| Wednesday 13th December.
After a night of severe rain and gales, I considered whether I really wanted to be doing Mary Poppins impressions in the Wednesday match. I looked out of the bedroom window in the morning and it was relatively calm so I thought " why not?"
Due to the flooding it took longer than anticipated to reach Hereford but I was there in time for the draw anyway. It is really difficult to travel to any Wednesday matches these day due to all those in full time employment making the journey longer than necessary. Saturdays and Sundays are always easier.
After a quick look around the lakes I thought it would probably be better to put the match on the Day Ticket pool as it was sheltered to a certain extent from the wind. There was also a good colour to the water which meant that although this was rainwater, it would give some cover to the fish there as the water here is only two feet deep. After some deliberation we managed to peg it evenly but you have to fancy the stumps when they are in. The fish live there but are hard to get out. Perhaps that is why? I drew peg 8 after reasoning why we had to put it in, which to be honest I wasn't too keen on. For anyone that fishes Docklow, the peg is infamous. It ought to be called "The one that got away" peg. I have never known anyone to fish it and come back without either losing a 'monster' or losing a shed-full off the hook. It is literally a carp or bust peg as there is a small channel about three and a half feet deep under a bridge. I was on the opposite side of it last week and caught lots of chub and carp so I began to wonder, is it a carp peg because that is what everybody goes for?
With this in mind I started to feed it positively but not too heavy and instead of using the standard bungee cord to a tow rope, I scaled it all down. I used my Abu Conolon pole as it is light enough to fish at full length all day, but strong enough to pull back with. Middy Hi Viz. elastic 8-10 usually does me for any type of fishing this time of year and the rigs I use never really vary either. A 4x12 Drennan 'Choppa', .14 Ignesti to a B610 size18 with strung out twelve's on the last foot of line.
The Channel is about 13 meters out under the bridge and it is about a foot deeper than the rest of the lake so I decided to concentrate all my efforts here apart from a line down the edge for later. I potted in some caster at the start and a few grains of corn just in case but had no indications on anything for about an hour. I started getting a few bites on double maggot, which turned out to be perch, an ounce apiece but nothing bigger. We decided to fish 10:15 until 3:15 as it gets dark early and about 11:45 I caught a tench about 2lb. I potted some more caster and then had a barbel about a pound next drop, then some roach in the eight-ounce bracket, but still nothing huge. At about 12:30 I noticed the float going around and moving sideways, it usually something decent is in the peg but you have to be careful not to hit liners. I lifted the float and consequently the double caster then it seemed to continue under the surface; that's a bite I thought! When I hooked it, nothing seemed to happen it just stayed put but gradually began to move towards the bridge. If I fish against features, I always strike into the feature usually resulting in the fish bolting the other way, it helps you land more bonus fish. This one, I suspected had seen this trick before, and was having none of it! It eventually bottomed the elastic in the other pond, which connects the two, but then the usual thing happened it stopped and swam back. I think people lose fish by dragging them away from snags, rather than letting them go through the features. If they are going to bust you off, they will anyway, no matter how hard you pull, you are just helping them do it! When it came back through I realised it was a proper one and we weighed it separately at the end - 12lb-8 Common carp.
Although I was catching regularly now, it was only chub and roach and I don't like potting in caster for them so I decided to use the catapult to feed the peg. It is possible to feed little and often this way but you cannot do that with a pole pot. It seemed to work because I was catching every put in now but with thirty minutes to go I hooked another carp about 4lb. I think these carp spook the roach but you can still get a few chub in between them. I got that one out and then hooked another of around two pound and another around three pound. With about ten minutes to go I did a repeat performance, I hooked another proper one, which went through the gap at a fair rate of knots. It eventually stopped and came back like the first but then as I got it on the surface to assess whether it was going to go in the landing net, the hook pulled out. It wasn't as big as the first carp but it was near double figures and would have made a difference to the weight, which is what matters.
At the weigh in Mark Jones weighed 29lb- 8oz of small carp and crucians off peg 13 on the island again. He did well to fish it with that crosswind and had an enjoyable day out too. I weighed 26lb-9oz for second in the match, which I was pleased with off that peg. I reckon I caught about 6lb of roach and chub in that bag so it goes to show they live there. Third was P. Filmore with 17lb 8oz off peg 11 all caught on double corn no doubt.
Many thanks to Giles for compiling this feature.
Return to top |
