Silk hooklength, 0.7 SP slim Pellet with 1.5mm tip. this was plumbed at 13m off the side of the island where the island slop flattened out in approximately 9ft of water. this was definatley an out and out back up line if the fish werent on the island (i was definatley hoping not to have use this rig at all).

I've said a many times before i'm a massive fan of doubled latex and have been using it exclusively for well over a year now, but as a sanity check i put some hollow in a couple of kits just to check i wasnt missing out as i hadnt used hollows in such a long time. So the positive rig had doubled 6 slip attached and the lighter rigs had some 11 preston hollow attached.

Bait for the day was 1/2 pint of red maggots, 1 pint of softened 4mm feed pellets, 1 pint of softened micros, small tin of corn, and some 4mm expanders. All lines would recieve some feed at the start, with the island lines getting a small preston cad pot of 4mm's and the deep line a golf ball of micros.

On the whistle each line got its feed, with the front line getting its feed first so it had a moment to settle while i carried on with the others. Putting a rig out i was expecting a bite straight away, but it seems everyone around me got a fish first, which put me slightly on edge!!! eventually 15 minutes in i got a touch and a small mirror was in the net followed next chuck by a small chub. Even in this small amount of time i was 2 fish behind peg 24 in the open water.

No worries though as i was happy there were fish on the island. Peg 26 to my right isnt on the same island as me, but with peg 25 empty, 16m of pole got peg 26 to the edge and he was getting fish regularly. It was definatley harder than the last time i fished the peg and i felt the front of the island wasnt as productive and bites a lot harder to come by. after the first hour i had 1 chub, 1 F1 and 3 carp in the net.

NOTE - Hollow Vs Double Latex - i'd now had a few fish on the hollow and absolutely made my mind up that i wont be going back to hollows in a hurry. they are good on the lift and easing fish back to the top kit, but the difference between control of the fish under the tip is remarkable. the double latex gives much more control as the hollow just stretches and stretches and i ended up with my short 4 to land most of the fish with the hollow elastic.

With the front of the island not really producing i moved out to the side of the island at 14.5 metres. by now the wind a had got up which isnt really a massive problem, but it was blustery today so rig control was difficult. the wind was chopping up the water to making the dark and light water mix up and visibility was a nightmare. (NOTE TO SELF - make more floats with yellow tips!!!!!!)

Luckily my perfect feeding routine (well absolute flyer of a peg stuffed with fish) had the fish going well. so with most of the floats tip out of the water the bites were unmissable and some even pulling the elastic out for me and the next hour i put a good run of fish together, mainly chunky mirrors with a couple of 4lb fish. again the hollow elastic was causing me problems with it taking an age to net the mirrors. i'd kept the front island line topped up so when bites slowed to the side of the island i decided to come back to the front and see if anything had settled. i did manage a couple of fish but knew it wasnt as good as the side of the island.

i was happy to set a pattern of do the best i could from the side of the island and keep the weight ticking over from the front when bites slowed to the side. i'd also swapped from the hollows to double latex on all my rigs as i just wasnt happy with it.

with 2 hours to go the 14.5m line was dieing off, even after a rest so the 16m section came out and a new line started. this gave me a boost and regular fish for the final part of the match meant i didnt need to use the front line again. one moan (if i may) about this peg is the high bank behind me. coupled with me being left handed and having to ship out with my upper body twisted to keep the pole away from the island and the pole up by my chest because of the high bank, i was glad of the big bottle of Lucozade i had with me. the 16m line was producing some nice mirrors with 1 fish pushing 8lb.

peg 26 had caught fish steadily with a few breaks in sport because he didnt have a second island line to retreat to. the open water peg to my left caught fish regularly for the first 2 hours but a big lull in action in the middle of the match meant he'd dropped away. 4mm expanders had caught me the majority of my fish but a change to double maggot brought a few quick extra fish when the line slowed. over the whole match i'd fed around a pint of pellets on all my island lines in total.

i was glad of the final whistle as i was pretty exhausted but confident i'd done well on the pool with peg 26 my closest rival from what i could see. i had lost 7-8 fish over the match including a couple of fish at the net bacuse of a lack of control with the hollow elastic which gratted me, but not a lot i could do about that now.

When the scales arrived peg 26 was winning with 59lb, i thought i'd pretty easily beat that, but my nets went to 63lb, a bit to close for comfort, but enough never the less. the lost fish nearly cost me!!! peg 4 at the opposite end of the pool in the shallower water put 61lb on the scales and that was it. i'd won my section (most importantly) and the pool overall.

Coming away from this match i will not be going back to hollows again, and felt the peg was worth a lot more than i'd extracted and doubled latex would have put another 20lb in the net purely through putting fish in the net quicker.

Arrowvalley

The weather since the winter league had picked up considerably with the morning frosts disappearing the temperature reaching double figures during the day, so i planned a Friday afternoon Arrow Valley Lake session for a bit of fun.

I chose my favourite peg in the world, chucking to the point of the island from the Shakespeare bank. i mixed up some groundbait (50/50 Sensas IM5 grren and sensas lake) and set up my middy 3G X-Flex medium feeder rod coupled to a Daiwa Capricorn 3500XTC reel. this reel really is the business for range chucking with a large daimeter spool and excellent cranking power and rod has a stronger back bone than my usual maver powerlite feeder system set-up making this 70 yard chuck a bit easier for pleasure session.

10 big feeder fulls at the start of the session with a few maggots in each got the peg going. i was casting 10 yards off the island into about 6ft of water and 3rd chuck with a medium feeder a nice pull put my first bream of the day in the net and at around 4lb was a great start.

I wont go on too much but a short 3 hour session produced 7 Bream averaging 4lb a piece and 1 carp around 9lb. i swapped my feeder for a method for a few chucks and snared the carp on that, but the all the bream came to the feeder.

Catch Up & Tunnel Barn Farm

2010-03-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

Well apologies its been some time in coming, but i finally have something to write about.

The last few weeks have seen me visit manor farm leisure on 2 occasions fishing 2 rounds of the winter league on Boundary pool. 10 hours fishing resulted in 5lb of fish. 1 F1 and about 100 blips!

Regular readers will know i'm not one to not write about the bad times and if i've messed a match up, but on these occasions i just couldnt find anything interesting to write about! It just didnt happen on these matches, although my own work rate has been lacking as per previous occasions.

A few weeks off due to lots of work and not actually feeling like i wanted to go fishing has done me some good, and some 'enforced' holiday from work (cost saving exercises) gave me the opportunity to have a go on the Monday open at tunnel barn farm.

I've had some mixed results at tunnel, with section/match wins on supercup and Solihull League matches etc, but no real form on the open matches i've fished there. But my few weeks off, a Sundays worth of preperation getting all my 0.14 mainline winter rigs sorted and giving myself a good talking too got my head in the right place and i was actually looking forward to fishing.

The Saturday and day before were freezing with proper minus temperatures so my drive to tunnel after dropping Mrs P off was a bit nervous as i wasnt sure whether anybody would turn up on a freezing cold monday morning. but 20 other anglers had the same idea as me and there actually more people there today than on the opens over the weekend!

With a sandwich inside me the draw came around and peg 35 on new pool stuck to my hand. This is at the far end of the pool 'round the back' and is at the end of a straight no more than 10m wide.

With 10m to the island expanding to open water to my right i liked the look of it.

I also had a very good looking margin line to my right (anything to my right suits me fine as i'm left handed so i'm shipping across my body rather than away from myself)

One thing i have learned from past experience at tunnel barn during the colder times is to have plenty of options available during the match, so I spent plenty of time plumbing around to not only find features but find indenticle spots that i can move onto when a certain area has died off.

The plan for the day was to attack with pellet and maggot on various lines around my peg so i set the following rigs up: -

Rig 1 - 0.15 SP slim pellet pencil with 1.5mm tip. 0.14 Ultima Power Silk mainline, 0.10 Power silk hooklength to 20 G-Point Pellet. Shotted with No. 11 stotz that could be spread or bulked. Island Swim - Double 6-8 middy elastic

Rig 2 - 0.15 SP Slim pellet pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.14 ultima power silk mainline, 0.12 Power silk hooklength to an 18 G-Point Pellet. Again shotted with No. 11 stotz that could be spread or bulked. Margin line - Double Middy 6-8 elastic

Rig 3 - 0.3 SP Silverfish, 0.14 Power silk mainline, 0.10 Power silk hooklength to a 18 B611. Bulk of number 10's with 3 Number 11 droppers. Deep water maggot rig - Double 3-4 Middy elastic

Rig 4 - 0.4 SP Slim Pellet Pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.14 Power silk mainline, 0.10 Power silk hooklength to a 20 G-Point Pellet. Spread bulk of number 10's with 3 number 11 droppers. Deep water Pellet rig - Double middy 6-8 elastic.

Plumbing around i found a nice flat ledge at 2.5ft deep 1m off the island running all the way along the island so i could work my way along if necessary, with the same ledge going along to a bush on the point of the island.

The ledge dropped off to 5ft of water at the deepest and i found this consistantly around my peg at a 45 degree angle to right towards the open water, from 10 to 13m away.

The margin plumbed up slightly shallower than the island with just over 2ft of water, but there was plenty of colour in the water so i definately fancied 1 or 2 fish from it.

Bait for the day was very simple and kept (purposefully) very sparse, with 1/2 pint of red and white maggots, some 4mm expanders and some soaked TBF micros totalling no more than 1.5 pints of bait. This meant I had to make it last the whole 5 hours over a number of lines. It is so easy to overfeed a line a TBF so the lack of bait meant every bit of bait fed would have to count.

The starting plan was 3 lines: -

Number 1, up to the island under the bush fed with a few micros and 5-6 maggots.

Number 2 - Open water at 10m fed with a few micros and 5-6 maggots.

Number 3 - margin at 13m fed with 20-30 micos only.

The first 2 lines were going to be fished from the off but the margin line wouldnt be touched for at least 2 hours so this would be topped up with a maximum of 10 micros every so often.

First chuck to the island with a single red on and F1 number 1 was in the net. Great start which really got my hopes up. Next chuck, after topping up with 5 maggots and 10 micros i bumped a fish with my elastic not coming out very well.

QUICK NOTE - I've been using doubled elastic for at least 18 months and i'm totally sold on it. i've been using the middy stuff for around 6 months and find it performs (in my pole, maver 401) better than the usual preston original slip. But on this occasion the 6-8 elastic wasn't performing very well at all, with it being very juddery and sticky. It has been in my kits for maybe 2 months, with a 4 weeks off stored in my rod bag so i reckon its come the end of its life and got sticky or gooey in my kits. I've also never cleaned the inside of my kits, but at the same time never used any lubricants on elastics, always preffering lake water. the 3-4 elastic performed perfectly and was actually a lot more suitable for the size of fish i was catching. it has only been used on a couple of sessions so is well withins its life cycle.

The bumped fish seemed to kill off that line with no more proper bites for the next 10 minutes, so it was a quick change to the deep water line to see if anything was happening. I started on the maggot and managed an early fish but again the next 20 minutes i sat there for only a couple more indications and no more fish. After the first half hour the margin got a top up.

Back to the island line and another quick fish gave me some hope of a few arriving. Another fish 15 minutes later gave me 4 in the first 90 minutes.

Next door to my left was on 5 fish and he had no open water and the guy to my right was easily beating me with at least 10 fish. I was still feeling ok though and my head was still in it. I was working my peg, moving lines, not forcing it with feed and keeping my rigs working to provoke a response.

Maggot had definately got me the most bites and caught me all of my fish so far but i'd definately had indications on the pellet, and my margin line had had 2 top ups since the start with pellet only. Just before the second hour had elapsed i decided to give it try, earlier than i wanted, but if it didnt produce anything at least i could concentrate on my other lines.

I was also going to start flicking maggots straight in front of me 9m away to the shelf off the island. Last year i fished a match on the canal pool and had a great hour fishing a similar line with hand fed maggots just off the island. Every time i shipped in the new line would get 10-15 maggots, quite a lot of feed compared to everywhere else i'd fished so far today, but felt is was worth a try as it was a good 10 metres away from any other line started during the match.

First chuck down the margin and my unperfected rig for that line was sitting a bit high with 1/2" of bristle showing and a bit of a long line above the float, but 30 seconds later the float disappeared totally and fish number 5 was in the net. With the potential for things to improve i promply fine tuned my rig, and was back out in no time. 4 more fish in as many chucks and i was a lot happier and the guys around quickly started they're own margin lines!!

I was very conscious not to over do this line and the last fish took its time in coming, so 20 micros were fed and i spent 10 minutes on one of my deep water lines to give the margin a rest. I'd now been feeding the new maggot line for half an hour but didnt want to try it yet. I didnt have a touch in the deep water, and was now prepared to sack it off if the margin line kept producing and i could find somewhere else to keep something going in the net when the margin was being rested.

Back to the margin and the fish were still there and i put another 5 fish in the net in the next 20 minutes. We were now into the last 2 hours of the match. I'd easily caught up the guy to my right who had slowed considerably and pulled away from the guy ot my left. The guy on the end of my bank to my left was catching fairly consistantly and i was definately behind, but my head was in the right place and i was considering all the feed going into my peg to make sure i didnt over cook it.

The next rest period took me over to the island on the new maggot line. First chuck and the float shot under with a small F1 and i had a big smile on my face when it did. My 2 main rigs in the shallow water, maggot and margin, were now attached to the doubled 3-4 because it was definately the better set up with no bumped fish and plenty of elastic coming out but the fish still under complete control. I managed 3 fish from this line in 15 minutes with bites taking longer to come by after every fish.

This pretty much set the routine for the last hour and a half with a maximum of 3 fish coming off each line before it was rested. I did have to put another section on the margin line to follow them closer to the reed cover to keep bites coming but the gusty breeze was easily manageable. I had to finish on the maggot line as the margin was really slow even though there were fish present, and a fish just before the whistle meant i'd had a nice day.

I was happy with my performance, I'd caught more fish than my last few matches combined and knew i'd easily beaten those around me who i could see, so i just hoped the rest of the pool had fished as hard it did round by me.

When the scales arrived 31lb was winning and i didnt think i had that as i caught the smaller stamp of F1's present in new pool, but the scales went round to 33lb 4oz. I was chuffed but knew there were some very good locals left to weigh in so i didnt build my hopes up just yet.

I finished packing up in no rush and made my way round to the cafe and found out i'd won the match overall. 31lb second with 25lb third and the rest of the weights in the high teens. i was pleased with my performance because i'd thought about my actions and based my decisions on what was happening in the water rather than what i wanted to happen, consequently the peg repsonded in a psositive fashion and i kept some weight going into the net.

I'd lost 8 fish over the match (8 fish too many in winter) and i blame that on myself for not changing the old elastic in my kits, which wont happen again. it certainly hasnt put me off doubled elastic, and hasnt put me off the middy stuff, i just know now to change it regularly. i also need to think about cleaning my kits out, but not sure how to do that yet - any suggestions welcome!!!

Big test this weekend with the final round of the Manor winter league with another appearance on boundary. a good result there will get me right back on track and looking forward to a productive summer!!!!

Manor farm, 24-01-10

2010-01-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

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!

Manor Farm - 03-01-10

2010-01-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

Well after a very very lazy christmas break i managed to make it back onto the bank for the first round of the manor farm winter league!
But before that i just thought i'd show you our Christmas Eve celebrations. Pete Bailey came and joined us for a BBQ in the snow!! Even tho it was freezing, the fire pit threw out quite a bit of heat and i was quite happily stood outside in my t-shirt cooking some home made chilli burgers and sausages! lovely!!!

Any way back to the fishing! I say it was the first round of the winter league, but the league fixture was cancelled due to the extreme cold with very poor driving conditions and frozen lakes so an open was held in its place for anyone that fancied braving the conditions.
15 brave (stupid) individuals turned up for some action so Dave (the owner) decided to put 10 on Windmill, the deepest lake on the complex with upto 12ft of water available and the last 5 on middle lake which seemed to have the least amount of ice.
I've always said that Windmill is my favourite pool at manor as its an established pool with lots of features and water to attack but today i actually fancied a draw on middle as its very consistant and we'd have plenty of room with only 5 on it.
Well the bag of dreams looked after me a got peg 3 on middle!

First job of the day was make a peg! i've got a big 10lb lump of stainless steel with just over a metre of chain and 16m of strong rope as my ice breaker and it works really well in all but the thickest of ice and i can throw it the full distance if needed.
my first chuck sailed out beautifully to 14 metres followed by my end of the rope which i'd only dropped over the leg of my box! DOH! luckily I got it back with my landing net and cut a line to the left of my peg and did the same on the right hand side. i then roughly broke the middle up and my fishing hole appeared. the big pieces i pushed under the edges of the ice and small bits were scooped out.
I ended up with 13m of ice free water with easily enough room for 2 lines out about 5 metres apart. it took me about 30 mins and kept me really warm!
TIP OF THE DAY - make sure you have some thick gloves when breaking the ice to keep your hand warm and protect them from rope burns!!!!!
With that sorted i moved onto setting up my gear! the plan was simple with a 2 pronged attack. the first line was going to be a pellet attack, fishing and feeding expanders and the second line was going to be fed with micro's and pinkies.

Rigs, from top to bottom -

1 - Light Pellet - 0.4g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Ultima Power Silk mainline, with 0.10 Powersilk hooklength to a 20 G-Point Pellet
2 - Heavy Pellet - 0.6g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Power Silk mainline, with 0.12 Power Silk hooklength to a 18 G-Point Pellet
3 - Pinky Rig - 0.4g Silvers float with 1mm tip, 0.14 Power Silk mainline, with 0.10 Power Silk hooklength to a 20 B611.

All rigs were plumbed just touching bottom at 13m just off the far edge of the ice with the pellet line to the right hand edge and the pinky line to the left hand edge.
The light pellet and pinky rig had a spread bulks with 2 droppers and the heavy pellet featured very positive bulk with no droppers. The pinky and light pellet rig were attached to a doubled 3-4 middy latex and the heavy pellet attached to doubled 6-8 middy latex.
Bait for the day was 1/2 pint of flouro pinkies, 1 pint of soft jellied 4mm expanders and 1 pint of soaked micros. i had some maggots too but lef them in the bag unless i got desperate.
On the whistle i fed 25 expanders on my pellet line and a pinch of micros and about 30 pinkies on my second line and followed it out with my light pellet rig.
the rig settled really nicely with just a pimple of tip showing, for about a second! fish on! this is the first time i've used the 3-4 middy latex and it is really nice, super smooth and stretchy and i never felt like pulling out of the fish, but i will say it was too soft for the restricted amount of room i had between the ice and i had to land it with my short 4 on my match kit. But a 2.5lb F1 was in the net before most had finished potting! Great start.
The same happened 2nd chuck and a small mirror was in the net, but i changed my rig onto another top kit with 6-8 latex in to give me better control between the ice sheets. in open water i would have stayed on the lighter elastic as i wouldnt want to risk pulling out anything as every fish counts in such cold conditions.
BUT THEN, it had been at least an hour since i'd broken the ice and with a slight breeze blowing over my shoulder to the right hand far corner of my ice hole it started freezing over again and within minutes i was struggling to get my rig in properly! i made an early decision start 2 identical lines a section shorter so i could fish easily without any obstruction. I managed 5 fish in 30 minutes from my far line before the ice became too much of a problem. I was now going to leave these far lines completely alone with no more clearing or feed so if i needed too later on i could move back out to 13m and start again if my peg completely died.
Moving shorter was slow as i felt i'd propably split the fish in my peg too much by starting new lines, but i knew my far lines would die off and hopefully the fish would come shorter. Steve Ford opposite me was now catching fairly steadily and had easily caught me up with 90 minutes of the match gone.
My shorter lines got stronger as the far lines died and i put 15 fish in the net in the middle hours and i was happy with my progress. The majority of the fish came from the pellet line with the heavy pellet rig easily giving me the most positive bites even tho i still had the float dotted down to a pimple.
I did have to change the depth regularly to keep bites coming and also move the bulk about from 6"-15" from the hook to alter the drop of the pellet in the final part of the water column. i also found a few fish a couple of inches off the bottom, something i've never really done before in such cold conditions. i kept the peg topped up with 5-10 expanders every fish through a tiny kinder pot and kept changing the top up amounts to keep the fish guessing. i did also manage a couple of fish on double pinky when i felt i needed to rest the pellet line for 10 minutes.
Steve opposite me was also catching and i felt i was falling behind him, but the ice was now becoming a problem on my shorter lines as the re-freeze crept back through my ice hole. Steve on the other hand had the ice forming in his margins so kept his fishing lines clear! Bites had slowed but there were still fish there and i kept dripping bits of bait in and rotating lines. i had to swap lines very regulalry as the fish definately wanted some bait dripping in and by now both my shorter lines were being kept alive with expanders.
With an hour to go i decided to open my long pellet line again and used my cupping kit to clear the cat ice and started the line from fresh fedding as if the whistle had just gone. I gave it 5 minutes to settle and sneaked a fish from my short line. i then managed 5 fish from the long line in 30 minutes but just couldnt keep on top of the ice reforming. it was really frustrating as i knew there were fish there but didnt know what to do to keep the ice clear. If anyone reading this knows of any tips please let me know!!!!!!
So i resigned myself to the last 15 minutes on the shorter line and put 2 final fish in the net. I knew Steve had beaten me and 2 others on our pool had packed up 90 mins before the whistle but the 5th angler had caught quite steadily and had had a couple of lumps during the day too, so i was nervous. The payout was 1 winner with 3 sections so i needed Steve to win the match and beat the other angler on our pool for my section.
I put 52lb on the scales and was pleased as i'd had a nice days fishing. Steve put a brilliant 87lb on the scales, but the 3rd angler was disqualified by Dave. One of his mates had sat on his box after the match and fished on for 15 minutes. This isnt allowed at Manor and although nothing was caught Dave is always consistant and disqaulified the angler. I thought it was probably quite a harsh decision as it was an open and not a team match but i was benefitted as he may have had 60lb and would have possibly beaten me!
Steve comfortably won the match as 28lb won on Windmill which had fished really hard! I ended up second overall and picked up my section money so a good day overall.
Without the ice issues my peg was worth a lot more fish and i felt i could have pushed Steve a lot closer as I got the F1's going very nicely in the middle part of the match. The sun was out all day and i was fishing with just my Hoody over my normal clothes and didnt need my extra fleece or waterproof so i'm still amazed the peg kept re-freezing!
If i fished the match again i'd probably take more time clearing the peg and try and go out as far as possible so the re-freeze would have less of an effect!

Cob House TA Fur and Feather

2009-12-14T04:37:00.000-08:00

3 bites, 1 lost foul hooker, 1 weigher 3-7-0.
No where, nothing, nadda, zip!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But, a massive well done and thanks to Bob (20meterking) for putting on a brilliant day and fantastic prize selection!

Cob House Fisheries, Sunday Open, 06-12-09

2009-12-07T05:02:00.001-08:00

Well it was back to Cob House this week, with an open match on Sunday filling in for the cancelled winter league.

Wyatts pool was the venue this week. Although not my favourite pool on the complex, there is certainly nothing wrong with it and i've done pretty well on there historically (i held the venue record for a while from Wyatts with 207lb). Wyatts is all about a fish race, rather than the proper siazed fish that Laugherne holds. Weather leading up to the match had been very changeable, with frosts one morning and +8 degrees the next with plenty of wind and rain mixed in, but i was still looking forward to getting out on the bank.

Unfortunatley the day didnt go to well and i found myself lacking in 2 areas, 1 of which was completely my own fault and the other due to the extreme conditions on the day. I'll explain!!

The draw put me on peg 9, in the middle of the near bank. a pretty non-descript peg with a spare peg either side like everyone else but i was at the back of slight of a slight bay.

The wind at the start of the match wasnt to bad, blowy but very manageable and the rigs held steady when i was checking the shotting. my plan was totally based around pellets with some maggots and pinkies as backup.

So i set the following up: -

Rig 1 - 0.7g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Ultima Power Silk mainline to 0.10 Power silk hooklength and an 18 G-Point Pellet.

Rig 2 - 1g Fat pencil with 2mm tip, 0.15 Power Silk Mainline, 0.12 Power Silk Hooklength and an 18 G-Point Pellet

Rig 3 - 0.5g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip, 0.15 Power Silk mainline, 0.10 Power Silk Hooklength and an 18 G Point Pellet

Rig 4 - 0.4g Rounder bodied float (a new shape i'm playing with), 0.14 Power Silk mainline, 0.10 Powersilk hooklength and an 18 B611.

Rigs 1 and 2 were for the main pellet lines at 11m where the wind was easily manageable and i could follow the fish out if necessary without resorting to going really long. rig 1 was set just touching with a spread bulk and droppers and rig 2 was set 3" over depth with a spread bulk and droppers. i gave myself 2 lines here at 10 and 2 o'clock and would feed micro's on one line and 4mm on the other to determine if the fish prefered one type of feed.

Before the match kicked off i managed to have 5 minutes talking to Chris Cameron who was pegged next to me and an absolutely brilliant pellet angler so i chekced his rigs out. he uses a very positive shotting pattern which 'looked' totally wrong to me, as i like nice spread out shotting to give a nice slow fall through the water, but his way obviously works. With this in mind i altered rig 2 with the bulk 18" from the hook and a second bulk in between the first and the hook. i just couldnt go as positive as chris who fishes a single bulk 12" from the hook!

Rig 3 was plumbed at 4 sections where the inside shelf starts to flatten slightly to me left out of the noisy water which would be created by netted fish and would be hand fed with pellets and rig 4 was plumbed at the same place as rig 3 but 9m to my right nearly in front of the peg next door. this was going to be dump potted with pinkies as was only to be used as a back up.
The maggot dumping line has worked for me at various venues in the depths of winter as i liken it to a bloodworm and joker approach where the majority of the bait is introduced at the start and the fish are left to graze over it with nothing else over the top and picked off as and when required.

the bait table as very simple, with 2 pints of soaked micros, 2 pints of soaked 4mm's, half of red maggots and half a pint of mixed pinkies all mixed together and some 4mm expanders.

On the whistle my 11m lines received a medium CAD pot of pellets on each (i was going to feel my way in), the 4 section line got a few pellets hand fed and the maggot line got a full small cupping pot of feed.

This is where the issues started and the struggle began. 10 minutes after the whistle went the wind quickly picked up quite dramatically and was really gusting and creating some sizeable waves on the surface. for the first 45 minutes i could get half decent presentation and i manged to put a few mirrors in the net. i had too fish the 2 O'clock line as the sun had come out and i couldnt see a thing on the 10 o'clock line! but then the tow started to kick in!!!!!!!!!!!!

for some reason i hadnt put my ready rod bad in which had micro method and maggot feeder rods set up in it. the tow became relentless and bites dropped away and i was left struggling just gettin the odd indication if i could keep it still for a few seconds. Chris next door and John opposite me chucked small feeders and were instantly rewarded with fish when i was sat there struggling. Must remember rods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my other issue was not being prepared for the situation. after the match Steve Ford told me he had caught using a 2g rig held back against the tow and nailed in place. the biggest rig in my box is only 1g. the wind didnt stop and my rigs just werent right for the conditions. if there was the slightest break in the wind my float went straight under and there was a fish on. i did put an extension onto my rig with 3ft of line above the float and a couple of number 8 back shot but the wind and waves were pushing the float through way too quickly!!! i think a round bodied float 2-3g would have been perfect, but with my own float making (slim float making) hobby kicking in i was left short of the right gear. But on the flip side the conditions were pretty extreme and the rod and line approach would have the best on the day!?!?!?!

i did manage occasional bursts of fish and could only manage 2 fish from each of my 11m lines before they needed topping up and resting. the fish definately wanted some feed and regular top ups gave me bites through out the match, but it was really hard work holding the pole against the constant wind with regular gusts!

I couldnt muster a bite from either of my close lines and had everything from my 11 meter lines on a 4mm expander. bites were pretty positive and the 6-8 middy latex doubled in my match kits is absolutely perfect. i will definately be using this from now on. i need to get hold of some of the 8-10 to try it out on Laugherne island for the bigger carp and find a regular source as i cant seem to get in anywhere in my local area.

I managed to put 36lb on the scales for midway in the match. 65lb won with 63lb second so overall not the best of days!

Cob House again this week with the Talk Angling fur and feather. 40 guys booked on with Wyatts and Laugherne island in! Should a be good match, i just hope that wind ides of and gives us a decent day for once!!!!

Chestnut Pool Fishery - 29/11/09

2009-12-04T01:15:00.000-08:00

This week was a change to the usual trip around the corner to Cob House as Pete Bailey had invited me to join him at a match at Chestnut Pools near Bedford.

Format for the day was pole only, 14.5m limit, and a silvers match. I hadnt targetted silvers specificially for a long time so i fancied the change and the challenge. its quite a jaunt from Worcester and i was at petes loading the van up at 6am!! was going to be a long day!

all my gear was targetted to carp to 8lb so a major overhaul of my pole and rigs was in order to getit suitable for the target fish. i was happy using my winter commercial rigs which are made up on 0.14 mainline and i would happy putting a 0.08 hooklength on. my top kits got the light elastic treatment and i put 2 sets of doubled 2, 2 sets of double 4 and i final double 6. this would give me a good range of rigs to set up for whatever species may appear.

I spent the second half of the previous week trying to do some research and formulate a reasonable plan to put some weight in my net. it was very hard work to be honest, although a beautifull pool it doesnt seem to be all that well known so info was minimal. a few calls to pete and the few snippets of info off the net gave me a reasonable idea of what to do but i would have to be on my toes during the match to tailor my tactics when i needed too. target wieght was set to double figures to do well.

the journey over was pretty easy and the services did well out of me with a couple of breakfasts and drinks to nearly £20! BUT i then watched Pete pour the 2 bottles of water i'd just bought him into his groundbait bucket to finish his mix off!!!! he's only person i know who uses Evian to mix groundbait! TART!!!

We arrvied in good time and i finally managed to shake hands with the legend known as Mr Scone!! Not as tall as i thought he would be!!

With monies paid and the shuttle loaded i managed to pull out peg 3. it didnt mean anything to me apart from a short walk and a high bank behind me.

plan for the day was initially going to be kept very simple but meant i could add to it as i needed too. i spent a good 20 minutes plumbing my peg and found a good 4ft of water in the margin, the inside shelf finishing at 4 sections to out then the peg flat as a pancake out to the 14.5 limit!

4 lines were going to be my initial plan of attack, from top to bottom: -

- 1 - 0.2g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip for the margin at 9m to my left. Pellet and worm.

- 2 - 0.7g slim pencil with 1.5mm tip for 14.5m, front right, pellet.

- 3 - 0.4g silver fish float, 1mm tip for 13m in front, groundbait and pinkies

- 4 - 0.3g silver fish float, 4 sections in front, loose fed caster.

All the rigs were made up on 0.14 Ultima Power Silk with 0.10 Power silk hooklengths and B611 hooks.

my bait table consisted of 1.5kg of roach noire and matchblend mixed the night before, 1/2 pint of dead pinkies, 1 pint of maggots, 1 pint of micro's , 1.5 pints of casters and 1/4kg of worms and some 4mm expanders.

On the whistle the 13m line recieved 3 balls of GB with a small sprinkling of pinkies and casters in, 2 well squeezed balls and 1 loose one. the 14.5m and margin lines recieved a golf ball of micro's with a bit of worm and caster mixed in, and the 4 section line was going to get casters flicked in at regular intervals.

the weather wasnt very nice at all with swirling winds and rain mixed in, so it was quite a miserable day. its took 10 minutes to get an indication on the GB line and a small blade roach saved the blank! no more indications followed for half an hour apart from 4 leaves hooked. it was looking quite desperate as no one else had caught much, if anything at all. Pete had managed 1 net fish.

the sun decided to make an appearance and i could not see my 4 section line and knew it was going to drift over my 13m line making those lines impossible to fish. i had an early try on the pellet line without a sniff with the same on my margin line. i really fancied the margin line for a tench or big perch with a good depth tight in to the reeds but i didnt have a touch there all day.

With 1.5 hours gone i was getting desperate and Pete had started to catch a few fish fairly regularly so i started a new line 45 degrees to my right at 13m with just chopped worm and caster and gave it 20 minutes to rest.

i strung my 13m rig right out to give a slow fall with the bait 1" off the bottom and finally got some more bites and put another 4 roach in the net in that 20 minutes. my first try on the new line gave me 3 fish, 2 perch and roach for 10-12oz and my spirits lifted and thoughts of a come back came into my mind. my concentration was renewed.

I didint want to over do that line so i converted my 14.5 line ot just worm and caster and topped up with a good handfull of bait and went back over the GB line for another couple of blades. i then spent the next coupld of hours catching 2-3 fish from the 2 worm and caster lines, each time topping up with a pinch of bait and resting them to keep them alive for as long as possible.

I was catching some nice sized perch, definately net fish, but i was concerned whether they would weigh much. By this time pete had managed some bonus fish in the shape of a massive Rudd, a tench and crucian so he was in a commanding position. 1 other angler had had some net fish too, so out of those i could see, 15 anglers, i thought i was 3rd.

the middle part of the match produced fish but they were getting more and more finicky and i had to reduce the size of hookbait the longer i fished on. from a fat worm head down to a small tail section down to a maggot to keep fish coming.

with 90 minutes to go i lifted into a some thing more substantial and the double 2 cushioned a nice 2lb bream easily into the net which doubled my weight at that point.

Things really slowed down at that point as the rain got steadily worse and the wind was really swirling. but the fish did not want a positive/heavy rig in front of them. 0.7g rig got me one indication with all the rest of my fish coming tothe 0.3g float strung out over the bottom half of the rig. bites were fairly instant if the bait was constantly worked.

the last half an hour gave a string of rudd to put another 6oz on the net but my new next door neighbor (the guy originally next to me packed up after 2 hours and went home) hooked and landed a proper perch easily 2.5lb. he had been putting a few roach together over the second half of the match and i feared he had done me with it.

I was first to weigh as peg 2 didnt bother the scales and was quite pleased to put 5lb 13oz in the sling. that bream really helped! the guy next door put 6lb 12oz in the sling with the big perch nearly 3lb and Pete put 12lb 12oz on the scales for a convincing victory. one other 8lb weight made the frame with me picking up my section by double default!!! YAY!

Once the i'd got the worm lines sorted i was happy with my performance as i'd kept the lines going for the remainder of the match and managed to land my bonus, put it took a prompt from Pete to start the new worm line. i did try the worm early doors over the long pellet line but didnt have a touch on it so put me off the scent slightly but the hard work second part of the match meant i went home happy.

the journey back was an effort with a lorry shedding its load of hay, so an hour sat still on the M6 didnt help but we made it with nodding dog Pete snoring in the passenger seat waking up to the sat nav teeling us where to go!

Cob Hosue again this sunday, Wyatts Pool, with a match filling in for the cancelled winter league. weather this week has been noticably colder so it will be hard work! I love it!

Cob House Pairs Match 22-11-09

2009-11-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

With the winter league not happening over the winter the dates are being used to hold opens in various guises. this week it was to be a pairs match, with one person on Laugherne (me) and the partner to be on Wyatts (my mate John Watson).

The weather agian leading up to this match had been shocking with lots of rain and high winds. Pete Bailey must have half enjoyed his last visit to Cob as he asked if we could find him a partner he'd come and have a go!

I also managed to persuade Pete out for a few beers Saturday at the German market in Birmingham and a good day was had with a fair few beers drunk by us and and fair few Gluehvien's drunk by the girls!

A bit of a bad head got Sunday morning started but sausages sandwichs when Pete came to pick me up soon perked us up and we arrived at Cob House in good time for the draw and a little walk round laugherne to see what activity there was. and there was plenty with fish crashing pretty much all around the pool. we were both pretty confident of a good day, but with the weather forcast to deteriorate over the day we both new we had get as much action in early as we could.

With John running the match and me helping we had a draw bag each and got the draw underway in good time. John managed to draw the peg which had won the previous days open on Wyatts and i drew peg 10. Although peg 10 is not noted for anything, its in the middle of the left hand bank with the island infront of it. with out sounding to cocky i absolutely love Laugherne and i'm totally confident no matter what peg i draw.

the wind wasnt to bad when i got to my peg and i was happy to stick to my main line of attack which would be at 16m in front of me, just where the island shelf starts, a margin line where i can find 3-4ft of water and the island attacked with a rod and line.

Pete managed to draw directly opposite me and the island must be slightly closer as when he was plumbing up he was using rigs at 4ft deep at 16m when i had 5.5-6ft at 16m.

Tackle for the day: -

RODS

- 11ft Maver Powerlite Feeder System @11ft, TD-R 3012 with 6lb sensor to drennan carp feeder and 0.16 hooklength, size 15 B711

-11ft Maver Powerlite Feeder Ssytem @11ft, TD-R 3012 with 6lb sensor to micro drennan cage feeder, 0.18 hooklength and knotless knotted 18 drennan carp feeder with a quick stop

-12ft Daiwa SR3 match rod with a 3AA insert wag, 0.16 hooklength and knotless knotted 16 b911 with a pellet band.

the feeder rods were clipped 1m off the island and the waggler rig plumbed in the same spot. this is the first occasion i have plumbed to the island with a waggler and was suprised how far the sheld came out. it came a good 2-3m out and gave plenty of room to cast the waggler and sink the line before it got pulled off the shelf.

POLE

Rig 1 - 1g fat pencil with 2mm tip, 0.15 powersilk mainline to 0.14 powersilk hooklngth and 16 B911

Rig 2 - 0.5g Slim pencil with 2mm tip, 0.15 power silk mainline to 0.12 powersilk hooklength and 18 B911

these were both plumbed at 16m in front of me with the heavy rig 3" overdepth for when the wind got up and rig 2 just touching for when conditions were reasonably calm and good presentation could be achieved.

Rig3 - Preston PB float set at 3ft for fishing up in water if conditions allowed (with carp crashing all day i had to set one up)

Rig4 - 0.2g fat pencil with 2mm tip for the margin in 4ft of water 9m to my right just down the inside shelf.

Bait for the day was simple with 2 pints of softened micros, 2 pints of hard 6mm's, 1 tin of corn, 1 pint of reds with lots of maize and red atomic, and some 4 and 6mm expanders.

On the whistle i cupped in 1/4 of a small preston pot of mircos with a scattering of expanders and corn on my 16m line, the same on my margin line and catapulted some 6mm's to the island ready to prime the waggler/feeder line.

with the weather at this point very manageable i went straight onto the pole line get as much in the net as possible. after 2 minutes of lifting and dropping the float dipped and fish number 1 was on. at around 1.5lb it was small for Laugherne but a great start and proved to me my choice of pole line is totally correct. (i have to blow my own trumpet at this point and say i'm really pleased with the performance of my floats. they shot up really nicely, are very sensitive as the profile is nice and slim, but they are really stable considering the conditions i've used them in)

the next 3 chucks produced fish, but they were all of a smaller stamp than i'm used too for laugherne. but it was fish in the net.

Pete managed his first fish when i lifted into my third and he was off the mark. but no ne else on the pool was doing much with people fishing the pole short because of the conditions or chucking to the island.

NOTE - i managed to get hold of some middy hi-viz latex to try and put the 6-8 in 3 top kits in stead of my usual slip number 6 on some recommendations and i have to say its really nice. As smooth if not smoother flowing than the slip and Hi-viz colours really do stand out. the 6-8 although a little soft for the stamp of fish in Laugherne gave me total confidence to ship back from 16m and not risk yanking the hook out of the fish all of a suddne went on a run. I will be getting the 8-10 stuff to finish off the rest of my kits.

the long swim would slow off every so often so i would rest it with a 1/4 cup of feed and try some of my other lines. i manged to keep a steady flow of fish coming ot the net for the firs thalfof the match and felt i was leading the pool but Pete was also putting fish in the net and wasnt too far behind. i was catching all my fish on a 4mm expander and couldnt get a bite on a 6mm.

During the rest periods i did manage to get i small 12oz fish off the island on the wag and a better 6lb fish from the margin but apart from those all my fish came from the 16m line. the weather did deteriotate during the second half of the match and i had to spend a bit of time on the tip to the island because the pole was unmanageable, and we had a horrible rain/hail storm for 10 minutes which i just hunkered down from with the tip to the island fishing itself.

the 3 and 4th hour were very quiet and i think i lost some focus as i spent too much time flitting between lines not catching fish when a dedicated approach to making a specific line work would have been better.

But a break in the weather in the last hour meant i managed to put a few last fish in the net from the long pole line and boost my weight by a good 10lb's. Pete had had a good last hour catching some better fish from the margin including playing a fish on the whistle, which is always pleasing.

I knew i had done very well and thought it would be close between me and Pete for the pool win. i just now hoped John has done the business on Wyatts.

My nets went to 60lb exactly which i fell any other day should have been worth 80-90lb but i'd managed to find a smaller stamp of fish. Pete won the pool with a cracking 80lb weight. he had probably 10 less fish than me but the proper fish down the margin had really bumped him up. i got second with 44lb third. i found out he'd used corn on the hook in the margin and i hadnt tried it. must remember to remove those blinkers and put some variation into my hookbaits!

wyatts had fished hard considering its potential and the wind had much more of an effect on this pool. 89lb won the pool with John coming 5th. Pete's partner had managed 4th so we were already 2 points behing them.

We finished 4th overall with pete and Co winning the day and putting £140 away between them , a great and well earned result. me and jonh had £50 between us, but i think everyone agreed it was a great days fishing with everyone getting bites and fish.

Silvers matchthis week, come back to see how i get on!!

Cob House Fisheries - 15/11/09

2009-11-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

Well another session at my favourite Cob house was on the cards this week, specifically on Laugherne Island!

The weather leading up to this match was shocking, very wet and extremely windy but still holding quite mild considering the time of year!

my preperations for this match revolved around ensuring i had rod and line coverage if the pole was not going to be an option on the day, although the pole was definately ready and waiting!

A top Suasage and Bacon sandwich was consumed on my way over and i arrived in plenty of time to get some pellets and get my shuttle loaded and pool side.

QUICK NOTE - Mrs P treated me a Preston Shuttle and i have to say (after only the second time of using it) i dont know how i managed to get around without one previously. i had a fox trolley which when loaded properly was ok, but the shuttle blows it away and i now no longer need to carry anything on my shoulders!

With only 5 anglers braving the conditions today the right hand bank of Laugherne was used with the wind off our backs as best as possible, and i managed to pull out peg 37 out of the bag. this was end peg with the corner of the pool 18-19 meters away to my left.

The wind was pretty much coming straight across the water right to left but the corner to my left was looking quite calm and with the angler in this area last week caught in the margin, so i was quite confident of catching towards the corner.

Tackle for the day consisted of: -

RODS

Maver Powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, 3012 TD-R, 6lb sensor, with a drennan carp feeder (maggot) to 0.16 and a 15 B711, clipped 1m off the island.

Maver powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, 3012 TD-R, 6lb sensor with micro drennan cage feeder to 0.18 and a knotless knotted 16 B911 clipped at 16m over my long pole line.

Daiwa SR3 12 match rod, TD-R 2508, 0.18 genesis, 3AAA maver waggler, 0.16 hooklength with a pellet band on 16 B911 for 1m off the island.

POLE

Rig 1- Heavy pellet rig, 0.9g fat pencil with 2mm tip, 0.18 mainline to 0.15 Ultima Power Silk hooklength and a 16 B911. plumbed up at 16m where the island slope just startes to kick in.

Rig 2 - Light pellet rig, 0.5g slim pencil with 2mm tip, 0.15 power silk mainline, to 0.14 power silk hooklength, size 18 G-Point Pellet plumed the same as rig 1.

Rig 3 - Margin rig, 0.2 fat pencil with 2mm tip, 0.18 mainline to 0.16 hooklength and a size 16 B911, plumbed at 16m to my left up the margin in 3ft of water.

Rig 4 - Margin Rig as above but plumbed at 11m to my right to marginal reeds but found 4ft of water on this line. (this was set up 2 hours after the whistle)

the bait table for the day was very simple. 2 pints of softened micros for feed, 1 pint of reds and white maggots and some 4 and 6mm expanders.

It may seem crazy plumbing the pole line so far out considering the conditions but experience over the last few weeks has told me thats were the fish are and i could always chuck my little cage feeder over the line if it was really bad.

On the whistle i potted a 1/4 small preston cup of pellets with a few expanders mixed in on my long out line and long margin line then chucked the maggot feeder just off the island. i gave the maggot feeder 20 minutes with regular chucks but only managed a few liners with no positive pull rounds.

with nothing positive happening and a few fish coming out down the bank i needed to try some thing so out went the pole in front of me and i could hold it pretty well in the very strong wind, but the water was towing quicker than the Severn and after 5 minutes i knew it wasnt going to happen (yet, i'm always hopefull!)

My next port of call was the long margin to my left and shipping out the wind was still blustery in the corner but i was happy with the presentation. with a small CAD pot attached with a few micros potted in and a 4mm expander on the hook, the float went under after a minute and carp munber 1 was on and in the net afer 2 minutes. Again double number 8 slip is doing the business for me and keeping all my carp from 2lb to 8-9lb perfectly under control.

Catching on this line early put a smile on my face and i managed to put another 4 fish on the net over the next half an hour. i really didnt want to ruin this line and wanted to make it last all match. so another 1/4 pot of pellets went out on this line and my maggot feeder was sent ot the island. second cast on this session and the tip dropped back and a 3lb carp was quickly netted

ANOTHER QUICK NOTE - i've been looking for a good maggot hook for maggot feeder work as i feel the B611, although a perfect shape, is just a tad under gunned, so someone on Matchfishing-scene.co.uk recommended the B711 so i gave them a try. well they handled this carp with ease so so far i'm very happy!!!

With no more wraps in the next 15 minutes i felt the margin had had time to settle so i gave it another try and another 4 fish in 1/2 an hour kept me settled and i felt i was now doing well in the match. at this point with the margin working well i felt the margin to my right looked inviting and stood a chance of holding fish so rig number 4 was set-up , plumbed and fed with a 1/4 pot of pellets.

the magority of the match followed a cycle of catching 2, 3 or 4 fish from the long margin then a rest and where i'd try elsewhere to catch some thing else while the corner settled. incidently i only managed 1 foulhooked fish from the newer margin line. the hour brough a settled period in the weather and the long pole line looked quite calm so i potted some more bait in and had another session in the margin for another couple of fish.

With 45 minutes to go i gave the long out pole line a try and the tow had disappeared and the light pellet rig held nicely and actually went under and a fish was landed. i'd got double 6 on this rig as i wanted some security if the fish ran whilst shipping back from such a distance and breaking down twice that the fish could go quite easily with out pulling the hook out before i realised anything was happening.

Going into the last 15 minutes i'd 2 more touches on the out line so wanted sneak a last couple of fish out on the margin line! at this point Phil, the fishery manager turned up on the quad and parked about 20 metres away from the corner and i could only manage 1 more fish before the whistle went and the match was over.
I still felt confident and was happy i'd made the most of my peg. the scales confirmed i'd put 76lb 10oz in the nets with 57lb next weight i'd earned a vistory. i say earned because i spent 4 out of the 5 hours fishing 16m down the margin which was pretty hard work as it pretty blustery down in the corner.
I'm not sure i'd do anything different if i re-ran the match i's done enough to win and i only lost 2 fish. i could have tried the long out line earlier which may have put 2 or 3 more fish in the net, but i didnt need them.

Cob house again this Sunday with a pairsmatch to replace what would have been the second round of the winter league. See you all soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cob House Fisheries Open, 08-11-09

2009-11-12T05:58:00.000-08:00

Well this was supposed to be the first round of the teams of 4 winter league but unfortunatley due to a lack of teams the league was cancelled and dates used for opens instead.

With Laugherne island (my favourite) the venue for the day, is was hoping for a good match and nice day after the Blythe disaster! as it was a Sunday and the sandwich lady wouldnt be on the Powick Island so i made myself 4 thick slices of egg bread from a fresh crusty loaf and they went down beautifuly! althoug the aroma got Mrs P out of bed and she nicked a slice! but i was ready to begin the day!

On my way to the venue and at the cash point i came a across a 'lost' Pete Bailey who'd returned early from an unsuccessfull foray at Stafford moor so after some persuation he decided to join us and boost numbers to 11 on the day!

it started off, weather wise as a very reasonable morning but over the day conditions were all voer the place with sporadic wind rain and cloud cover! i managed to draw end peg 3 on the far bank with the end of the island slightly to my left.

Tackle for the day was: -

Rods

Maver powerlite feeder @11ft, TD-R3012 to a small drennan carp maggot feeder, 0.16 hooklength to 16 B911

Maver Powerlite feeder @11ft, TD-R 3012 to a small preston in line method, 0.20 hooklength to 16 knotless knotted B911

Pole

Rig 1 - Light rig, 0.14 Power silk mainline to 0.12 power silk hooklength with an 18 G-Point Pellet. float is one of my onw fine patterns featuring a 1mm hollow tip, 0.8 carbon stem. Shot were spread over the last 3rd of the rig. Double 6 latex

Rig 2 - Pellet Rig, 0.18 Genesis mainline to 0.14 powersilk hooklength with an 16 B911. Float is a slim pencil with 1.5mm tip. spread bulk with 2 No.10 droppers. Double 8 latex

Rig 3 - Shallow Rig - 0.15 powersilk direct to 16 B911 with a preston PB2 (i think) set at 3ft deep. Double 6 latex

Rig 4 - margin Rig - 0.18 genesis, 0.18 hooklength with a fat pencil with 2mm tip. spread bulk 12" from the hook. Double 8 Latex

I plumbed 2 lines at 13m, one for pellet alone and one for pellet and maggot if it was real struggle. i plumbed 7m down the bank and found a nice plataeu with 2.5ft of water.

Bait for the day was 2 pints of red and white maggots (with loads of maize and red atomic cloud), 3mm/4mm softened fed pellets, 1 tin of corn and some 4mm and 6mm expanders.

On the whistle i fed a large CAD pots worth of micros on the left hand 13m line and the same of micros and maggots on the right hand 13m line. i then filled the maggot feeder and chucked it 1m off the island into slightly deeper water than tight over.

A few quick chucks in the first 20 minutes got a few signss but no wraps so a quick look o nthe pole was needed. second drop and a bite was met with resistance and carp number 1 was on and in the net in no time and at 4lb was a nice start. 15 minutes later with no more bites it was back on the feeder.

i was very hopeful of fish off the island and wanted to keep it topped up regularly so was happy to leav ethe pole line to improve. second chuck o nthe tip resulted in a positive pull and carp number 2 on its way over. this stint on the tip resulted in 3 fish with 1 proper fish of 8lb and 2 small fish for 1lb total!

I kept a pattern going over the middle stint of the match and didnt spent more than 30 minutes on any one line. i could get 1 maybe 2 fish off the tip line before it went quiet but didnt manage another fish or bite off either the 13m pole line or margins. i fouled one fish shallow at 13 m when i started flicking a few micros out but that was the only indication.

With 2 hours to go i decided a change was needed and got all my extnesions out and plumbed a new line at 16m in front of me and fed it with a handfull of micros and a few expander samples. i left this for 20 minutes to settle and had a biteless spell on the tip.

With my pellet rig on set 1" overdepth and a positive shotting pattern i shipped out to 16m and waited. i half filled a the smallest CAD pot and kept a sprinkling of bait going in. After 1 minute there were a few signs and then it dipped and fish on! i managed to put 4 fish in the net before it went iffy. i topped it up with some more pellets and tried the tip agian for 1 6oz carp.

Going into the last hour i had a run of 3 fish lost on the 16m pole line and came back with 2 big scales, but i kept my head together and kept plugging away and ended up with 12 proper carp and 5 bits with 75% of my fish coming from the 16m pole line. the sun was becoming a problem as it was straight in front of me, but it actually highlighted the dimple my dotted down float was making on the waters surface. when the dimple disappeared i lifted!

At the weigh in i put 48lb 12 on the scales and was happy with that although i knew it wouldnt get me far as 3 people on the other side of the pool and a guy 2 down had caught more than me so i knew i wasnt in for any envelopes. but i really enjoyed it as i like this time of year when effort and hard work are paid of with bites and fish.

Next time i will be starting at 16m and feed a couple of lines nad rotate them to keep fish coming all day as the bottom gently starts to slope up to the island there. i've also made some more floats to suit long long pole fishing a bit better and have made some slim pencils with a very long stem for stability and thick 2mm tip for visibility at range!

I hope they work as i'm going to laugherne again this Saturday to try them out!

Come back again and see how i get on!!!

Manor Farm/Blythe

2009-11-12T05:14:00.000-08:00

This is a bit of catchup so will keep this extract short and sweet.

Manor Farm 24-10-09

I managed to get myself on a club Match with Matchbox A.C. to be fished at manor Farm Fisheries in Harvington. this is a great place with plenty of water and fish although its seems to have had a harder year this year but i suppose its justone of those things.

The match was supposed to be on Ash pool, but with the numbers that turned up it was split onto Ash and Windmill. Now Windmill is my favourite at Manor (as i like winter fishing) as its got nice deep water and plenty of features to islands and margins.

I managed to draw windmill pool and cracking a peg in the form of peg 24. this is behind the second island away from the cafe

Bait for the day was micros and 4mm pellets, softened for feed with 4&6mm expanders for the hook and 1/2 pint of red maggots if it got hard.

I set up rigs for the front of the island 1 meter off, front of the island tight (using my own fat pencils with 2mm tips) round the side of the island tight (slim pencil with 1.5mm tip), a shallow rig and a margin rig(fat pencil with 2mm tip). the front island rigs and margin rig used double 8 latex, with the shallow and side island rigs connected to double 6 latex. I'm still completely sold on double latex for pretty much all my commercial work! even with big proper fish i'm completely in control and i believe this is down to using half lengths of elastic rather than a full top kits worth!!!

A quick note on the float front. iIve now made a good few different patterns with variations on a theme so i've scrapped my SP numbering system for now and will review it when i've stoppped playing about!!! i will re-do my blog with the new floats soon!!

On the whistle i CAD potted some micros to the front 'off the island' line and 'round the side' island line and kicked off to the front of the island. Now i've never been very confident fishing on a slope but i just couldnt find any flat spots anywhere near the island in a decent depth (between 3 and 4ft) of water so this was going to be a real test of my own confidence in what i was doing!

Anyway after 5 minutes with lots of lifting and dropping i latched into my first fish, a nice F1. over the next 20 minutes i fot 5 more with no real problems. i had to really work the bait to keep the bites coming (probably because of my lack of confidence on the slope and fishing the bait to far over depth!!!!!)

Then it started to go wrong. the first line was really slowing off and i didnt want to pillage it totally so i went round the corner (which i had topped up twice) to try there. i was getting plenty of bites, not missing them, but bumping at least half of the fish i was connecting with. i could bump one fish within seconds, the next half way back and the next near the net and all the places inbetween! I was pulling my hair (well stubble) out! i tried to alter my rig as much as possible from shirt button over the whole rig to a bulk 6" from the hook.

Looking around me no one was really catching anything, although i couldnt see that many people and i was still putting fish in the net so i struggled on. when a line slowed i would go to another and caught fish from all 3 lines around the island. I didnt have a bite from the margin or shallow, but to be fair didnt give them that much time as the island was producing.

the last hour setteld a bit for me as i stuck to the side island line which had been the best all day (as its open ot the rest of the pool) and fished a positive rig with a spread bulk 12" from the hook feeding after every second fish, and put 10-12 fish in the net with only a couple of lost fish! I also managed a few decent skimmers around the 12oz-1lb mark. they have really put weight on in the last 12 months!

At the weight i didnt really know what i'd got in the net as i'd lost a hell of a lot of fish but put a fair in the net too! 79lb was winning the pool when the scales got to me and i knew i didnt have that much. i put 68lb in the bag and got 2nd on the pool. with the fish i lost i should have doubled that weight!!!!!!!!

The payout was split over the pools so i picked up £30, which i was happy with. In hindsight i'd fed micros all day in 4ftof water and the fish were all over the water column so i should have either dumped it and fished it out or swapped over to 4mm to try and keep them on the bottom, but i didnt see it when the blinkers were on during the match.

Solihull Summer League - Blythe Pools - 01-11-09

Finally the last round of the summer league was upon us and a day at Blythe was on the cards. Historically i've done well at Blythe with either section wins or seconds so was pretty confident. the league standings were tight wit hthe top 4 having only 4 points between them with my team in 3rd!

Unfortunately this is going to be really brief as i had a shocking day.

The wind was gail force with driving rain and pretty much in my face. drew peg 10 on bridge with a lovely method chuck to the island so was pretty happy. i did set up a pole at 11m for the pellet and a margin line as it had been very mild coming into the match, but i didnt expect to use them. the method set up was Maver powerlite feeder system at 11ft, with 3012 TD-R, 6lb sensor, small garbo elasticated feeder, 0.20 hooklength to drennan carp feeder for either meat corn or dead red.

On the whistle i just about managed feed some corn and pellet on the pole and a maggot line then chucked the method tight and settle for a wait! an hour and a few chucks later not even liner was had. other chcking ot the island had had fish so iwas confident of getting wrap. another hour passed with 1 liner so i tried the maggot line to get a fish in the net and was immediately rewarded with a 2oz roach.

With a fish in the net i went back to the method as 3-4 fish had been caught off the island. still no wraps and after nearly being blown off my box a good few times, and various bits of other peoples luggage blowing across the pool i was thoroughly bored and annoyed going into the last 45 minutes.

So to make time pass and get warm i re-fed some maggots on the pole and gave it a try. the floats didnt stay still and small roach came steadily for the last 20 minutes.

I managed to weigh 1lb 2oz and beat 1 in my section. the rest of the team did pretty average and we lost out on third place by 2 points.

Again mr hindsight had a very important lesson to learn because if i wasnt so lazy and set up a close whip type line and fished for silvers i know i could have beaten another 2 anglers in my section and got those points the team needed. but with the occasional fish coming off the island i sat there waiting for the wrap that never came!! GUTTED!

Anyway roll on to next years league, more teams and i should be able to fish all the matches as the wedding is done and dusted!!

Tight lines!

Arrowvalley lake and Skilts!!

2009-10-19T02:56:00.001-07:00

This weekend saw the last match of my works club aggregate league on Sunday so i put my name down although this is actually the first match of the series i've fished!

But before that i fancied another go at Arrow Valley for a Friday afternoon session as i was at a loose end!

Arrow Valley - Ultimate Ultima!!!!

After last weeks lovely session on the tip for bream i fancied a few roach this time on the pole as there is some excellent roach action to be had!

I decided to fish a peg in front of the sailing club car park. Its a lovely sheltered bay 5-6ft deep tops and usually full of fish!

On my way over i got a pint of whites with some reds in and a bag of Roach Noire and Matchblend to be mixed 50/50. Bait sorted.

Tackle for the day was going to be the pole at 13m with a couple of kits with a soft set double original slip number 4 (mainly because its the lightest elastic i had at the time and couldnt be bothered to fit the cut back number 1's in my top kits for a one off pleasure session, in hind sight a good choise, read on!).

Rigs for the day were some home made floats i've been working on for silver fish/maggot work. they feature a 1.2mm solid plastic bristle with 0.8mm carbon stem. I've actually managed to drill out the bristle and glue the stem into it to made it strong and durable, which i fell is missing from commercially made silver fish floats.

2 rigs were set up, with 1 taking approx 0.2g and the second around 0.4g (i havent worked out the exact shotting capacity yet! something i need to do for all my floats)

The lighter rig had no. 11's strung out over the bottom half of the rig set 1" off bottom and the heavier had a spread bulk of number 10's with 3 no. 11 droppers set 2" on the bottom. Both rigs featured 0.14 mainline to 0.10 hooklengths.

Now i've recently had a sort out of the box and got rid of a load of old line which i felt had come to the end of its life and my line drawer was looking pretty sparse. So i decided to make use of some recent fishing mag freebies and used some 0.14 Ultima Power Silk as mainline and bought some 0.10 Power Silk for hooklengths.

I have got to admit i was extremely impressed with it!

So much so when first cast after putting 3 balls of GB with some maggot i hooked into a very angry 8lb carp on the lighter strung out rig.

The doubled 4 did a great a job and the fish quite nicely plodded around on the strike and let me ship back to my top kit, when it quickly woke up when it came into the shallow water! I had to give it some more pole but the hooklength held brilliantly and i landed it on a top 4 after about 10 mins and increasing pressure as the fight went on!! I'm sure other lines i've used at 0.10 would have broken way before the Power Silk didnt! The Hooklength looked perfect after that battering so i didnt need to change it.

All my winter hooklengths with B611 and G point Pellets from 0.10 to 0.14 will now be done with Power Silk. I would like to use itto make all my winter rigs (i have a set of summer rigs on 0.18/0.20 mainline, and a set of winter rigs on 0.14 mianline) but its a bit pricey at around £5 for a 50m spool.

Anyway the day wasnt the easiest with the roach being very finicky and i had to either swap rigs or play about with the shotting to keep bites coming.

I ended up with 1 carp, 4 bream to 5lb, 9 roach to 12oz and a couple of stripeys to 6oz in the 3.5 hours i ended up fishing.

Skilts Pool - Hymatic AC Fur and Feather.

The last match of the year was planned to be on Skilts pool, a really nice pool in Redditch, but with a killer of a walk. Not a long walk, just a hard one up a newly rotivated corn field! The pool used to be run by the needle industries and i fished when i was younger with my mom, but it had been recently taken over by Matchbox AC and they've done a great job getting all the pegs up to spec!

There are some right lumps in there and some cracking silvers so i planned on a 'catch most things that swin' line on the pole and a method line towards the middle of the pool. Also a throw away margin line that i knew deep down i wasnt going to get a bite on but had to be ready for if something turned up!

Bait for the day was a couple of pints of soaked micros' and 3mm's for a pellet method and pole, some pumped expanders and couple of pints of maggots and a pint of hemp.

Rigs for the day, from the top: -

1 - Maver paste float, 0.20 straight through to a 12 B911 - for the paste!

2 - Home made Pencil (2mm tip, 1.2mm stem) 0.5g with a spread bulk to 0.16 hooklength with a 16 B911 - for the pellet.

3 - Homemade maggot float, 0.2g, 0.14 to 0.10 hooklength with a 18 B611 - for silvers.

4 - Homemade margin, 0.20 straight through to a 14 B911 - for lumps.

5 - I also set up an SP1 in 0.5g with an 0.14 hooklength and 16 B611 for a compromise roach rig after the whistle. Hopefully i'd get a carp out on it if i hooked one, but the roach would still take a maggot presented on it! - for anything!

then 2 rods: -

1 - Maver Powerlite Feeder System @ 11ft, TD-R with 6lb sensor to a small garbo elasticated method feeder and 16 Mustad meat hook 0n 3" of 0.18 for dead red maggot hook bait.

2 - Maver Powerlite Feeder System @ 11ft, Daiwa Capricorn 0.22 Genesis to a small Guru pellet feeder and 14 QM1 on 6" of 0.18 for hair rigged corn.

The pole line was plumbed up at 13m in 9ft of water with the rigs set pretty much at dead depth. the margin at 9m to my right (i'm left handed) in 2ft of water and the rods clipped up at about 30 metres. A second line at 9m to my right in 5 ft of water dropping down the near side shelf was plumded for out and out silvers and would be fed with maggots only.

On the whistle i fed a quarter of a small pot of micros, maggots and hemp on the pole, half a pot of maggots in the margin and then chucked the pellet method and settled for a wait! i was going to give the method at least an hour while the pole line settled.

After 10 minutes of motionless tip it randomly pulled, plucked then went slack so i clamly pulled into the feeder and was pleased as the rod arched nicely and a fish was on! i managed to get a good few turns on the reel before the fish went on a run and started taking line.

It didnt want to stop and i got very worried about hitting the clip so i put some more pressure on. Luckily it did stop and i put a couple of quick turns on to settle my nerves! I dont know how close to the clip i got, but i bet it was wasnt far off!!!

I really took my time with this fish and 15 mins later finally put the net under, for the second time, a nice big common. Good start, who needs a silvers line now!!!

I re-cast and another 10 minutes later the tip went again, a proper pull round this time and carp number 2 was on, but a few seconds later the hook pulled! i was proper gutted because in the back of my head i knew today was going to be grueller and every fish will count, but at the same time 2 wraps in 2 chucks was good going!

Not - i didnt have another touch for the next hour!

So i got my pellet rig out and gave the pole line a try. 20 minutes later i hadnt had a touch so i tried my compromise rig and had 3 beautifully conditioned roach in 15 minutes! The pole line then really slowed so i topped up with some micros and maggots and went back onto the method. i didnt want to ruin my pole line.

A pattern emerged where i would try the method for 30 minutes (with no signs usually) then i could catch a couple of roach after a rest. This suited me quite nicely because at the half way stage there was only me and 2 others with a single carp each, but i was the only one also putting roach in the net.

I did have 1 more wrap on the method and i got a stocky 3lb carp to the net only for the hook to pull just before it got in the net! the air was blue! i then foul hooked a carp on my compromise rig as i was shipping back but it came off after 30 seconds!

Going into the last 1/2 hour i was getting a bit nervous as i knew 1 more carp from those with 1 already in the net could do me over, so i sat on the method hoping for a wrap and my eyes on stalks keeping an eye on everyone! Then disaster happened, my fishing partner leant into a fish and 10 minutes later (after some abuse from me) put the net under another carp!

i really thought i'd been done (but me and my mate were splitting any money so it wasnt to bad if he beat me) . i was nicely suprised when my carp went 10-8 and even more pleased when my roach went 3-10 for a 14-2 total!! my mate was admitting to a 7lb and 5lb carp but i know his estimations are pants! but today he wasnt far off and weithed 12-12!

I'd won, and felt really happy with my performance (apart form the lost fish) as my hard work with the silvers had definately earned me the win!

no major plans set for the next couple of weeks so it'll be Cob House for me paractising for the teams of 3 winter league!

Arrow Valley Lake - 9-10-09

2009-10-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well with another weekend of no fishing, i had to get my fix somehow so i planned a pleasure session on my local Arrow Valley lake in Redditch.

A bit of history, Arrow Valley is where my grandad took me fishing for the very first time and got me the bug, and i've visited it ever since. its where i made the transition from pleasure fishing to match fishing as its where the Redditch Kingfishers practised as a group every week.

Its a council run venue and is very rarely match fished. its a big piece of water at 30 acres but has a couple of islands at one with depths from 5 to 10ft in places and is stuffed with fish, with roach to 2lb, bream to 8lb and carp to 20lb. it really is a place where you could practise pretty much any method you like, from punch on the pole to meat on the method. and its fished its nuts off this year so far!

So a friday afternoon session it was to be. With a weekend in London planned, i didnt want to spent much money, so i emptied all my bits of groundbait from the cupboard into a bowl (about 2kg, perfect) soaked a couple of pints of Cob House micros and bought a pint of red maggots, total bait cost, £2.40! also any clubs affiliated to the Redditch federation of anglers can fish Arrowvalley for free and my works club is affiliated so a free ticket, brilliant!

11am rolled round and itchy feet saw me taking a little flyer from work and i was parked up and trolley loaded by 20 past!! i was purley going to target carp and more specifically bream so i packed a couple of tip rods and my landing net handle in my ready rod bag and took my pole bits out of my net bag and was off. i'd parked by the sailing club and had a stroll along the long straight Shakespeare bank (which has been recently re-pegged with some excellent staging) and settled on a flyer at the end of the island. a decent 70 yard chuck got to a small bay on the end of the island with deeper water 5-10 meters off the island. i fancied the deeper water as the temperatures had dropped recently.

Tackle for the day was simple: -

Rod 1 - Middy X-Flex medium feeder, Daiwa Capricorn 3500XTC, 0.22 maver genesis mainline with a 25g Kobra method feeder clipped on the end.

Rod 2 - maver powerlite feeder system @12ft, Daiwa Excellet Plus, 6lb Sensor with a rocket feeder paternoster to 0.16 hooklength.

Both rods were clipped up in the deeper water off the island. The Powerlite Feeder System rods never fail to amaze me as i was chucking the rocket the 70 yards accurately every time but the playing action is superb and i never pulled out of a fish all day with it! It was prob near the maximum range the 12ft rod would give me, but the 13ft section would put another 20 yards on the chuck! the Middy rod is fairly new in my bag, and has more backbone on the cast and the 70 yards was easy for it, even with the softest tip in. it has great big rings which help the cast and big spool diameter on the reel made the session really easy!

By 12.30 i was ready to go, groundbait was good, rods clipped and i was comfortable. I swapped the method for a big rocket and put 10 chucks of gb over my line with just a few reds in to kick start the session. i was intending to chuck the method very regularly and by the time i'd got the spare method feeder loaded and ready i'd reel in and re-chuck. with triple dead red on the hook, 4th cast and a nice pull round saw bream number 1 in the sack and at 3lb was a nice start even though i know they go a lot bigger as they've packed weight on over the last couple of seasons! a few more chucks with only a few signs gave me the feeling they wern't massively confident and the drop in temperature had calmed them down so i swapped over to the feeder set up.

I used a new set-up for me this time after reading Darren cox's recent article on long range feeder fishing. i started by tying a long 12" twisted loop and attaching a snap link to the end. then, slight variation to Darrens setup, tied a second 1/2" loop above the main loop. i then tied a 5" twisted loop in the end of my 3ft hooklength and then looped the hooklength inside the smaller loop in the mainline! (i hope that made sense). this set up gave me a nice paternoster with the twisted loop in the hooklength keeping the hooklength away from the mainline and tangle free! (i would like to incorporate a swivel somehow to remove any possiblility of line twist, but top and tailing my double maggot hookbait didnt actually cause any problems)

First cast o nthe feeder and bream number 2 was in the net and i was becoming a very happy man. by introducing just a few reds in my mix i was keeping things interesting and by 2 o'clock had 5 bream in the net along with a sole perch.

I was having trouble with Grebe's diving in my peg which would disturb the feeding shoal for 20 minutes or more, but a few well placed casts when they were on the surface got rid if them pretty quickly (no grebes were harmed during the writing of this blog)

My mate John watson turned up for a look and with him on my box for half an hour the peg was screwed and he didnt have a bite (cheers mate) but he did kindly take a photo of my net when he left with 8 bream for 30lb in it.

By now it was 3pm and with an hour left on the clock i got my head down on the feeder and started chcucking every 3-4 minutes to get some more feed in after the last Grebe attack and get the bream back. it worked nicely and 5 more bream in the last hour brought the session to a nice end. i reckon i had around 45lb in total with a couple of the bream easily 5lb and they're all in perfect condition with no damage at all.

While my Friday afternoons are free i'll be putting a few more free sessions in and its always good to keep practising a method you dont use very often like the feeder and even just casting practise!!

Cob House Fisheries 26-27 September

2009-09-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

Well what a weekend, i dont think i could have made any more right decisions!!! my left bicep is positivley aching from all the hauling that i.........................................

NO NO NO, i cant do it! had a mare, fished like a complete muppet. but i'll cary on in my usual manner and tell you all about it!

Right Saturday, Cob House open on Laugherne Island Pool. coming into this match i was seriously full of confidence, and wanting to get my venue record back after Chris Cameron smashed it on Wyatts pool with 253lb. Gutted!! (mistake number 1, over confident, couldnt see the wood for the tress!!!)

Drew Peg 9, next door to last week so was reasonably happy, although there are better areas at the ends of the pools.

Learning from last weeks performance i decided that the pole was my primary tactic with the method to the island backing this up. So i set up the following gear: -

- 3 rigs for down the shelf

- 1 - 0.3 SP1 (pencil float), 0.18 mainline, 0.16 hooklength to a 16 B911. Spread bulk with 2 droppers.

- 2 - 0.5 SP2 (fatter pencil float) 0.18 mainiline, 0.8 hooklength to a 14 B911, Spread bulk with 2 droppers.

- 3 - Homemade paste float, self cocking, 0.18 direct to a 12 B911.

Rigs 1 and 2 were plumbed up at 14.5m slightly to the right as i'm left handed and i didnt want to retrieve my method over the same line and at 8m just at the bottom of the near shelf where it was the same depth as 14.5m. Rig 1 was plumbed at dead depth and would be my main rig. Rig 2 was plumbed at 2" over depth. The SP2's are made the exact same size as the SP1's but using a fatter dowel. This means i can use the same size float but get more shot down the line and hold it steadier if the conditions deteriorate or i start bagging and want to get the bait down them quickly.

Rig 3 was to be used at 8m only as i didnt want to have to fish the paste to far out and plumbed to dead depth.

I then set up a further 2 rigs -

- 4 - SP3 small for the margin, 0.20 mainline, 0.18 hooklength to a 14 B911

- 5 - SP5 for shallow, 0.18 mainline, 0.18 hooklength to a 16 B911

Rig 4 was plumbed to a small bush to my left in the margin about 7m away so i found another line to the same place but to my right to give me another line to go at.

Rig 5 was set at 12" for shallow over the 13m line. incidently for some reason you cant catch shallow on laugherne even though there are loads of signs up in the water!!

Finally, a maver powerlite feeder system @ 11ft, 6lb mainline, small preston inline method feeder, 0.20 hooklength to a 14 carp feeder barbless, clipped up 2ft off the island under a small bush.

Bait for the day was 2 pints of micros, soaked for the method and 6 pints of 4mm's dampened down slightly for the pole lines. on the whistle i fed half a large preston cup of 4mm at 13m and a full pot at 8m then chucked the method for 10 minutes to let it settle.

Then it all started to go wrong when my brain stopped working and i stopped thinking about what i was doing!

For those first 10 minutes and 4 chucks on the method i was catapulting some pellet over the pole line to really generate some interest. i had liners on the method but no real takes to promptly binned it and got on the pole.

The long line was bubbling nicely and had a fish after 2 minutes. I then went MAD with the catty as i had the venue record in my head and wanted to get bagging which promptly brought way to many fish in the peg and i was suffering from liners and plenty of foulhooked lost fish. My accuracy with the catty was pretty poor too and feed was spreading way to much!

Also my elastic wasnt right, as i had the newer preston slip (couldn't get hold of any original slip in time) number 8 doubled in my kits and just doesnt work. Its really sticky no matter how much you lubricate it and i'm sure i was pulling out of fish because of it! The original black 8 is sooooo much better!

The first hour passed and i'd only put 5-6 fish in the net and my main 14.5m line was like a jacuzzi and going no where!

So i had half and hour on the method and was nicely suprised to see it pull round virtually straight away and had 4 fish in half an hour to make me a bit happier. I cant sit still while on the tip so i made myself only catapult 3 pellets at a time over the pole line, MAXIMUM!! but after half an hour i actually had fish swirling on it so i put my shallow rig on and hooked a fish straight away! Brilliant, my first laugherne shallow fish! 10 minutes alter i had a second shallow fish but it was very slow.

Mr Brain then went potty again and i over did it with the catty and lost the shallow fish and created the jacuzzi again! IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The middle of the match was spent losing fish to the tune of at least 15, both to foulhookers and a rubbish elastic set up (must remember to hoard any original slip i can get). There were definately plenty of fish at 14.5m but the feeding wasn't right and they were all over the place. and i really didnt need to go to 14.5m. 11m would have been plenty and a lot easier to be more accurate with the catty.

All the time i was feeding my margin with small handfulls of pellet and eventually with 90 minutes to go I finally got some signs in the form of tail petterns! The margin rig was sent out and the fish disappeared from the left hand line. So i tried the right hand line and they disappeared from there but the left line came to life again! So started more fun and games. Neil Macinnon after the match said the margin fish were unbelievably finicky! In the end i lost 1 foulhooked fish in the margin and that was it!

So totally disheartened i spent the last 45 minutes on the method for another run of 5-6 fish.

At the wegh in I only managed 59lb for easily my worst weight at Cobb House by a country mile. My mate John Watson of Total Coarse Fishing fame, fished an absolute blinder to win with 187lb and found some proper lumps down the margin. Neil Macinnon was second with 147lb and 2 more tons got 3rd and 4th. overall the venue fished really well as usual.

In hindsight my brain switched off and i didnt put any thought into what i was doing and i was still in summer mode, banging the feed in trying to force the peg into a winning position. Next time i'll get my winter head on and try to build the peg a lot more carefully. I think the catapult will go away and the cad pots come out to play! Or at least limit the catapult to 2-3 pellets at a time.

Sunday

Sunday morning was started with a nice suprise as the Mrs felt like she wanted to do a load of stuff for work and i could please my self, so after the Sunday big shop at Tesco's (after a wicked Tesco breakfast). I got my gear together and headed to Cob House again for a relaxed no pressure pleasure session.

I decided to fish the waggler on Oak pool as it was empty and didnt really want to fish the long pole. I did set the pole up to fish a lovely margin line at 9 metres but that was it. armed with 2 pints of 6mm and 2 pints of 4mm i had a lovely few hours chucking a little 2.5AA wag to 25 metres in 4ft of water sprinkling 6mm pellets around it and catching a few carp to 4lb. it wasnt hectic by any means but thoroughly enjoyable. I then finished the afternoon off with an hour in the margin catching carp to 6lb.

I came home nicely relaxed and happy again following saturdays nightmare!!!!

No fishing next weekend as i'm off to the races on Saturday with the father-in-law and taking the grandparents to see my moms canal barge on Sunday down in Reading!

My Floats

2009-09-21T06:27:00.001-07:00

Well this weekend was the fishingless for me - my car died on Tuesday, and is going to cost a fortune and i wasnt feeling in the best of fishing moods!!

I did manage a quick walk around cob house to watch on old friend catch a fish a chuck on Wyatts and win his club match with 114lb. BUT - i also found out while i was there my venue record had been smashed the previous day with 250lb odd, so was a bit gutted, but its spurred me on to have a really good go this weekend!!!
Anyway as promised i thought i'd show you my own home made pole floats.

In the last couple of years i've been getting more and more disheartened with shop bought pole floats, having so many patterns in my box, and getting through them when they break so easily, so i thought i'd get some bits together and have a go at my own floats.

I started by just getting enough stuff to made about 10-20 floats just to see how hard it really is. i used one of our small Schaublin lathes at work to turn and drill out the dowel into a simple shape then experimented with finishes to get the float smooth and looking right and also hard enough to be durable and also get tip and stem lengths proportioned right to get the floats behaving properly.

I then used our CAD machines to 3D model the floats, enter the material properties - density bouyancy etc, to give me a dimensional drawing for the various shotting capacities i wanted - NOT REALLY, i just played about until i got something that 'looked' right!!!!!!!!!!!!

When i was happy i then bought some more materials and set about stocking my box with floats that i wanted to suit the various situations that i find myself in. So far i've got 3 patterns.

First of all we have the SP1 - This is a simple pencil type float.

I've used a 1.5mm hollow bristle with a 1mm carbon stem and a spring eye on the tip. The floats range from 0.1-0.5g although i havent worked out exactly what each float takes. The tips are delightful and you can easily adjust the amount of tip showing with no.11 stotts. I used one of these floats to set the (now old) venue record at Cob house with 207lb, using the second smallest on 3ft of water and the smallest in 1ft of water. i also managed 116lb using the second biggest float in 6ft of water.

This is now my nuber 1 pellet float in reasonable conditions for small and big fish. i will be using it come summer or winter and totally love it.

Then there is the SP3, a proper rugid margin float

This float uses a 2mm hollow bristle, with a 1.5mm glass stem. The smaller floats takes just a few no.11 stotts and the bigger takes 5-6 no.10 stotts. The thickness of the tip allows it to be dotted to a pimple and the few i've made for friends have been used very effectively in combination with a corn hookbait. I've been using them with pellet in the margin and been giving them a right old beasting with excellent results. The only issues i've had is the spring eye distorting, but the floats have all remained in tact when tput through reeds, pandox and all sorts of branches. I think the 3 sealing and sanding cycles and 3 coats of varnish help with that.

Finally (so far) we have the SP5. A simple dibber

This uses the same diameter dowel as the margin floats but i've turned the tip down to a reasonable diameter and put a rad on the bottom, them glued a 1.5mm glass stem in the base.

They pretty much self cock and could be used with 1 number 10 as a shallow float with plenty of bristle showing, or i've been using them in the margin with corn with 5 or 6 number 10's down the line in a bulk. i havent put any form of eye on these and use silison on the stem and body (stick floats style) to keep them in position. nothing to rip out then!!

All of the floats have the tip glued into the stem for supreme strength and as mentioned have been sanded and sealed 3 times with 3 coats of varnish over the top. So far i only mangled 1 or 2 spring eyes, with the floats themselves still in perfect condition.

I'm now planning to knock up some rounder, thicker bodies floats for when the weather deteriorates and a bristled float for shallow work.

I love making these floats and its brilliant if you manage to get a result using them. my friday afternoons and lunchtimes are now spent sat at a lathe making the bodies and doing all the smoothing and sanding, with all the glueing and varnishing done at home!!

I'll hopoefully never be without the right float for the job again!

Cob House Fisheries Open, 12-09-09

2009-09-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

Right, first of all a llittle introduction to Cob House.
I've only discovered the place a couple of months ago whilst searching for somewhere to fish local to my Worcester home. I first replied to a thread advertising a pairs match down there which turned into a normal open in the end. After that outing is was hooked on the place. i weighed 113lb, which was made up over 150 fish. a very very busy day and £30 quid in my sky rocket!

The venue is (or was) primarily a fish farm where all species of fish are bred, but mostly true carp including some beautiful crucians. By the way if you do ever visit, do not mention or ask about F1's as its a dirty word down there. Phil, the fishery manager, only deals in true breeds of carp and does a very good range of ornamental kio's in all sorts of colours.
The fishery is still in quite a raw state, with the match pools still quite bare. when they have developed like the victorian pools used for pleasure anglers, it will be a stunning place to be. There are 4 main match pools, Wyatts, Laugherne Island, Oaks and Laurel pools.
Wyatts pool is where ive managed to set the venue record with 207lb 14oz and is stuffed with small carp from 6oz to 1lb 8oz and a few bigger specimens mixed in. Laurels is much the same as Wyatts but has a decent stocking of silvers mixed in with the carp. Oak has bigger carp and Laugherne Island (my favourite) is stocked predominantly with carp in the 4-6lb bracket, with specimens to double figures. there is also a good number of skimmers in there too. In six visits my worst weight there is 113lb, so its pretty consistent!
Any way, back to Saturday. Unfortunately numbers have dwindled recently and only 5 were booked on for the match (this is something i dont understand as its a fantastic place, excellent weights and a brilliantly run fishery, but Phil is working hard trawling the net spreading the good word, although the match results speak for themselves).

With only 5 of us we had a little rover and could pick our pegs along the far bank of Laugherne Island pool. I draw number 4 but wasnt worried as we had 20 pegs to pick from!
I setteld on peg 8

As you can see i had a nice gap in the island to chuck a method to, and plenty of water to plumb a couple of pole lines in and 2 nice margin to my left and right. one thing i have noticed is that the pegs have deep spots directly in front of them to accomodate nets so thats always a prime area.
So tackling up i set the following gear up -
- maver powerlite feeder @ 11ft, 6lb mainline, small method, 0.20 hooklength to a size 14 QM1
- maver powerlite match 1 @ 11ft with a 6gr middy popper waggler, 0.18 hooklength to a 14 mustad meat hook with hair rigged quick stop.
On the pole: -

From top to bottom -
1. Preston tyson for shallow, 0.18 direct to a 16 B911
2. Home made margin small, 0.20 direct to a 14 B911
3. Home made pencil No.3, 0.18 to 0.16 to a 16 B911
4. Home made margin big, 0.18 to 0.18 to a 16 B911

I will be doing a little write up of my own floats very soon.

Rig 2 was plumbed in front of the next pallet to the right, and set so i could fish on, touching or off bottom on the nearside slope in 18 inches of water. i wanted signs of fish to be present before i started fishing this line, and 18 inches of water would make that happen.
Rig 3 was plumbed at 13 metres in front of me (well at about '1 o'clock' as i never like to reel in floats or feeders over my pole lines) in 5-6ft of water. this was set at dead depth with a spread bulk and a couple of droppers.
Rig 4 was plumbed at 4 section in front of me just at the bottom of the nearside slope. i didnt intend to feed this line from the off, only bringing it into play if i was struggling on my other lines.
Bait fo the day was 5 pints of 4mm feeders, 3 pints of 2mm feeders, 1 kilo of GB and a good couple of handfuls of 6mm expanders for the hook.
i was ready in good time and looking forward to the whistle. so 2 minutes before the off i got my method loaded up with an expander on the hair and GB moulded with a preston method mould. a quick note, as you have to use inline methods at cob house i bought some korum quick change beads to try, in the normal size. as i was getting my clip sorted (you have to chuck very tight to the island) i put the method in the bush on the island. i didnt mind as i could get my clip absolutely spot on. when pulling to free the feeder (i left the hooklength on) something broke and i lost the lot! on investigation the quick change bead had broken before my line had gone! this worried me big style so i didnt use one when i re-rigged up and used a swivel instead! i dont think i'll be using them again!
So on the whistle i put a small preston pot full of 4mm's (didnt use a big one as the night time temperatures have been around 4-5 degrees and didnt want to over do it) on my 13 metre line, a small pot full of 2mms over my margin line and cast the method out tight to the island.
I didnt take long to get indications and my first 5 chucks resulted in 5 fish hooked but only 2 in the net! this seriously knocked my confidence in the QM hooks, so much so i changed it for a drennan carp feeder barbless. with these lost fish bolting my method line really slowed, so i moved to the pole after 45 mins.
i'd been catapulting 20-30 pellets over this line very regularly and the line was showing lots of signs with plenty of bubbles. first drop the float settled lovely to about 10mm showing then dipped under after a few seconds and a 3lb carp was lifted into! i was really pleased! i managed another 10 fish over the next half hour from 2-8lb a piece. it then started to go really finicky with lots of missed bites. i'd unconsciously upped the feed and was catapulting pellets all the time which, i think, brought the skimmers in. the fish on Laugherne just dont seem to feed shallow for some reason!! so i put another full pot over the line and popped back on the method for another couple of fish and made sure i properly regulated the amount i was feeding. i didnt use a pole mounted pot today as i didnt want these relatively big fish fedding in a small area so i spread the feed a bit with the catapult.
i did lose a few fish over the day to broken hooklengths, which in my mind broke way to easily. my box did get a thorough drenching a few weeks ago after 5 hours of constant rain and i didnt dry my lines properly so i can only think they have have deterioriated and lost some strength. tackle shop trip for me!
the middle couple of hours were spent swapping between the pole and method putting some good fish in the net. i had been regularly topping my margin line up with 2mm feed and with 90 minutes to go a started getting signs in the shallow water.
This signalled the start of a very poor ending to the match. i manged to completely do my own head in chasing fish all along my margin. Starting on my plumbed margin swim i caught some proper fish to 8lb but realised if i stayed on it i'd ruin it so started dropping some pellets in a couple of metres down the bank. within minutes fish tunred up on this line and slightly further on then to my left where some bait had fallen in. I was surrounded!!!!!!!, but for some reason i decided to chase all the swirls with my rig and never let it settle properly to wait for a bite!! what a loser!!!!
i did catch a few in the last half hour after a few words with myself but the damage was done. I was playing a fish on the final whistle which is always nice!!
i managed to weigh in 116lb, which was more than i thought as i'd caught so sporadically, and that got me 3rd, but i was done for second with 125lb. 200lb 3oz won, which is way to close to my record for comfort!!
In hindsight i should have easily managed second and got a lot closer to the winner. i should have totally ignored the island and fished 2 pole lines out and rotated them to keep them going, but the island looks so inviting. the pole should be my primary line with the method backing it up if desperate. there is a killer hookbait for the method line as pellet takes to long, but i havent found it yet. and i need to sort my head out with my margin fishing as i easily wasted half of those last 90 minutes chasing swirls!!!!
Anyway it was a lovely day, lots of bites and action and barely a cloud in the sky!!!! theres a cob house winter league to look forward to, teams of 4 with a £1000 payout for the winners, so bring it on!

My new Blog

2009-09-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

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!!!!!