It was a chance meeting with Dave Stratful, who now looks after the catering and matches at Oakfield , that gave both Mick and I the desire to revisit the fishery and take our chances.
With 18 booked on it would be a good test for us. The MK Nugget series is over for the year as agreed by the both of us, and although we are fishing a match, it really is just a pleasure day for us both.
We both arrived nice and early and with Dave donning his pinny behind the counter, a full English breakfast was soon being devoured by both Mick and I, a couple of cups of tea washing it down.
I had exchanged a few texts with Gary Thorpe prior to the visit and he suggested that corn may start working on the pole lines. So that was one kilo removed from the freezer. I would also set up both a bomb rod and a Atomic laced maggot feeder. I would fish these for the first hour regardless of where I drew.
I was quite happy with peg 23, I would have the wind on my back and with the breeze gradually getting up to 50mph, I was glad of it. Mick had drawn 29, again a peg with the wind on his back.
Mick would base a lot of his fishing around fishery pellets and maggots, whilst my attack would be predominantly corn with maggot as a back up.
At the all in, I cupped in half a pot of corn onto the 11m line, whilst I could hold the pole out there. I also fed a line at 6m by hand. Leaving them to settle I started on the bomb with double corn, just over half way. I could catapult 4 or 5 grains over this line. I also fed a few grains at around 25m.
I was fishing double corn on a hair rig to a size 16 QM1 and although I was getting a few pulls, they were just liners, nothing concrete. A switch to the maggot feeder brought 2 micro roach impersonating fish. So back onto the bomb.With an hour gone I saw only 1 fish caught on the bomb but Pete Alland further down on 27 was getting a few on the pole.
Out to 11m with a single grain of corn and a tosspot of corn. After 5 minutes a bite and a good sized F1 was steadily coming back to the waiting net. One last ditch run for freedom and it was off, Damn or words to that effect. Back out and a longer wait, in hindsight I probably did not feed via the toss pot at this point. But a bite did come eventually. A run of 2 or 3 F1's would come but then nothing. I did lose a couple during this spell and found that by feeding 10 grains of corn and 6 or 7 6mm pellets after every fish or 5 minutes whichever was first was the way to go. I was still at 11m but the wind was getting stronger as the day wore on.
I have ended up with 6 F1's and a single mirror carp and a couple of more micro fish for 24lb 11oz and a thank you for coming. Beaten both sides by a couple of fish.
Overall
1st Pete Alland 56-10 Peg 27
2nd Chris Davis 40-02 Peg 10
3rd Mick Wright 30-02 Peg 29
4th Paddy Mack 30-00 Peg 33
So not too far off and a few more lessons, I think a longer tail on the bomb with a softer hair and single baits may have been a better approach. Also A lighter rig .4g with spread out shotting worked better than a heavier .6g rig in the conditions.Also small corn worked well.Mick done well creeping into 3rd spot with a few late fish down the edge on maggots and a nice brown envelope. Well done to all the framers.
No comments:
Post a Comment