Unfortunately due to family illness I missed round 2 which effectively ruined my chances of winning the league, but I still had a chance of a placing in the top 6 and picking up a few quid at the end. But it would be a tall order as I would have to win my section on all of the remaining matches!
After a 2nd in the first round at Framfield I was looking to go one better this time, all I needed was a draw on the near side of the lake as I thought the far side would not produce a frame weight. I was first to draw and pulled out 53, this was 1 in from the end peg and not really a favoured draw but I fancied it for a few and was not to too disappointed.
The talk at the draw was about lots of ton up weight, but as nearly every peg was in I thought anybody would to well to put that sort of weigh together although it wouldn’t stop me trying!
When I arrived at my peg I noticed quite a few larger carp moving out in the middle of the lake, so immediately I thought it could be a day for the shallow waggler, but I didn’t want to go straight out at the start with the method and decided on a two pronged attack, I was going to start shallow on the pole and feed the waggler line for at least a hour or two before dropping in on it. Obviously if the pole produced well I would stick with it for the whole match.
I set up a couple of shallow pole rigs, a 4AAA home made pellet waggler rig to fish about 2 foot. I also set up a hook in the loop rig to fish on a top 4 as the lakes skimmers seem to patrol at this distance and it is a good way to keep catching a few fish if you want to rest the shallow lines.
Bait was my favourite Skretting 6mm pellets with a couple of pints of 6 and 4mm expanders; I also mixed up a bit of paste, and about half a kilo of fishmeal based groundbait to kick start the shallow swim.
At the off 4 balls of groundbait laced with pellet went in at 8 meters, and a couple of balls went in at the distance of the top 4 for the skimmers.
I started feeding 6mm pellet over the groundbait and kicked off with the shallow pole rig, it was a good 20 minutes before I picked up the first fish a small ide, some small f1 carp followed over the next hour but I wasn’t really catching too well, probably only putting about 10lb in the net, the second hour wasn't much better maybe putting another 15 lb if assorted fish in the net on the shallow rig, and also picking up a few decent skimmers on the top 4 rig . At this stage I was quite happy with what I had in the net as I hadn’t seen anybody really emptying it!
All the while I was on the pole I had been feeding 6mm pellet out on the waggler line around 25 meters out, after a couple more small f1s on the shallow pole and as it got into the third hour of the match I could wait no longer, I picked up the waggler rod, and a pouch full of pellets was followed by the float, it hit the water settled and went under, a carp was on first cast, then promptly came off. This happened on the 2nd cast too!!! Luckily the third drop in I managed to get a small f1 in the net this time, and that’s how it went for the next two hours, it was solid and I recon I put 40 odd f1s in the net and a few ide, strangely I had no proper carp. During this time I decide to not bother feeding the pole lines any more and fish the match out on the waggler.
As I got into the last hour the wind seemed to changed direction slightly, the expected last hour hauling just didn’t happen, only catching about another 10 fish, the good new was two of these were proper carp probably over the 6lb mark so made up for it, I had a lot of fish in front of me but just couldn’t put a run of them together and I tried all the tricks I know.
The whistle went to signal the end and I was sure I had enough to take the section but did I have enough for a frame place? I was one from last to weigh and 96lb was winning from the favoured corner flyer peg 46(or was it 45) and 80 odd second, after 3 weighs I put 103 lb on the scales to snatch first place, just breaking the ton and was well pleased.
In summary I think it paid off to not fish the waggler at the start and let the fish gain confidence. Roll on next round at Hartleylands in two weeks, I cant wait.
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