Had a good think about this one the day before and decided to go down the punch route as my main attack the reasoning behind this was that it had got allot colder a couple of days before the match and we'd had a couple of frost's, So i figured I'd try and catch the silvers and just hope some carp came along too, i also took with me 1/2 pint of maggots and 1/2 pint pinkies some corn and a couple of sizes of expander pellet,For feed i had some micro pellet and some 4mm feed pellet also i had bought along some punch crumb feed that i had left from the previous match.
Right the day of the match arrived and when all packed up i left the house not knowing how it was going to fish, it was cold but not as cold as forecast (-2.5 in fact), there was a very slight frost on the car but nothing major. I arrived at the venue and after the obligatory jesting of the Man Utd supporters out of the way i drew peg 7 which was the second peg in the bay which i wasn't too keen on as i also wanted to fish the tip as some stage with some bread popped up off the bottom we'll the bay where i drew wasn't really wide enough for that so my mind was made up and the pole it was to be.I decided to keep it simple and fish just the 2 line one out at about 7 metres the other down the edge about 6 metres.
On plumbing up i found i had a good 5 1/2 foot of water on my 7 metre line and this was the same and it didn't change until i came back a metre where it was probably 2 inches shallower, so i decided 7 metres it was, I decided on a 1gramm Maver Invincible float and weighted it so just a few millimetres of tip was showing, i fished this 3.3lb straight through to a size 16 hook. When i plumbed my down the edge line i found that right next to the reeds i had probably 12 inches of water so decided to fish probably 2ft from the bank where i had roughly 3ft of depth this rig was a 4x14 Maver Invicible float again set so i could just see the tip and again 3.3lb straight through to a size 16 hook.
At the All In i fed the inside line with a small amount of pellets with 4 or 5 maggots as well and would leave that until my main line at 7 metres slowed up i thought, this line i fed with some punched bread but this was mixed up so it was just like white water it was that wet, i fed this through a kinder pot putting two pots in to kick start the swim. Hook bait was to be an 8mm pellet of bread hoping to bypass the really small fish that are in this water. First put in resulted in a roach of a decent size for Tunnel Hill and this continued for the first 40 to 45 minutes at a bite a chuck then the bites slowed so i re-fed and went in on the inside line just to have a look and within a minute or so had my first carp of the day again on the 8mm punch, a nice surprise so i dropped in again but nothing, I stayed there for another 15 Min's then decided to go back out on the 7 metre line. Again first put in was a small carp then another and then another, so i thought that I'd give a small piece of paste a go and i had 6 or 7 slightly bigger carp on the trot then it died so i went back on the punch.
The last half of the match was a bit of struggle with just the odd small fish, With about an hour to go i decided to have another look on the inside line but re fed the 7 metre line again,Well nothing on the inside so back out and thankfully enough i started to get a run of small skimmers but found to get these fish i had to put two 8mm pieces of punch on the hook and for the last hour i had bites every 5 to 10 minutes or so, I also had a couple of bonus carp in the last hour just to add to the weight i already had.
All in all i think it was a pretty decent day everybody had a few fish and the weights were close
1st Jon cook 27lb odd 12lb of which was one fish
2nd Gerry Chivers 25lb
3rd Myself with 24lb
I was happy with third as i thought the best i was going to do was my section as i thought Mark 2 pegs away had caught alot more than i did but fortunately i did him by 3oz.
The match went pretty much as i thought it would but i didn't expect to have the run of fish on the paste but i do think i wasted a bit to much time on it when the bites dried up, I probably should have went back out on the punch sooner.but the rest of the match pretty much went to plan. In fact i could have fished the whole match using just 1/4 pint of Bread mix and 1 slice of bread what a cheap day that would have been.
Next match is 2 week at Manor Farm Windmill Lake which I'm told has had some more fish put in so we'll see if that's going to a good or bad thing so soon after introduction.
As always please let me know if you want anything else included in these write up's.
Andy
Andy, I was suprised more people didn't try the Bread, I was going too, as I said on Sunday, I made my Sandwiches, Flask etc, even put a couple of slices of Bread in my Lunch box and then left the bloody thing behind. All I could do was sit and watch - Ken Hodges also had a couple of reasonable Carp on huge chunks of Bread in the margins. The trouble was, I was pre-ocupied with clearing the screen, I even left a couple of minutes early to collect Don - that will teach me.
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