Not What The Doctor Ordered

Following on from my Supercup match 2 weeks ago, which was tough to say the least I was back on team duty today fishing for a team called Tilley’s lot,.It is a team of 3 league and all the matches are held on Rolf’s fishery in Oxfordshire. It is only a forty minute drive for me, but suprisingly a venue I have only fished 3 times before. The lake will hold 40 pegs, though you wouldn’t want more than 30 pegs on there, and its main in habitants the carp and are a good stamp with the average size being 8 to 10lb, now you can see why the world record was set here. It is also quite unique in that all fish you catch over 10lb, have to be weighed, verified by the angler next to you, and released with the weight obviously recorded.

Back to the match, this was my first match of the series as I had to miss the last match due to work commitments, but this week I was in the best section alledgedly. At the draw I drew peg 19, it wasn’t really the draw I was looking for as it’s tucked away in the corner. I also  had an angler to my right in peg 18, so my options were limited in how far I could fish the straight lead and waggler. I decided to set up 5 lines, one was to fish hair rigged punched bread on the straight lead at about 18 metres, which was the maximum I could cast without casting over the angler next to me, the pole at 16 metres, pole at 13 metres against the bushes hanging in the water to my right, pole at 10 metres against the boat moored in the water and the pole at 7 metres straight in front of me. Rig wise I set my bomb rod with an 0.17 hook length through to a size 14 Drennan Carp Feeder with a Korum Quick Stop so I can hair rig the bread or corn. I also had some different length hook lengths, so that I could vary the depth at which I could fish the bread. On the pole the depth was pretty consistent, so I set some power kits with purple hydro in, 0.17 mainline, 0.4 MW tapered diamond through to a Tubertini 175 size 16 as I planned to fish mainly punched bread or corn. For the swim against the moored boat, as the depth was alot shallower I went with a MW 0.3G Slim Power again with 0.17 mainline but a size 14 hook in the same pattern but this time with red hydro as the peg had the potential to be snag pit if I was fortunate to hook a fish here. Baitwise I had pretty much everything with me, liquidised bread, corn, soft pellet, expanders, red maggot and just incase it turned into a scratching match some worm and caster.

On the all in on each line, I put a small kinder pot of micros in with 2 grains of corn and some red maggots then it was out on the straight lead with hair rigged punched bread. My plan was to stay on this line for an hour and see how things pan out. Straight away I was getting liners and the fishery owner Jon Bennet on peg 26 was into a fish straight away. The guy on peg 16 was also into fish straight away, so at least there were some fish which were prepared to feed. Eventually after 3/4 hour the tip went round and the forst fish was in the net of about 6lb. The guy on peg 16 was still catching, infact he was like a jack in the box getting up and down weighing his fish. Catching this fish seamed to spook them and I couldn’t get another indication despite casting round my peg looking for indications.  Deciding I was going nowhere I started on the pole to my left against the bush and first put in and number 2 was on it’s way to the net. Back on this line, I couldn’t get another bite, so I decided to try the line against the boat in the water. First put in and it buried, only it to come off almost immediately. Back on this line I couldn’t get another touch and even trying the line at 7 metres proved fruitless. Looking round the section, there was only three of us who had caught, so I decided I was going to refeed each line and fish the bomb for the next hour. Back on the bomb I lost another fish so it was back on the pole and this again proved fruitless, so I set up a new rig to fish for silvers but yet again this proved fruitless despite starting up another line with chopped worm and caster. With the last hour approaching I decided I was going to stick on the bomb  as I felt this was my best hope as most fish seamed to be getting caught in the middle of the lake and yet again I lost another fish. That was pretty much that and at the weigh in I finished with 12lb to finish half way down my section. Looking back at it I don’t think I would of fished it any different, still there is the next one to look forward to in two weeks time when I am supposedly in the hardest section. The match was won with nearly 180lb with 66lb second.