Saturday saw us at Colemans Cottage for the first round of the Drennan Super League. This is our first foray into this level of fishing and with 5 other quality teams I knew it would be another steep learning curve for the team. With that in mind I’d been down the last two weekends and after sussing the place out on my first trip with Calvin winning and then weighing 129lb for third overall on my second trip I had a plan which I felt would work on both lakes and in harder areas would still work.
If you want to look like a Mass Murderer this is the stuff. It also catches loads of fish.
Each team member had 4 or 5 pints of casters, a kilo of worms and three pints of meat and some corn. The feed would be chopped worm and caster in a ratio of about 70% caster and 30% worm. The worm was chopped to a mush so as not to feed the fish worms and the casters were for holding. Into that we also put large amounts of Predator Plus and a smattering or meat for the bigger fish. I’ve been using garlic on my meat for a few weeks now and my weights have rocketed. I’ve been using Nutrabaits garlic oil. It’s a pure essential oil and it’s smelly. You only need two drops on three cubed tins of meat for a pungent smell. I’m convinced it’s making a difference so if you draw near me and you’re downwind of me prepare for a smell of garlic. As well as that the Predator Plus look is not a pretty look. At the end of the match most people using it looked like mass murderers. It comes off in 24 hours but it isn’t pretty.
A dab of this behind the ears and you’ll have the whole train carriage to yourself.
This lot was all to be fed via a kinder cup into one area where we could find 12 to 18 inches of water. Up against the islands is really shallow so I’d mentioned about coming a fair way off the islands to find it and allow the fish to settle and feed confidently. The other main line would be at 4 metres with meat throwing 3 to 4 pieces regularly to line up fish for late on in the match. Down the edge was an option but to be fair one I had almost discarded, much too some team members consternation. With the team plan in place I wasn’t overly concerned where we drew as I was pretty confident it would work everywhere you just had to be aggressive and keep feeding even when you weren’t getting bites. Eventually they would come. After the drawer we had a quick chat about our pegs. I was on 28 on Pathfield which I felt was the wrong end of the lake but had a bit of room. John Swann was on peg 3 on Pathfield, the one I’d fished last Saturday so he was more than happy and our new recruit England Junior International and fellow blogger Jake Marshall was on Wood peg 14. The rest of the drawers looked decent and my parting words were to fish aggressively. I got to my peg and found they had missed the pegs either side of me. This was probably due to this end of the lake not fishing that well recently but I definitely had my confident head on and was more than happy with my peg. I had Russ Berryman to my right on the end peg 26 which I knew would be tough to beat and Freddy Brown from Medway tackle to my left. My peg was 14.5 metres wide to the island which had a gap in it. Right up to the island the water was around 8 inches so I plumbed up at around 13 metres to start here and chase the fish up to the island if necessary.
I set up a light rig consisting of 0.14 T Line to a 16 B611 on a KC Carpa Bully. This was my start rig for the initial silvers although I was confident I would get a few carp out on it. I also set up a KC Carpa shelf on 0.16 to a size 16 Gama Power for when the carp arrived. I set up an identical rig to fish further up the shelf. I also set up a 4 x 10 Trabucco CF8 on 0.16 to a 16 B911 for fishing at four metres. This had a strung bulk 20 inches from the hook to allow the meat to fall naturally to the bottom. My rigs for over also doubled as edge rigs. The lighter rigs were set up on Black J Range Lastix and the heavier ones on Preston 15H.
I then proceeded to chop up half a kilo of worms. To this I added two and a half pints of caster, a handful of meat and a bottle of Predator Plus. At the all in I threw some meat at 4 metres and went straight out with a worm head on my light rig and the large Preston Cad pot full of my mix. Over to 13 metres I dropped the mix in from 12 inches high and lowered the worm over it.
As there was only one set of scales for each lake I saw Jake put 113lb on the scales for a section win. I walked down to Swanny and he’d finished second in his section although he admitted he had enough on the hook to win his section easily. On the other bank of Pathfield I saw Mark Smith weigh 94lb 8oz to win his section with ease. And then our section weighed. Russ Berryman weighed first and put 94lb on the scales and I thought that I wouldn’t have that much. Wood Lake where Jake did the business.My first net of carp went 64lb and then my next net went 37lb so those two fish at the end had sealed it for a section win and my fourth ton weight in seven days. As they’d said further along the bank it had fished harder. It just shows you that no matter what peg you get and how it’s fished the week before they all have the ability to throw up weights. So with three section winners and a second we were looking pretty good and after a while Steve Collins came over to me and asked how many points we had. I hadn’t worked out what points we had but after a quick count reckoned we had 34 points. Steve reckoned that would win. Steve Barnett from Borden Angling then came out on the patio and read the results. The section winners and seconds got their money and then he read out the team results in reverse order. He got to second and I thought second is good. ‘Equal second on 31 points Borden Angling Centre and Image’. We’d only gone and won it. First place Trabucco South East with 34 points. What a result that was. Two of our blokes had never even seen Colemans Cottage before and one of them was Mark Smith who won his section. To say I was buzzing is an understatement.
I must also thank Paul Chatfield who organised our bait. It really was top notch caster and worm. Paul has only just started out in the bait world but already he’s getting a good reputation. If you want quality bait at good prices in the South East of England give him a call on 07900955491.
So the next round in two weeks is at Gold Valley which is a water we know reasonably well and hopefully we can put in another good performance. Anyway it’s been a great week for me personally and a superb week for the Trabucco South East squad. Wednesday I’m up to Thirsk to fish Woodlands in an Inter Forces match so am looking forward to a few beers in the Vale of York and a few carp. I’ll keep you updated as to my adventures and that of the Trabucco South East team here at Fishing4Fun.
Well done Mark and trubucco SE, you have assembled a good squad, just back from 10 days in the south of france, those french lorry drivers really know how to screw up a motorway system, 75 miles of chaos approaching Lyon, and their petrol and diesel is still cheaper than ours.
Cheers Tricky. Yep most of the squad are now believing they are good enough. Also I’m off to France touring next week so hope those lorries stay out of my way. What price were you paying a litre for petrol ?
Petrol was about 1 euro 35 off motorways in the supermarkets and about 1 euro 40ish on the motorways, we found that shell appeared to be cheapest on the motorways with total and avia the most expenses, although if you manage to find a carrefour or leclerc service station they are a little cheaper than shell, but there are few and far between.
Good my entry for the advanced pole subscriber classic back the other day, so guess where I will be going on the way back from heronbrook in september!!
Have a good holiday
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Tom
