Diary Of A

Matchman Part 11

by

Giles Cochrane.

Match Lake peg 29

Over the Christmas holidays there had been very little in the way of fishable matches due to the sub zero temperatures and anglers have been reluctant to break ice repeatedly. The same has been true of Docklow but it must be said that some anglers did brave the elements to fish through holes in the ice. My match results during this period have been less than acceptable but I tend to put that down to the draw rather than the methods on the day because the fish do tend to shoal. My travelling partner Andy Perkins has been having some considerable success during these same matches and at present I think he has won four matches on the trot. Personally I have been glad to put these matches behind me because for most of them, I have sat there bite less.

The Sunday open at Docklow promised to be a little better than recent ventures but the only problem was that the match lake had been frozen the previous day. This meant that many anglers were pessimistic about the quality of fishing and decided not to turn up for the match. The recent high pressure meant that some of the carp were more likely to have a go today and although it would be hard for most anglers, there was always a chance that the fish would feed.

I drew peg 29 on the match lake and I had decided to set up one rod, that being the straight lead as the conditions were cold and the water was a little clear. I thought that by sitting it out on the hair-rigged corn and not feeding I would latch on to a few carp at some point. I have been fishing the lead more and more in matches this year and all the time and effort spent experimenting with hair rigs has now paid off. I am confident now that with the present set up, I can catch whatever is feeding in the peg, whether that is roach, skimmers or crucian carp, as well as the customary match winning carp. Over the years I have put a lot of time into waggler fishing, especially in the winter where corn fishing has won me an awful lot of money on the commercial fisheries. Now I am reluctant to even set the waggler up because I am that confident with hair rigging, I feel that I am wasting time on any other method.

The matches prior to the cold snap, eight in total, I have not finished out of the frame, winning two, the rest seconds and thirds and fourths and this is exclusively attributable to hair rigging. I had hoped that this year would be a good year for catching weights of roach shallow on the pole but they do not seem to responding to the method as they should and to frame you need carp. I am not complaining because I have enjoyed watching the tip going round but the set up for hair rigs is important to get right. 

There are a few things I have learnt which I feel are important to anyone wishing to adopt this approach and what I will say is that I am that confident on this method that it will be replacing the pole as well as the waggler this summer.

I use PR27 hooks in conjunction with the knotless knot and the way I set these up is rather crude. I think we have been getting it so wrong when it comes to lead fishing over the years and presentation has little to do with catching fish. Long tails, small hooks and sensitive tips all go against us in the long run because if you look at the way the specimen lads fish, it is totally different. They seem to have got it sorted and we would do well to listen to some of them about rigs and carp feeding habits.

If the truth is known, as match anglers we know nothing about how fish like carp behave by comparison. What I use is known as anti-eject rigs and it mean that the carp roach or anything else cannot eject the bait without hooking themselves. Admittedly, they hook themselves against the lead and then bolt, which sets the hook, but the principle is based on the fact that carp, or anything else cannot see the hook or line when it is on the bottom. I use .18 and .20 diameter hook lengths for this and I have caught some of the biggest roach I have seen for years on hair-rigged corn.

When the fish sucks in the bait, it immediately knows it has sucked in a hook but, normally where they spit the bait resulting in little knocks on the tip, now they cannot get rid of it so easily. Some of the bigger carp are not so easily fooled into bolting and it has become apparent that they swim toward the lead rather away from it. The short hook lengths sort that problem out which results in drop backs. I fish with an ounce and a half to two ounces of lead, which is free running, as I do not like, fixed leads. I use a soft tip rod to minimise hook pulls but I have the tip of the rod bent as far round as it will go without moving the weight. This ensures that I am using a bolt rig which is effective from whichever angle the fish picks up the bait. The method seems to work better with the heavier line diameter and this is similar to what the carp boys call 'stiff rigs.' For this type of fishing it is advisable to use fairly robust line because it is not perfect presentation that you need, just the confidence that when a fish picks up the bait it will be going in the keepnet.

With the hair-rigging lesson out of the way, it is back to the match. On paper the match fished brilliantly but for those braved the elements it was a very different story. The previous day there was a club match on the match lake and due to the one end being frozen, they didn't peg it. Carp tend to move in the course of a match and it can only be assumed that they went under the ice. On the morning of our match the ice had thawed and you could see where the fish were. The water was coloured in the first two pegs on the lake but clear everywhere else and when Andrew Murphy drew it, he did admit that he fancied it. I walked around before the start and it was evident that he was going to be difficult to beat from there. I don't think anybody would have put money on what he weighed in at the end but I think it would be fair to say he had a good day. After a few weighs he amassed 246lb, an incredible performance in five hours and a new match record consisting of about 60 carp I believe.

For the rest of us it was a different story but there were fish to be caught and in that cold wind anything would have been a bonus. The two anglers each side of me set both lead and waggler rods up but their rigs didn't do either of them any favours. Paternosters and long hook lengths are not the answer but on this circuit nobody else is fishing with proper hair rigs. The ones that are hair rigging are using plastic stonflo efforts with long tails.

It was just a case of sitting there for a proper bite while others were trying to hit liners. The one chap did lose the paternoster at the end and put two carp in the net but it was too late for him to do any good. Rob Wiltshire was on peg 6 and weighed 70lb while I have 53lb for third. I hooked every bite and never lost a fish; five skimmers, four chub and seven carp on hair rigged corn.

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