Tirley Court- Orchard Lake 26/5/2012

Was thinking about this one through the week as i knew big weights were on the cards, but in the back of my mind was the fact that the fish could be spawning and would make the fishing hard.
Still a plan was formed in my mind which would be just the two lines one at 4 metres and the other would be just the top two. Well the day finally arrived and i woke up to bright blue skies and  warm weather which was a nice change from the weather we've had to fish through lately. Got to the venue and there were in fact a few fish spawning but not the amount i thought there would be so " who knows i thought". At the draw one of our members Steve was saying that he come over the day before and the water was alive with spawning fish, so we really had no idea how it was going to fish.
We decided before the draw to leave the shallow part of the lake out so the randy fish had somewhere to spawn and we also decided we would not fish any closer than a metre to the bank, again to protect the spawning fish.
We finally did the draw and i drew peg 10 which was the opposite side of the lake and i wasn't too disappointed as there's that many fish in there it doesn't really make a difference. I arrived round at my peg and as usual studied my peg to see if my plan would still stand as i planned it.

( looking out from my box, as you can see no feature but pleasant surroundings)

(the rest of the lake)
So i set up two rigs, on the 4 metre line i had around 4 feet of water so i went with the 4x4 maver invincible on 4.6lb line to a size 16 preston hook, the shot was spread out on the last 18" from the hook with the last shot about 8" from the hook.
The top two rig was a smaller size maver float again on 4.6lb line straight through to again a size 16 preston hook, same shotting pattern and i still had about 3ft of water on this line.
On the whistle i cupped in a 250ml pot of 4mm pellets on each line and started out at 4 metres and for the first 15 to 20 minutes had nothing but a few dips on the float, Steve on the peg to my left went out on the method and had a fish first cast and Tim to my right had gone on the top two and had a fish almost immediately, not what i was expecting.
Anyway this made my mind up and i too went on the top two and had a fish straight away on the paste and for the next hour i had another 5 or 6 and also had foul hooked and lost about 20.
For the next couple of hours this carried on the same i even tried different depths, not feeding and fishing away from my feed but the foul hooking and losing fish continued but i was still in contention as Tim was having the same problem. I could see the rest of the guys round the lake were struggling so i knew it was going to be close going in to the final hour.
The last hour arrived and suddenly Tim was starting to catch well almost every put in so i came off the paste and tried some sweetcorn and then i was too catching well but a bit too late i thought.
So the final whistle was blown and i knew it was going to come down to myself, Steve and Tim for the win and i did notice Pete down the other end of the lake had a good last hour so even he could figure.
It turned out that Tim had done enough with 98lb 7 oz and i Had come in second with 87lb 2 oz Steve was third with 55lb 6oz.
I actually think the fish were just on the process of finishing spawning as not one fish was caught round the lake was carrying any spawn, but they were still not feeding right. So when we return later in the year the weights could be huge so i'm looking forward to the return.

Harescombe Meadow lake (top lake) 12-05-2012

Had no idea at all how to fish this lake and having posted on line i had a general idea, And also decided to ask in my local tackle shop Gloucester Angling Centre as i know they frish there quite a bit and the basic information gleaned was to fish the feeder be it method or cage feeder and also feed the margins and have a rig made up for up in the water. I have only really ever fished the match lake at harescombe and was pleasantly surprised how pretty the other lakes are it really is a pleasure to sit there and fished (the weather helped too).
So the day of the match arrived an the baits i was taking were, 4mm feed pellets, corn, meat, expanders, 2 pints of caster, a few worms, half a pint of red maggot and finally some hard pellets for using on the band if i decided to fish up in the water.
Arrived at the (venue which now has a cafe and sells bait too if you didn't already know this), and when all arrived we did the draw and i drew peg 11 which was to be midway along the far bank. You can drive all way round this lake which at least means no trolley, all pegs are great too concrete and level.

 So got round to my peg and always i sit there for a few minutes just to study what I've got, to my left going out about 5 metres i had some pads behind them i had some clear water and then a few reeds against the bank so i had a good feature to go at, Out in front i had open water and to my right i had a small patch of reeds.
So time to set up, the first thing i did was set up a method feeder i like to use a small method feeder when its not just carp to go at.
then i set up 2 rigs for the pole, the first was a 1 gramme rig to fish the end of the pads in about 5ft of water, the comprised of 4.6lb straight through just in case any of the resident carp decided to have a go.
the next was a margin rig which was a small dibber float again 4.6lb straight through both these rigs were finished off with a size 16 hook.
Finally it was time for the all in and first thing i did was pot some bait in and i shipped out a large pot of chopped worm and caster out to the edge of the pads, a pot of feed pellets topped off with some meat and corn down either margin.the first bait i decided to try was a worm tail out to the pads and had a bite almost immediately and in came a small roach about 3 ounces this was followed by 4 or 5 more before the swim just died and this happened for the next hour or so until i had a few more small roach and then it died again so i decided I'd feed again. I let this settle and went down the edge for half an hour without anything to show for it, by this time i could see the end peg which had the wind blowing into catching a few carp and new i needed carp to have any chance of some coin, also the guy opposite went on the pellet waggler and had a couple of carp also.
So i decided to set up the pellet waggler too, i used a 6 gramme pellet waggler set at about two and a half feet deep finished off with a hair rig with a pellet band attached and first bait was to be a 6mm light coloured pellet. For feed i was using the same pellets on the hook but in different shades and colours, these were catapulted out after each cast about 4 or 5 each time and in between this i would catapult out some caster to get the silver fish active and attract the carp to the commotion (this is something that has worked for me in the past when allot of silver fish are present). In the first few casts i had had 2 carp about 4lb a piece and had a extremely large carp break me. then it died but i had to keep going at it as i had seen no movement down the edge and i was still in touch with the leaders. i changed bait to a larger 10mm halibut pellet and this did the trick i had another 6 carp to the end of the match to finish second with 29lb which was 26lb of carp and 3lb of silvers the match was won with 34lb so i was one fish away but felt i had fished a good match and the only regret was not fishing the pellet waggler earlier, the guy who initially went on the pellet waggler didn't catch like i did and i really feel the feeding of casters made the difference, it really is worth trying if theres plenty of silvers in there "give it a go".

Drummonds Dub/Hartleton lake 28/04/2012

With the poor weather of late i was not expecting great results today. Plan for today was going to be groundbait feeder line and a pole line about 13 metres out. The 13 metre line was to be fed with chopped worm and caster as i felt this maybe the way to go bearing in mind it was going to be a day where you needed to catch anything that swims just to put some sort if weight in the net.
Arrived at the lake in plenty if time for the draw and eventually when held i drew out peg 4 which was a peg i fancied as it is one of the pegs that normally get pleasure fished allot. got to the peg and the water was chocolate brown , i didn't know how this was going to affect the fishing as I've never fished it when it was as coloured up as this.

I set up the usual feeder rig starting with the largest Drennan feeder i had just to get some bait in the swim then i would put a smaller version on as the match progressed. Reel line was 6lb Guru and the hooklenght was 2.6lb WB Clarke matchteam to a size 16 hook.
Out at 13 metres i had probably 5 feet of water so i set up a 1 gramme float to combat the tow and the windy conditions, this was set up on 4.6lb mainline to a 2.6lb hooklenght and a size 16 hook.
At the whistle i dropped in two large cups of chopped worm and caster on the pole line and whilst this was settling i went out on the feeder casting every couple of minutes to build the swim up. Anyway 2 hours in and not even a touch on the feeder i had a go on the pole line fishing a small section of worm on the hook and had a bite second put in this turned out to be a small roach so at least i was off the mark. I stayed on this line for another 45 minutes and with no more bites i decided to really attack the feeder line and for the next 30 minutes just continually cast bait in to the swim. And i started to notice fish topping over my baited area these where good sized fish to also i started to get line bites every put in. As the time past i was still getting liners but no bites (I'll explain my thoughts on why this was happening later). I decide to open up a tin of corn and fish it on a hair rig and just sit on it and wait, and almost immediately i had a cracking bite which result in a hard fighting tench around the 4-5lb mark but then nothing but liners again. Over the next hour or so until the end of the match i had 2 more fish Bream around the 2lb mark and just before the whistle blew i had a cracking bite which broke me. Luckily it didn't cost me and i still ended up winning the match with 8lb 1oz second place was very close behing with 7lb 3oz and everybody apart from one other angler had fish. So yes you could say it fished hard, my theory on this is that the particles in the water colouring it up made it almost impossible for the fish to find the hookbait, they could find the bed of bait laid down but nit the hookbait, which is why I'm guessing more liners than bites, because I'm sure there were allot if fish out in front of me.