Well, another weekend has gone by with yet more rain and wind, and to add insult to injury Matt Godfrey gave me a right battering on Sunday, but more of that later. This weekend my Garbolino Ossett team fished the 2-day Sensas Challenge Final held over Barston Lakes and Packington Somers, which I thought were the perfect venues for this match.
Our team for the match was myself, Andy Geldart, Mark Wainwright, Ray Marklew, and Tony Hopkins who was to be replaced by Mick Lodge on the second day. My first day draw put me at Barston Lakes on peg 77 in a horrible looking corner, but it was the end peg on our bank so wasn’t to be sniffed at. I had my good friend Lee Kerry next to me and he had fished it all winter but wasn’t really sure what to expect as it had been the worst bit of the lake. I still half fancied it though so set up 3 pole rig (2 bloodworm rigs and a caster rig) and a big 8 gram fixed waggler to fish about 35-40 turns of the reel out.
To open my account I fed 10 balls of ground bait(2 bags Sensas Lake/1bag Silver Fish and Roach) with a few loose offerings in then cupped 500ml of joker in grey leam over the top to create a killing zone. I also fed about 20 sausages of ground bait on the waggler swim(ringers and brown crumb 50/50) laced with joker casters and chopped worms, I was simply hoping for one bite on this and fully expected the bite to be a skimmer.
Rigs
My rigs consisted of a 0.4gram Rive 4 float on 0.10 line to an 0.07 bottom and a 20 Green Gamma hook matched to a 3 elastic. I also set up a 0.6gr Jean François with an 0.08 bottom and a 18 green gamma twinned wth a 4 laggy, this was to hopefully catch skimmers. I also set up a 4×12 chianti with strung out 11’s and a 0.10 and 18 black gamma hook. The waggler was an 8 gram Garbolino loaded insert waggler, fished on 3lb line matched to a Super G float rod. Shotting was 4 spread number 8s and a small swivel as my final dropper, I fished this roughly 12 inches over depth.
I kicked off on the waggler but didn’t have any bites, Lee started on the pole and had no bites and I was getting worried, I switched to the pole and had 15 roach in as many casts(end peg advantage) and felt it was going well. After 2 hours of steady fishing I reckoned on 5lb then my bites stopped completely, Lee still only had a pound and was desperate for a bit of luck. Going into the last hour Lee had a bit of a run of roach probably taking him to 3lb and I felt it was time to have a look on the wag, I chucked it out fired two more balls in and watched it sail away!!! 3 nods on the rod when I struck signalled a skimmer and I was well chuffed, at about 1 1/2lb it was a bonus fish on the day. I felt my pole wasn’t worth anymore fish so tried for another skimmer on the wag. With ten mins to go Lee caught one on the wag and I had a bite 2 mins before time from a small roach but that was the end of the action.
When the scales came round we knew we where in trouble as lots of people had caught skimmers and tench, I was pleased to weigh 3 kilo 400 and Lee weighed 2kilo (its always nice to beat Lee!!!!) and ended up 6th in the 12 peg section, with 10 kilo winning the section. The rest of the lads did ok with Andy Geldart posting a fine section winning 8 kilos of skimmers.
After getting absolutely drenched with the afternoon rain, we were keen to get to the hotel in Coventry, I was rooming with Geldart, with Wanger and Ray stopping too. We managed to get some nice grub down our necks and settled on having a few beers in the bar, there were some St Patricks day souveniers on offer, so me and Andy decided to drink the bar dry of guiness to get every last one!!! We ended up in hats, glassess, some horn things head band things, inflatable hammers and allsorts it was brilliant!!!! We completely forgot about the match and the draw at 7 the next day!!!!
Day Two
6am Sunday morning, HEADACHE FROM HELL!!!!!!!!!! And I think Andy was still drunk!!!! A quick recce to McDonalds for their finest breakfast muffins sorted this out, but lo and behold it was still raining!! I drew peg 59 at packington with Matt Godfrey on end peg 60. This had been the best bit on Saturday so we were well chuffed, I decided to go all out for individual glory as we couldn’t do much good team wise-first bad decision!.
I was sure the only way I would beat Matt would be to catch skimmers so I fished chopped worms with fishmeal and definitely put too much in at the start- second bad decision. Matt fished a brilliant match building his peg up and never punishing a line, to be honest it was a joy to watch( I had plenty of time to watch him!) A bream after 30 mins was encouraging but it just never got going and I ended up with a measly 4 kilo 100 for 6th or 7th in section while Matt had a brilliant 8kilo.
I must say he got lucky at the end however. He struck into what he thought was a carp (which don’t count) so shipped back to try and break his hook length but try as he might he couldn’t break it and what surfaced??? A 4lb tench!!! If I had done that, my pole would have been in bits, my rig would have almost certainly been in the tree above me and as I would have tried to retrieve the float, the wire stem would have gone through my hand!!! Hats off to him though.
So the weekend was a good one with plenty of laughs had and some excellent fishing, the ultra consistent Dorking won it, with the French side coming second. I must admit I’m glad the roach fishing is over till june as I need some local fishing and I think Woodlands, Thirsk and the Oaks at Sessay will fit the bill perfectly with them both being 15 mins from my house. I also have the Dynamite Festival in april to look forward to so it looks as though I’ll be busy for a few months!
Notify me of followup comments via e-mail
Home
Contact
Forums
RSS Feed
Tom
