Moving on then to todays topic, as I said before for any of you who know me will know I used to do a lot of match fishing, I used to do the odd write up afterwards outlining what tactics and bait I used and weather or not they worked well on the day. I also used to put in the odd things with tweaks I made during the session along with things I would do differently next time. I did this for two reasons, I was mainly using it for myself before so that I could look up a certain date and see what worked on the day ready for a upcoming match or practise session, I also had hoped that along the way I would have been able to pass on some knowledge to anyone reading who may have been starting out or struggling to put together a run of fish in their own five hour matches or practise sessions. This time around I'm going to be using these blog posts in the same way but emphasising more on trying to help new or struggling anglers. Right so moving on to how this trip came about, I have got to thank Mark Tiller once again for dragging me out on something I kept telling myself I did not want to do or would not enjoy, this of course was completely wrong just like the last time he did this and took me out Carp fishing. I had a great time on the bank this weekend and off the back of it have contacted the clubs match section and signed up! It felt really good to dust off the old Maver box and Pole ready for a session and to be honest I was filling with excitement the closer and closer we got to the venue. The reason for choosing the venue was simple we found out that there is a main six lakes out of the clubs venues that they run the matches on, this of course was one of them, the next step was then to find out if any of them allow keepnets as we wanted to see exactly how we faired instead of using a clicker and have a rough guess at it. One last point before moving on to the part you actually came to read and this one is directed at Mark mainly! I know you say you don't want to do it as your focused on Carp and Match fishing but seeing as you dragged me out on two trips I did not want to do and I loved it you are coming on a river match session with me and you will feel the same as I do the day after I promise!!
Okay so on to the session, Mark and I had planned this trip during the week and had both agreed to meet up Saturday and load his van ready for the morning to save a bit of time, we then set a time of 6.30am for him to pick me up as we had a forty five minute drive and the lake opened a hour from then. After the short drive we finally arrived at the lake with a bit of time to spare before we were allowed to start fishing so off we went on a quick walk around the lake to try spot some fish or a peg that took our fancy, we started off by walking round the right hand side of the lake and after passing six or seven swims we stopped to take a look and that was when we spotted a point on the other side with a swim facing of both sides of it, this to us was perfect as it gave us somewhere to sit close but with our own water to fish, we could keep an eye on what each other was doing to see what was working better also put us close enough for compulsory match fishing banter. It was settled then and after literally running back to Mark's van getting the gear out as fast as possible and making our way round to the swims there was only one thing left to do, that of course was to flip a coin to decide who takes what side. This was settled a bit quicker than normal when I asked Mark which peg he fancied and he said the opposite one to what I wanted so we just simply agreed to go in our own pegs we wanted more. Time to get set up, box levelled out, side tray on, keepnets in the water, rollers set, pole and top kits laid out, it was now time to sit, take a look and lay out a plan of action. First things first I got my self a method feeder rod set up, my plan was to start on the shot two plus two line feeding 4mm Bait-Tech carp and course pellets with a 4mm Bait-Tech xpand pellet on the hook to try pick up some early fish, I plumbed up the line and had just over three foot of water so I opted for a Dino Gino 0.4g float 0.15 Guru N-Gauge mainline to 0.13 N-Gauge and a Drennen 18 match hook. I then decided to plumb up a line at 11m to a small gap in the Lilly bed, this time knowing I was fishing for bigger fish (hopefully) I opted for a Dino Merus 0.8g to 0.19 N-Gauge and a 0.15 hook length same material and same hook pattern but size 16, my reasons for using the heavier float were simple there was a whole lot of fish against these Lilly's and I wanted more shot to get the bait down the bottom quicker. I then decided on setting up a margin this time a Dino Trux 0.3g float on 0.20 N-Gauge to a 0.15 hook length and a size 16 Drennen corn hook, this time I opted to go with a lighter float as I was going to be using a heavier bait on felt that this was going to be the line that brought me some serious fish, I felt that the less resistance I had on the bait the better as I didn't want to loose any of these fish to spooking them or something stupid like that. So that was my lines laid out it was now time to get some bait sorted out ready for the day. First thing I always do when getting my bait ready is to sort my groundbait out, one major aspect to determine what kind of groundbait I use I the colour of the water in front of me, today I had very coloured water and this helped me decided not only on colour of groundbait but the fact I wanted something smelly and oily to. I went for the Bait-Tech Envy not the brightest of baits but very smelly and attractive to carp, I decided not to go with a really bright bait as there was so many small fish around my peg I felt I would have a nightmare trying to feed them off and get rid of them if I fed groundbait they could see from miles away. next I got my self two separate two pint bait tubs one I filled with 4mm carp and course pellets and covered them with water the other I filled with the same bait but left the dry, I will explain more on the reasons why a little bit later. Next job was to drain a tin of Bait-Tech scopex corn into my pellet pump, this is something I have done for a number of years now, no matter what flavour of corn I open I always use the juices to pump through my expander pellets, just a small tip and edge for you guys. I them put my 4mm Bait-Tech xpand pellets into the pump and pumped them until they all sank to the bottom of the pump when the pressure was released. In they went to a one pint bait tub with enough of the liquid just to cover them, I then put the final contents of the corn into a bait tub followed by another tin, mainly so they had plenty of liquid in with them as well. I then went back to my groundbait as it had now had enough time to take on the water and could now add the finishing touches to make that perfect and ready to go.
Right plan laid out, bait ready everything put neatly and easily accessible on my side try it was time to call all in, or two guys in as it were. I started off by putting a pot of Envy pressed to the side to create a pocket to add some freebies of corn and a few of the soaked pellets, I then brushed the groundbait over the top so as not to spill anything other than the groundbait if I did and shipped it out to the Lilly line, I did exactly the same thing to my left on my margin line just to get an idea if there was resident fish or if it was going to be something that needed building up as the session went on, then I fed half a pot of soaked 4mm pellet at two plus two before loading my method feeder with Envy and a hair rigging a Bait-Tech shellfish orange boilie, I cast out at eight wraps, not far but felt using running line over pole tactics early on could get me a few extra fish as the sun was beaming down and I thought shipping the pole out and creating a massive shadow could spook any fish that was there. one thing I was doing was throwing in the 4mm pellets that I had left dry at two plus two in order to get an idea what was there at the time, the reason I didn't soak these ones was so they would sink a little bit slower and I could see if any bigger fish were taking them on the way down, I fed around a dozen before each cast, again once I had sunk the line and put the rod on the rest followed by ever minute or so after this. I could see there was a truck load of really small silvers there so decided to do this for a fair bit longer before dropping in on the line. I continued fishing the feeder re-casting ever couple of minutes if I was not getting bites and it dint take long at all for this to pay off, with in the first twenty minutes or so I had managed to net three or four 8-10oz Roach and two Carp around the lb mark but after this I was getting a 2lb Carp a chuck for around the same amount of time again before the line died off. I made about four or five more casts chopping and changing between hook baits and groundbait, pellet or a mix of both around the feeder however nothing could get me a bite so it was time to change. Over the time I was fishing the feeder and continuously feeding the pellets on my short pole line I had noticed a change in the amount of smaller fish in the area, I fed a pot of exactly the same on all three lines and went in at two plus two. This time I decided to hook on a 4mm xpand pellet which I had pumped in the scopex flavoured liquid from the corn tin and out I went, first couple of put ins I had two hand size Skimmers and three Roach around 4-6oz I then hooked a very small Goldfish followed by a 4oz Crucian Carp, this told me that the line was not quite ready for me and decided to try the line by the Lilly bed and continue to feed the short line. I fished this line for around half an hour landing about eight carp from 1-2lb I lost somewhere in the region of twelve better fish in the Lilly's which was obviously down to the fact my elastic was not up to the job of puling these fish out I was fishing a 12 Middy hollow which is already heavier than I normally like to fish but this was still not enough! I have never fished somewhere that the fish pull this hard 3-4lb fish pulled like they were 15lb. With that said and with me having overlooked the fact this might be the case I didn't have any stronger elastics with me, a lesson I have learned for next time, I decided to up my feeding on my short line as I very much now felt it would have to be the one to produce for the rest of the session, I quickly took the rig off my top kit for my long line and plumbed up another line literally a top kit out, I sometime like to fish this as there will always be fish at your feet either checking out what your nets are and or mopping up any spilled baits from filling your cup or from a wayward throw. Once I had done that and with it only being a practise and not a actual match Mark and I decided to stop for a bit of lunch and to talk about how things were working out for each other, one thing that I did do before stopping though was to put a full pot of soaked 4mm's on the two plus two line to try keep the fish there whilst we were stopped. One thing that was the same for both of us was that Mark was also struggling with his elastic not being man enough for these crazy fish. Something we both for sure will be taking with us next time is some super strong top kits!
After the break we got straight back to it and my swim was alive with Carp ranging from a lb to 10lb, the 10lb fish I was crossing my fingers to avoid as I feared for sure there was no chance of getting them in! This I can assure you is something I have never done in a match before praying for the bigger fish to leave my bait alone. For the next hour and a bit I had a 1lb Carp a chuck with the odd one around 3lb, if I managed to land it, I could hear over my shoulder though that Mark was not having the same fishing I was, he was being completely plagued by really small Roach and tiny Skimmers no matter what line he went in on or what bait he tried. We now had just over a hour to go and my line started to slow up again, I had still been feeding my margin line during the day, with two hours to go I like to really start feeding it heavy, I go straight in with four big pots of groundbait and freebies and then top this up wit a pot or two every fifteen minutes after that until the last hour. With the final hour closing in and my only other lines drying up and seemingly void of fish now I felt I had no choice but to go in on it early. I put in another full pot of soaked 4mm pellet on the short line and threw in some on the top kit line before hooking double corn and dropping in on my margin line. Instantly I had a fish of 2lb followed directly by four fish of a lb again, this told me that I was not looking at catching a few big fish at the end of my match more a possibility of a good weight of smaller Carp, this was not something I was worrying about though as I was still putting fish in the net! The way I have always looked at match fishing is that no matter what line your on or what bait if you bring a fish back every time you will not go far wrong in the end. After these few fish though I found myself having to rotate between my three lines and pick off the odd fish for the last half hour or so. After a up and down five hours with to be honest more ups than downs Mark gave the all out shout and it was over. Mark got his weigh sling out and zeroed it up, he came over to weigh my catch first, I pulled up my silvers net first and that came in at 4lb 8oz something I was a little bit surprised at as other than the odd okay Roach I didn't think I had caught that many. Then it was my Carp net and after a eventful five hours with the hardest fighting crazy fish I have ever attempted to catch it weighed in at 60lb on the dot which gave me a total of 64 and a half lb and could not have been happier with my first session on a new venue! Once again the Bait-Tech products served me very well indeed and is the reason I would not ever use anything else for this style of fishing. I wont go into any details of what Mark weighed in, lets just say he didn't quite have the session I did!
Once again guys thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed I will put up a short post tomorrow outlining plans for trips in the near future to give you a idea on what content will be up on here soon!
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