This was to be another one of those matches in which you could choose whether to go for silvers or carp. The weather was fairly mild with very little wind, good conditions in fact. I was keen to have a go for carp as I'd fished for silvers the whole weekend before. At the draw I pulled out peg 8 on the top lake, which is a good silver fish peg and a fairly good carp peg. My Wickford team mate Peter Steward had drawn peg 9 and between us we had decided I would go for carp and he would go for silvers. The theory behind this being we would effectively have an empty peg each as we were doing different things and wouldn't share the fish.
Bait For a Carp Match
Tin of meat
Tin of corn
some 4mm pellets
As you can see not much bait was going to be needed, simply because my match was going to be based around rod and line fishing and not feeding here at all. On the pole I would put a small amount of bait in.
Peg 8 is an interesting peg because at around 25 metres and slightly to your right there is a small island, which at this time of year is nothing short of an irritant as it holds no fish and just gets in the way of where you want to cast. Also from experience I know this peg is snaggy, in previous matches I have been cut off bringing fish back past the island and up over what must be a shallow bar. Also there is a tree that hangs in the water at about 7 metres on a little point down the edge. I was hoping to catch a few late ones from here in the final part of the match.
Tactics
My main hope of winning this match was by fishing past the small island into the deeper water in the middle of the lake. With this in mind I set up a straight lead rod and also a big waggler. With the snaggy nature of the peg in mind I decided to gear up accordingly and used the heaviest line I had with me (6lb maxima) and a 2 foot hook length of 0.19 powerline attached to a 16 Kamasan Animal hook. Rod was an 11/13 Daiwa Spectron medium feeder, this set up should allow me to dictate terms to the fish and not the other way round. The big wagg incorporated an 8 gram Drennan Skud attached to 5lb Korum reel line. Initially, I set the wagg at about 4 feet deep and my intention was to hair rig corn on this and catch fish which may be sitting off the bottom on the drop. I could also really search my peg with both of these set ups.
I also assembled a pole and would fish two lines on this. The first being at 16 metres where i would cup in 10 grains of corn at the start and look over this line periodically. Also I fed the "Kerb Krawler" by the tree at 7 metres with 20 grains of corn. I could just about throw corn at this range so would throw a few grains fairly regularly to try and stir up some feeding fish. Rigs on the pole were a 4x14 Carpa Chimp at 16 metres, tied direct to an 18 Tubertini 808 on 0.12 Browning Cenitan. Down the edge featured a 0.15gram Mick Wilkinson Power Slim on 0.14 to an 18 B911.
At the all in I fed the pole lines and chucked the bomb out past the island into the middle of the lake. Hook bait was a large piece of hair rigged meat and I sat on my box and waited ..... I didn't have to wait long as after about 5 minutes the tip flew round and being aware of the snags in the peg I immediately stood up and tried to give the fish some stick to pull it over the ledge. Unfortunately, I think I probably pulled a bit hard and it dropped off. Next chuck the tip whizzed round again and this time I took things a bit steadier and soon had a small pound carp in the net. An ok start but other anglers on the bomb had also caught and their fish were bigger. At the end of the first hour I had only two more 3 pounders and was behind other people and beginning to worry. It was time for a change to the wagg.
After about 5 chucks on the wagg with a single grain of corn as bait I had a cracking bite and I struck into and landed a fish of about 7lb, this was the stamp of fish I needed. However, after about 10 more chucks I couldn't buy another bite. The thing that is difficult to do on the big wagg is to feather the line into the water, this allows your hook bait to land in front of the float, thus giving a slow natural drop. I wasn't confident my presentation was right.
It was time for the bomb again and the tip sailed around straight away and another 3lb hit the pan. However, after this I was mysteriously bite less again and a change to double corn didn't improve things either. I knew a way to encourage a bite though and as I attended to the "call of nature" I heard the tell tale sign of a bite behind me as the "clink" of my rod going across the rest! Luckily I avoided an unfortunate accident and landed the fish!! No more bites followed so at this point of the match I was sitting watching Peter Steward catch silver fish one a bung and I was seriously regretting not going for silvers! I was also reminded why I try not to do too much carp fishing in the winter!
Despite switching between the pole, bomb and waggler for the remainder of the match I could not put a run of fish together and knew i would be out of the frame. In total I had three on the wagg (despite changing depths regularly) and eleven on the bomb. One interesting thing was I had to re set my bomb up after about every 3 fish as my maxima mainline was severely kinked and damaged whilst playing the fish over the ledge/snags. My hooklength of 0.19 Powerline was untouched though, proving that powerline really is basically rope and extremely durable. My pole line were dire and I did not manage a bite on either line. At the weigh in I put 46lb on the scales and needed to catch 60lb to finish third in the match. Steve Tyler had once again won the carp with 90 odd pound on the straight lead from the middle lake peg 15. Peter Steward had fished a really good match on the silvers next to me and weighed in 26 pounds mainly caught at 8-10 metres up in the water, which was top in that pool.
Lessons Learnt
Thinking back over this match I knew I hadn't maximised my peg and I picked up a few things off match winner Steve Tyler which I should have done differently. Steve had found that it was absolutely vital to slack line in order to keep bites coming. If he kept a bend in his tip he found that he stopped getting bites quite quickly. His set up involved pinching a AAA shot about 6 inches above the bomb in order to pin the line to the deck. Its obvious really that the fish will associate line with danger and not feed when they can see it/ bump into it. In my peg I would get a bite straight away after I had rested a line, then would struggle again, so think this could be a reasonable explanation for my stop, start catching.
I feel that maybe I should have tried a small PVA bag also, as the fish may have wanted some feed on the day. It certainly would have been worth trying anyway. Next time I will have some PVA bags with me.
I think my biggest mistake though was not fishing for roach as I was on a decent roach peg and I don’t think it was a good enough carp peg to compete with some of the flyers!
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