Match Report

28th February

With Clive and Steve not putting in a team for the spring league I thought I was in for a break before I was next there in May for the Jinx series. However I had a message from Herbie (Ian) asking if I could fish for his team the Pikeys as he was away at Stafford Moor. I accepted, after getting the OK from Gem

The morning of the match started bad for me. I got up and went to load my gear in the car and it started raining heavily as soon as I stepped outside. Next problem was the boot lock on Gem’s car refused to open so I had to load everything through the tiny doors but managed to get everything in ok.

I set off at 8am and go and putting some diesel in. Heading down the M5 I think “hmmm its a bit quiet, I will put the radio on” Another problem, I have forgotten then face to Gem’s radio So my drive down was a mixture of listening to the rain on the windscreen and the blowing exhaust

I got to Rolfs about 9.20am to find most people already there. It was still spitting with rain and there was a slight wind blowing across the lake. I went and made a coffee and stood by the lake wondering how it would fish, thinking of how I had struggled in the winter league.

Dull morning at the Lake

I was fishing for the Pikeys team (MFS) As everyone in the team was fishing for someone else we had to draw for a our sections. Team mates Gary drew A section and Big Ron (sleepy) drew B section leaving me with C section. I could be on either 16, 18, 22 or 24 today. I didnt fancy 16 as I dry netted off that peg last time I fished it. Everyone was saying that 22 was the peg to draw as Derek Hammond had won the previous round of that peg. So I duly drew peg 22 as my home for the day Gary had drawn peg 10 and Big Ron had drawn peg 26.

Peg 22

On the way to my peg Mick Lane and Phil Powell both told me to fish 16m to the bush. They are the venue experts so I took their advice and set up accordingly. John Bennett had put a brand new platform in, a big improvement to the massive step that was there before. Poor Clive needed step ladders to get up and down I angled my box to face peg 21 in the corner.

I only set up two rigs because when I plumbed up next to the bush it was the same depth 16m directly in front of me too. The other rig was my boilie shallow rig as I was planning on giving it a go directly in front of me. My plan was to set up margin rig after if I was having no luck on the bush line.

My rigs for Today

My deck rig comprised of a John Walker .4g diamond, Prestons new Xceed line 0.20 diameter and Fox series 2 carp hooks sized 18. I would be fishing corn and maggot on this rig. The boilie rig is the same as the one in “Rigs I use” (above) but I changed the hair rig to a Carp method sized 14 as they are a shorter hook length. I had also made the rig a bit longer than normal to allow me to fish a bit deeper if required. Elastics wise I was using purple Hydro for the deck rig and Middy battle machine for the shallow rig. Baits for today I had corn, 4mm and 6mm expanders and 10mm white boilies.

With everything set up I went to make another coffee and had a chat with John Bennett on peg 32, he told me not to feed anything at all. Everyone is so helpful even though its a team match they are still willing to share info with you.

Went back to my peg and waited for the all in. With a few minutes to go the phone rings, I had my bluetooth on today as Malc had said he was going to ring to try and JINX me Gems on the other end to see how I was going “not started yet” Just then Phil blows the whistle and were off.

With Gem still on the phone I shipped out (I love bluetooth) with my deck rig and plopped it about a foot away from the bush at 16m. The float settled and then sailed away, Fish on already. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. After sitting watching a motionless float during the Winter League I was not expecting a bite to be honest. First fish in the net and Gems cheering me on on the other end of the phone. I went straight back out and same again, fish on within 30 seconds of the float settling.

This carried on for the next 50 minutes, I was lifting and dropping and the fish would take the bait after it hit the bottom. I had 7 fish in the net after the first 50 minutes. I know this because that How long I was on the phone to Gem for. She said her goodbyes and left me to it, she was more excited than I was I think

The last 2 fish I had caught were foul hooked, one in the tail and one in the pec. I was also getting a lot of liners so I decided to drop the boilie rig down and fish mid water. I set the rig exactly half depth of my deck rig and shipped out and plopped it in. The result was immediate, as soon as the boilie reached the 3 foot mark the float disappeared. With 2 hours gone I was still catching. I was amazed.

I was fishing with my back towards everyone else so I could not see if anyone else was catching but when I got up to get another keepnet Mick told me that I had won the match already.

Mick Lane

Hour 3 was much the same, I was still catching shallow. Nearing the end of the 4th hour the bites were slowing down and in the last hour I only had 2 more fish. I had been switching back and forth bewteen the shallow and the deck rig with corn to try and keep the fish coming. With the final whistle I had 27 fish up to 17lb in the nets, I thought I had a good 160lb as the shallow line had produced some smaller fish even though Phil didn’t agree lol

NOTE.. We were not weighing and releasing because the banks were too slippy and dangerous to keep getting up weighing fish. I had 4 keepnets, so the fish were spread out.

Not many pictures today sorry. Most of my pictures have already been posted on Eddies blog HERE

Where I caught all my fish, circled

The only picture of my fish

The rest had the lake had not fished as well but the Silvers were finally showing in large numbers. Derek on peg 9 had managed some cracking skimmer bream. Team Mate Gary on peg 10 had a great bag of roach and John on peg 30 had also managed a good bag of roach. With me not facing everyone else I did not know what had happened but the weigh in told the story. 24lb was the top weight before getting to my peg.

With my fish weighed in I had managed 211lb 12oz (i think it was 12oz, couldn’t tell what Paul had written ) Everyone shook my hand after and I was well chuffed, thank you. Our team had also managed a Win on the day with Gary third in his section and Big Ron getting a second. Well done lads.

Definitely one to remember for me.

Results.

SPRING LEAGUE, ROUND 2. 28th February.

A SECTION

B SECTION

C SECTION

DAY POINTS

OVERALL LEADERBOARD