I had a load of casters left over from the Milo festival and was keen not to waste them. I drove to Gwinear on Sunday morning hoping for an open water peg where I could fish up in the water for carp. It was a reasonable turn out, when the draw started I ended up near to the back of the queue. I had a perfect view of all the flyers coming out! Clint drew first for Andy Dare as he was helping organise the match, he pulled him out peg 28! He then promptly drew 53 for himself. All of the other fancied pegs seemed to get drawn so I was really surprised when I had hold of peg 20, great just what I wanted!
The pegging is different to that of the festivals, peg 23 was in and so was peg 36 which is opposite me. I don’t know the guy who was on 23 but he plumbed up at 16 metres facing towards me and my inside line. Simon Gould drew peg 36 and he was plumbing at 13 metres straight out in front of him! Both were completely within their rights, and I do not have any issue with where they decided to fish, if I had drawn those swims I would have had a look there as well, as that is where a load of fish were topping. I just felt a little claustrophobic.
One to Forget!
I set up three up in the water rigs to fish between 5’ and 12 inches deep. The deeper rigs were set on .16 lines and consisted of .2 Cralusso Capri’s the sallower rig was a KC Carpa Shelf. Hooks were size 16 PR 28’s. I also set a rig up for the edge another .2 Capri on .18 line to a PR 28 size 14. Plus a half gram float to fish on the deck at 6 metres.
Before the start I was just checking that my floats were shotted correctly and I dropped the.5 gram rig in on the six metre line. The float went under and I instinctively l lifted into the bite, Carp on a bare hook, the peg was solid! I didn’t even have my landing net set up. I played the fish and managed to land it, the carp was about 2lb and hooked plumb in the middle of the top lip. As you can imagine there was a bit of banter flying around, especially from the comedy duo of ‘Gouldy and Dare’ opposite me on the island.
I was really looking forward to the start of the match. At the all in I fed a few pellets on the six metre line and some corn and casters down the edge well, about 2 metres from the bank to my left. I put three red maggots on my 3’ shallow rig and shipped out to 14 ½ metres fired a few casters around the float and waited for the float to dip and elastic to stream out of the pole. Well, after 1 ½ hours of this I was getting a little racked off with no bites! Everyone that I could see was struggling but most at least had a fish. All except Steve Bass who was on peg 18 and me!
The guy on peg 23 had about three or four from his long edge swim which prompted me to have a go there. First drop on corn and a bite missed, doh! Out again and the float goes under again this time yards of elastic comes out of the pole! I play the fish which is obviously foul hooked and eventually land a 12lb plus mirror. I don’t like foul hooking fish but it happens and I was back in the hunt, or so I thought!
I am going to cut this short as that was the only carp I caught in the whole match! I even contemplated loose feeding hooks at one stage, as I had caught one that didn’t count on a bare one earlier! I rotated all my lines but could not get anything on any of them. Around me Steve Bass ended up with 32lb, peg 23 packed up before the end and Gouldy had found a few down the edge of peg 36. I had tried an up in the water approach and failed miserably! The lake was definitely suffering from the pressure of the festivals.
Walking back to the car park I made the decision to give Gwinear a miss for a couple of weeks to let it settle down, time for a bit of travelling.
Walkabout Wednesday
I picked Harry up at 07.30am and he lifted Dudley into the van. Hi Duds, we are going fishing to Stafford Moor I say. I am sure I saw Duds cover his eyes with his paws, oh no he must have thought another long journey as these two go walkabout in Devon!
I am pleased to report that on our fifth trip to the fantastic Stafford Moor we finally find our way without any mishap or detours, great let’s hope we can remember that route for the future.
I liked the look of my peg, but then I like the look of loads of the pegs on Tanners. I have an island that is about 40 yards in front of me and a good looking edge swim to my right and left. The wind is quite strong left to right and facing slightly towards. It was a very sunny day and my initial thoughts on how to fish the peg were the pellet waggler shallow.
I set up two pellet wagglers, one shallow and the other shallower! I also set up a straight lead with PR36 size 14 and a hair rigged band. I also assembled a KC Carpa Margin float to tackle the edge. This was on 0.18 direct to a size 12 PR28. Bait wise it was to be a pellet day and I had a massive 16 pints of 8mm coarse pellets with me just in case! I looked at the peg and decided not to tackle the island. I was going to concentrate my feed ¾ over so that I could keep things tight. My thinking was if I was to catapult bait as far as the island it would spread over a wide area. Also, if needed later I could go to the island, if I started there I doubt I would be able to draw the carp away.
At the start I cast out the straight lead and fired some pellets over the top, after about 10 minutes I had a slight bite that I thought was a skimmer I lifted into the bite and was really surprised to feel the rod arc round. It was a mirror of about 5lb the next three casts produced two more carp and I lost one. I could see Chris Haines on peg 11 catching really well on the waggler so I decided to give it a try. As can happen when you go on the waggler you can spend too long on it if it’s not working, and I did! I fished it for about 30 minutes for nothing, I kept thinking that the float would go under next cast.
The more I use my SPRO 2.70 metre picker rod the more I am impressed with it. My next door neighbour commented on how quick I seemed to get my fish in compared to him. I put it down entirely to the rod.
Whilst I waited for the scales to arrive I sat on my box and ate fish and chips that had been delivered to my peg! What a fantastic way to finish a match. Before long the scales arrived and 190lb from peg 20 was leading followed by 154lb from peg 18 which confirmed there flyer status. I put on 132lb on the scales for my first Staffy ton and briefly held third place until the scales reached Chris on peg 11 he had 151lb. I finished 4th and won the section albeit by default.
Thinking about my performance after the match, I believe I made a mistake trying to make the waggler work. I should have known better, if you are catching on one method stick to it. I kept thinking I was falling way behind to the float but obviously was keeping in touch, if I had stuck to the lead I could possibly have finished second.
Two new venues to report on next time. On Saturday I am going back to Gwinear! But, a silver only match on the specimen pool and on Sunday we travel to Milemead fishery in Devon.
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Tom
