By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Following the battle with ice that I have had over the last two weeks, you can imagine my relief when I saw a bright but breezy outlook for the weekend! I had planned to venture down to Stoke with fellow fishing4fun blogger Matt Godfrey to fish a couple of opens at Browning Cudmore, and help Matt glean some info in the run up to Triana North’s Superleague semi final at the venue.

Fellow Woodseats angler Paul Gorman agreed to come along for the ride, and as the darkness lifted revealing a pleasant breeze on the water, we were all pleased we had made the effort to travel a little bit further a field.

There was a good turnout as well, with upwards of 80 anglers forming a queue at the draw. In fairness, we did well to get up from the breakfast table, following the fantastic breakfast they served up in the café!

The draw put me on New Pool 3, peg 66. Not knowing anything about the venue, I thought it wise to pick the brains of venue expert Andy May. His first response when I told him where I had drawn? “Thanks for coming, see you next week!”

Joking aside, Andy said I had drawn an average peg in a reasonable area, and advised me to cast around with a bomb to try and find a few fish, and also chuck a little feeder into the net holes on the far bank. He also advised a long pole line, but with the wind gusting vigorously, I settled instead on a maggot line at around 12 metres.

I chucked around with the bomb, but with an hour and a half gone and only two liners for my efforts, I must admit I was sweating. I tried chucking a small feeder into the net holes on the far bank, again to know avail, so with two hours gone I decided to have a look on the pole.

On The Pole!

First drop in with a maggot on, and my float buried, as a good sized skimmer of around 2lb came to the net. Next drop in, bought a smaller skimmer, and then a host of small roach. With no one else catching, I was happy with the way things were going, and decided to stick on the silvers to see what weight In could put together, after all it was more fun than watching a motionless tip which refused to budge!

I thought it sensible to keep having five minutes on the tip in between catching silvers, but with nothing forthcoming I felt happier keeping small fish going in the net.

Towards the end of the match I connected with a couple of small F1’ and a barbel of around 2lb, which helped boost me up to 18-12-0. This put me third on the lake, and with the two anglers either side of me not weighing in, I thought it was a reasonable result from the area I was in.

Two anglers down the bottom end of the lake caught 19lb and 26lb, the bigger weight taking the section spoils. Their nets were made up of bigger stamp mirror carp however and not a lot else, it seemed the carp were huddled in these two pegs!

Matt had drawn on pool five, and had a real grueller of a day, catching just shy of 7lb, which brought home to me just how peggy a venue Cudmore is in places. Paul also struggled, having just one fish from a peg Andy May described as a flier!

It took us just shy of two hours to get home, and on the way back we talked about the days events. We were struggling to decide whether it was better to fish a positive method for the carp or fish for the smaller fish, after all although I had had a nice days fishing I hadn’t won anything and had been beaten by carp weights. The section winning weights had been bigger than they were in previous weeks, which led me to think I had done better than I actually had.

Matt suggested fishing a silver fish line as I had done, and then a longer line with the corn to see if the carp would hang just off the feed, and hopefully snare a couple of better fish to boost the net in to contention of some money. That way all options were covered, if it was rock hard you would catch enough on the maggot to win the section, but if it became clear that the bigger fish were showing there was somewhere to try and catch them further out. I decided to make this my plan of attack for the following day, if I was again to draw on New Pools.

When I dropped Matt off his Dad, Kevin kindly invited me in for some tea, and prepared a massive bowl of curry and rice, along with naans, bhajis and all the trimmings, he even made some of that minty yoghurt dip that you get in proper Indian restaurants! It was absolutely gourgeous, I’ve told him I will have to send my mother round for some lessons!

The next morning was another early start, and we arrived at Cudmore just as the queue for the draw was forming. As it turned out, me and Matt swapped lakes, with me drawing on pool five just four pegs away from where Matt was the previous day, and him drawing on the opposite bank of pool three, in the corner of the lake I was on.

Double Banked!

The key difference on the day was that the lakes were pegged on both banks however, where as the previous day only one bank was pegged, so we all had a lot less room. My initial reaction was that this would make it a lot tougher, as there would be more anglers competing for the fish, were as Matt thought it might have the opposite effect, as the fish had no where to back off to, and in the end he turned out to be right, as the venue fished a lot better.

I fed two lines, both at 13 metres at an angle, to enable me to rest a line while catching on another. I set up a light rig the same as I had the day before, and a heavier rig for the corn, to try and tempt a few larger samples late on in the day, which I plumbed up a section past my silver fish line.

With a light breeze drifting over my head, and the sun breaking through the clouds, it had all the makings of being a lovely days fishing. I took the gamble of their being a few fish in the peg and fed both my silver fish lines at the start. I caught well for the first hour of the match, taking a good skimmer first drop, then a roach or small skimmer every put in, as the end of the second hour approached I took a bonus tench of around 12oz, and a small mirror to boost my weight to around 5lb.

Then conditions changed quite dramatically however, in the space of about 10 minutes, the wind turned, and was blowing into my face, and shortly after that the heavens opened and I was frantically scrambling to get into my waterproofs!

The cold wind seemed to have a negative effect on the fishing as well, with far fewer bites and a smaller stamp of fish showing. It seemed to be the same for everyone; as I looked around the lakes no one was catching a deal.

Luckily, the rain and wind only seemed to last for around an hour and a half, before the wind dropped right down, and the rain reduced down to a fine drizzle. I had around 7lb in the net by now, and my catch rate seemed to be improving.

I landed another small F1 that gave the five elastic a run for its money before pulling out of a much bigger fish. Next put in, I got broke by another carp, so decided it was time to switch to the heavier rig with corn and double maggot.

Big Fish Time!

With around an hour of the match left, I decided to stick to this until the end which, in hindsight, was a mistake. I pulled out of another carp for no apparent reason, and landed four skimmers and two roach on the heavier rig to finish the match with 10lb 6oz. If I had gone back to the lighter rig, realistically I could probably have took another 4lb of silvers, as they were definitely shying away from the heavier tackle.

Luckily for me on the day, my 10-6-0 was good enough for a section win and £20, as not a lot of fish had been caught at my end of the lake, which had fished hard compared to the rest of the complex.

Matt was very unlucky, despite finishing in the top ten of the sixty eight peg match with just over 30lb, he failed to even secure his section money, beaten by just a couple of ounces!

He fished a great match to catch that weight however, off an unfancied corner peg, and when you think that his catch included a 6lb barbel which he landed on 0.8 bottom and a 22 hook, it is clear he fished a blinder!

We are off down to Cudmore again next Saturday, so hopefully between us we will be able to improve on our performance, and come away with some proper money!