Cup Fever

Today was our Supercup match and for the first time since I joined South Reading,we had been drawn at home to fish a side from the army. I had been looking forward to this match since the draw was made as to be quite honest I don’t do a lot of team fishing and it was something different for a change.

As we were the home side, it was our choice of venue, and our captain had chosen Cheriton Farm which is a small lake with about 12 pegs on and is a venue I have fished a fair bit with the target fish being small carp upto 3lb, skimmers, rudd and gudgeon. As usual with weekend fishing at the moment, the weather had turned for the worse, with temperatures not much above freezing and a wind chill factor of minus something. I wasn’t sure how it would fish to be honest, but I already had a plan that I thought it was going to be tough so I would target the silvers as I wasn’t sure the carp would be in an obliging mood.

At the draw, I drew peg 3, which meant I had the wind of my back which to be honest was quite a relief and the guy who I was going to fish against was in peg 4 to my left. My plan was to fish both margins tight in against the rushes either side of me, a line at 10 metres and a line at 14.5 metres. Rig wise for the margins it was a MW slim power 0.2 gram, 0.17 mainline, black hydro, through to a 6″ hooklength of 0.15 to a Tubertini 175 size 18. The line at 10 metres was where I thought I catch most silvers as we had a small knock up before christmas and I caught lots of skimmers on punch over liquidised bread. Rig for this was a Carpa speed 4 x 16, 0.13 mainline, white hydro with a pull bung, 0.11 hooklength through to a Kamassan B911 size 18. For the line at 14.5 metres, I opted for a KC Chimp, with the same set up as on my 10 metre line. Baitwise I had some liquidised bread, sliced bread, corn, micro pellet, red maggots and some expanders.

On the all in I put a tiny nugget of bread into each margin line, a 150ml cup of liquidised bread at 10 metes and a small nugget of micro pellets with a few maggots at 14.5 metres. I started on the 10 metre line and it was really slow, infact I never had a bite for the first half hour. Out onto the far line the float dipped and we were on our way with a small rudd in the net ,so I decided to carry on to try keep catching these as the guy I was fishing against still hadn’t caught. It was very slow, and spotting the bites was not easy with it blowing so hard, so I decided to come short and see if I could catch. It wasn’t much better but at least I could keep the pole still and a keep adding a few fish albeit very small but at least I was catching. The guy to my left was now fishing the margin and diaster struck for me as he caught a small carp. It was now decision time for me, do I carry on catching small fish in the hope I overtake him, or try catch a carp myself. I decided to try catch a carp myself, so went into the margins with a piece of corn. The float refused to go under, and I was now starting to wonder if I had made the right decision. I decided to start a new line further along the rushes, it was probably no more than 2ft from where I was fishing originally but I had to try something. I plumbed it up and it was about 6 inches deeper, and the first put in with a single grain of corn without putting any feed in, the float buried and carp number was on its way. This was pretty much the course for the next 30 minutes, as I managed to snare another 4 much to my relief. That was it for the rest of the match, as I remained biteless on all lines.

At the weigh in  I finished one out of the top 3 with 8lb but had managed to defeat the opposing angler who finished with 6oz Overall we won the sections 4 -2 and filled 2 of the 3 top places. It had fished ever so hard like a lot of waters in our area, though I was just glad we had made it into round 2. Roll on the next round.