Woodland View, Fisho Qualifier, 17.06.15

Weather: Overcast, 22C, WSW 15mph wind, Air Pressure 1018

170 Fished

Peg: Ghost 17

This was my second and last of only 2 qualifiers this year and after just missing out on the section and lake win on my only other fisho at Moorlands Farm I was hoping to go one better and come back with at least a section win.

I set off really early at 5.45am as I knew there was a long stretch of a 50mph limit on the M6 near Birmingham and it took me 2 hours to get there.  Bursting for the toilet, that was my first port of call before sitting down for a sausage and egg toastie and a mug of tea.  With fourty minutes until the draw I took a walk around the complex to pick out my favoured pegs and to see if there was any sign of spawning fish.  The wind had been blowing from the west for the last few days and a lot of scum had gathered to the right hand side of the lakes, as you look at them from the clubhouse.  Thankfully there was no sign of any spawning activities.  A few of the favoured pegs I picked out were Ghost 1,14, Back Deans,64,1, Hay 20 and Barley 20 and as it turned out 3 of these pegs went on to frame.

As usual, I joined the queue at the back which although it would mean not actually drawing until 9.25am, there would still be plenty of time to tackle up and considering I was well prepared there was no need for me to rush.  I drew Ghost 17 which I was reasonably happy with as not only would it make a change from the previous 2 qualifiers were I have fished the same area on Back Deans, but it was the water that most anglers thought the winner would come from.  I would be in the middle of the far bank (as you look from the clubhouse) and I would have the wind blowing into my bank from a 1 O’clock direction.

The start was delayed until 11.30am as an angler had a heart attack on Hays.  Fortunately one of the anglers close to him was able to form CPR and save his life and thankfully he is now recovering in hospital – Get well soon mate.   As we were late to go in I made the most of the time and topped up one of my hook length boxes whilst having a chat with the guy on peg 18.  We both agreed that we would be on the right side of the lake, although the 3 pegs to my left should be stronger as the although the wind was in our face it would often change to right to left.

Set up:

MW Pinger, .3g, 5.5ft, .15 to .13 powerline, PR36 18, black hydro – 11M deck line

HB AK47, .2g, 1.5ft, .15 to .13 powerline, B911 16, purple hydro – margins

HB Shady Shallow, 2.5ft, .15 to.13 powerline, Pr36 18, black hydro – long line shallow 8ml pellet

Scone Wellardz, 1.5ft, .15 to .13 powerline, Pr36 20, black hydro – shallow 6ml pellet

Malman Thin, .4g, 5ft, .13 to .11 powerline, Pr36 20 – grey hydro – 6M 6ml pellet

2 x Pellet Wagglers – 2ft + 3.5ft

Bomb

Bait:

4,6,8ml pellets

2 pints Corn

2 pints od dead maggots

I chose to fish the Malman thin on my 6M as wanted to keep laying in with a strung out bulk and keep moving the bait through the bottom 18 inches of water.  On my previous fisho here on Back Deans, when I fished a more stable diamond body float to pin the bait down,  I wasn’t very successful on this line and I found I was getting a lot of dinks on the float which I put down to Carp quickly rejecting the bait, so this year I wanted to try a more sensitive approach.  I chose to fish my long line at 11M as it seemed the fish were closer to our bank so there was no need to go too long and I would have the option of pushing further out.

My plan was to start at 6M, where I would loose feed half a dozen 6Mls every couple of minutes whilst pinging 8mls on my 11M line.  I did cup a little sweetcorn in the margins at the start just to see if the fish would be straight on it and I could possibly have one of those red letter days, but that wasn’t the case.

So at the all in I began at 6M and after about 10 minutes I had my first carp, but unfortunately for me it was only about 2lb, not the 5lb average that others had caught early.  I stuck with this line for about 20 minutes but came off it because, like the guy to my left, I started getting bite after bite that I couldn’t connect with and as I knew they weren’t proper carp and they were not liners, I concluded that small fish had moved in so obviously there was no carp on that line.  The guy to my right was now into his second lump from his long deck line so I went on my 11M deck line and toss potted in about 10 6mls and went over it with an 8ml on the hook.  I would ping a couple of 8mls over the top every minute or so and after about 15 minutes I got my first proper carp of about 8lb which unfortunately for me I lost at the net.

Before I knew it an hour had passed by and I only had 2lb in the net, but although it wasn’t a great start there didn’t seem to be anyone on the lake with more than 3 carp.  The second hour I spent shallow at 11M and I had some success with this, putting another 25lb in the net, which from what I could see had probably put me up there or even in front on the lake.   During the second hour the wind had changed to right to left and the sun had come out and the fish seemed to want to be shallow. The 3rd and 4th hours were a disaster for me with me only putting about 8lb in the net.  it had gone a lot duller and the fish had stopped feeding shallow and I couldn’t get my 6M line to work. I, like others on my bank, had tried the margins with no success and although the carp would come in they were a little spooked and no-one seemed to be able to present the bait in a way that would get them a fish.  Meanwhile, the guy on the opposite side on peg 4 had started to empty his margins from the half way point and others around him were getting plenty of fish from their 7M deck lines.

During my quiet period I had told myself that my 6m line float wasn’t right and I thought about changing to a more stable set up and I also thought about fishing shallow in close in to get amongst the margin fish, but both these things remained a thought and I didn’t act on them.

Like everyone else on our lake with an hour to go, I had conceded defeat to peg 4, who was surely now way over a ton.  In the last fourty minutes, with the blustery wind dropping to a nice breeze, I decided to stick it out shallow and managed to put another 3 carp in the net and at the finish I had 46lb on the ticker, which I knew wouldn’t be enough for the section as I had the gut to my right ahead of me.

I was in fact way down in 6th place of the 10 man section as the corner pegs and the adjacent pegs made up the top 4 and peg 18 beat my 48lb with 63lb.

On reflection, there was a couple of schoolboy errors with my 6M line.  Firstly my float didn’t cope with the blustery conditions and a diamond body float was required and I also think my loose feeding led to the 3oz, newly stocked carp invading the swim.  Although my bank didn’t have great success on this line, those that caught more were fishing a stable float and tosspotting bait in, waiting for the big lumps to move in.  I did tell myself to fish shallow in the margins on a couple of occasions but I didn’t act on this and in fact that is how the winner on peg four amassed 168lb.  The guy next to me went over to ask him how he had done it as like our bank, there didn’t seem to be anyone other than him catching from the margins on his bank – so what was he doing so differently?  He revealed that he had also found the fish difficult to catch from the margins at first but he changed his approach to fishing a little further out from the bank in 4ft of water but fished at half depth on maggot.  He explained that he could see the fish swimming into the margins at this level and discovered they would take the suspended, mid water bait with confidence but if he layed the bait on the deck closer to the bank he wouldn’t get a fish as they would spook to easily when closer in.  Thinking about it, when I did feed dead maggots on my right hand margin the fish would come in for them, but they would cleverly swirl overt the top of them lifting the maggots off the bottom so they could feed on them mid water.  So it just goes to show that even when the margin fish won’t get their heads down and feed positively there is still ways to catch big weights of them.  I usually adopt the school of thought that sometimes even if the fish are in the margins sometimes it isn’t right to fish them as the carp are a little spooked and its better to leave them alone until they start to really compete for the food, but I learnt a valuable lesson yesterday!

I beat the guy to my left and 3 others from the middle pegs, so I didn’t do too bad and even if I had got my 6M deck line right I’m not sure I would have caught enough to beat the section winner, who had 84lb.  Suprisingly the opposite bank had the bigger weights with the winner having 168lb any the 3 others around him on the middle pegs catching around the ton.  A regular afterwards told us that those middle pegs on the opposite bank (the low numbers) do produce most match wins.

Well unfortunately that’s my last fisho of the year and I will have to wait until 2016 when hopefully I will have a lot more success with the ballot in January and get on more than 2 out of 11 fishos, which I have had in the last 2 years.

Next up is a club match at Lathom Fishery on Saturday.

Tight Lines