By Matt | No Comments
Last updated: Sunday, February 24, 2008

The Angling Times Winter League semi finals are at Browning Cudmore for our Triana North team this year, so to get some practice I decided to fish an open there. I didn’t know much about the place, but I had fished a junior match there about four years ago. After ringing round and talking to a few people it was obvious that it had been a bit peggy and was fishing fairly hard.

I ended up drawing on one of the new pools, number 3. There had been a hard frost and the water in the edge was frozen. I was in the middle of the lake and got told that it was going to be fairly tough. I decided on two main approaches for carp and a bloodworm line short just in case it was fishing hard. I set a line up at 16m in front of me on the pole where I had around 5 feet of water. Here I fed a small amount of ground pellets and the odd piece of corn.

The rig for this line consisted of a 0.3gram Tomas Walter carp series float, made up on 0.11 powerline to a 0.10 hooklength and a size 20 B911 hook. Elastic was a soft number 9 Preston hollo. The next plan of attack was a bomb setup. This consisted of a simple running bomb with 4lb mainline and a 0.11 hooklength to an 18 B911 eyed hook with a hair rig. I planned on casting this around my peg beyond the pole line to try and find a few fish. The backup was a bloodworm rig at 13m, where I fed a pot of neat joker at the start. The rig for this was a 0.3g Jean Francois float to 0.10 mainline and a 0.07 hooklength to a 22 gamma green hook.

All In!

I started the match by feeding my two pole lines before baiting my hair with a piece of corn and casting three quarters of way across. I stayed on this for the first hour and had plenty of liners but never had a proper pull round. I tried casting shorter and even right across into the net holes on the far bank but still never connected with a fish. With an hour gone nobody around was catching so I decided to try my long pole line.

I baited up with a 4mm expander and dripped a few micros over the top of my float. There were definitely fish in the area because there had been the odd one topping and I had plenty of liners on the tip, but would they feed after the freezing temperatures overnight? About ten minutes later the float dipped slightly and I connected with the first fish of the day. After a short tussle an F1 carp of around 1lb½ was in the net. Just as I shipped back out the guy to my right hooked his first and then seconds later Brian Hawkes to my left caught as well! It was really strange. I shipped out with another 4mm pellet and trickled a few micros and a piece of corn over the top like before, but after another 15 bite less minutes it was looking grim.

I tried various hook baits, came off the deck and went a bit past the feed, all with no success, so I decided to try the bloodworm. I caught around 20 fish in the next 40 minutes on this, mostly roach around the 2oz size, but the guy to my right caught another carp, and the guy on the far end peg had got four carp, so I didn’t think I was going anywhere. I spent a while searching the peg with a bomb, only to get a few liners, and even put on a small feeder with micro pellets in, and cast that into the net holes on the opposite bank, but still only had the few roach and a single carp going into the last hour. I spent another half an hour on the bloodworm, and probably put another pound in the net, but made a decision to sit it out on the 16m line for another bonus carp. With 15 minutes left I connected with a tiny dink on the float, to see a few yards of elastic appear. A mirror about 2lbs was in the net after leading me a right merry dance! This was the last fish, and I felt that I had done ok for my first proper visit. The guy on the far corner peg had four carp and some roach for 11lb, and then the guy to my right weighed 5lb.

I was surprised when my little net went round to 6lb 11oz, to finish second on the lake! That’s how hard it was. In hindsight I should have spent longer on the bloodworm to try to win the lake, but its easy to say that afterwards. Two anglers didn’t even weigh. Mick Barlow won the match with 75lb, and Andy May finished second with 28lb. It was a real struggle but I felt I came away with more knowledge about the place than I went with, which I suppose is something! Im going back next week for another go, so hopefully things will have improved, with the weather looking like it s warming up.