Greenridge Farm

Well I’ve misssed a few matches since I last updated my blog but rather than try to remember all the detail from them ,I thought I would do a more detailed blog on my latest match at Greenridge Farm.

Greenridge Farm is about an hour from me, it’s a series of 4 canal lakes which are all about 100 metres long, and between 14-16 metres wide. I have twice fished the place before, both of which were club matches and I managed to win the last one with 40 odd pound though that day the weather was dreadful. Pellet king was my chauffeur for the day, we left his at about 7.15 am and arrived at the fishery at about an hour later. Talk before this match was whether we could compete with the anglers fishing floating bread, yes floating baits are allowed, all the matches prior to this had been won with floating bread with some matches being won with 200 lb plus.

On arrival at the fishery, we were offered free tea, coffee and bacon and sausage sandwiches which we all devoured prior to the draw. Also in attendance was fellow blogger Gareth (welshmagic) and his information was we wouldn’t compete unless we fished the bread. After a bite to eat and something to drink, we made the draw and I drew peg 15, not that it meant nothing to me, Gareth drew 13 next to the venue expert and Andy drew peg 20, the other end peg on this canal and the bonus of the scales. The locals who had chosen not to fish bread were fishing maggot and caster, Andy and I stuck out like sore thumbs as all we had was pellet, paste and corn.

On arriving at my peg, I didn’t have a lot of cover on the far bank, though there were plumes of mud coming up, so it suggested there were some fish in front of me. It was a bit of a sprint to set up as the match was due to start at 10 and I didn’t get to my peg till about 35 minutes before the start, I personally prefer to have longer to set up but I didn’t really have a lot of option.

I decided to fish 5 lines, a paste line on my top 4 either side of me in the same depth of water, a pellet rig over the same line, and across I set up a rig to fish about 3ft of the far bank with hair rigged pellet, a rig to fish corn or expander if the hard pellet didn’t work, plus a rig tight across in about 6-9 inches of water. Elastic wise I opted for grey hydro with a pull bung, main lines were 0.15 through to 0.13 hooklength and for the inside I opted for doubled up size 8 elastic through to 0.15 hooklength. Baitwise I had some corn, 6mm pellet, 4mm pellet, dampened crushed pellet, paste and expanders as I wasn’t really sure what bait would work hence I took the lot with me.

Tactics wise I would feed both margin lines with some dampened crushed pellet and would start scross fishing short of the far bank again fishing over the same pellet mix with either 6mm pellet or GOT baits 6mm expender. Bites were iffy to start, infact I managed to foul hook a few but by gradually shallowing my rig and pushing it as tight to the far bank as possible, fishing 6mm pellet on a hair I started to put a few fish together. My pound was looking good with Gareth and Andy, as I couldn’t really see them getting many fish but the angler on the end peg to my left was slaying them fishing floating bread.

I point blank refused to fish floating bread unlike some people as after 3 hours I looked to my left to see Gareth after realising he couldn’t compete fishing conventional baits shipping out with half a loaf on the hook. Needless to say he quickly overtook me as he caught quicker and his fish were of a bigger stamp than mine on the pellet, plus my far bank line was starting to fade. There were only about an hour and a half left, so I decided to sack the long line and concentrate on my margin lines. First put in fishing paste was a 8lb but even though I caught a better stamp of fish close in on paste I couldn’t catch them fast enough to overtake Gareth and the angler to his left on the end peg.

I wasn’t sure what I had, the angler on the end peg weighed in 180lb all caught on bread and Gareth next to him weighed 120lb ish. Needless to say I lost my £1 side bet as I weighed in 86lb, Andy on the other end peg had 59lb, but at least I gained a pound here. After the weigh in we were all given a beer, apparently the winner from the week before has to buy a slab for the next match, so for £20 entry we had breakfast, fished a 6 hour match, caught a few fish and got a free beer into the bargain , though next time I visit, I will give them a run for there money and take some bread with me.