GOT Baits ISK League 2009 Round 1

Today I am fishing the first round on the league I am running, I haven’t fished a match since last December so had to blow the cobwebs off all my match gear!

The venue for the first round is Hartleylands in Kent and the match was to be split between 2 lakes Bramley and Pear Tree. For those that have never read the blog before the lakes hold a good number of carp most in the 12oz to 3lb range with a few bigger fish mixed in.

At the draw there were a few from last year and a few new faces and it was set to be a good match and although only 20 are fishing each round there will be no easy point to be had and a good start will be essential, as will be a good weights as this may come into play at the end if there is a tie on points.

As always when running a match I got Trevor Little to pull out my peg and I was not disappointed when peg 4 on Pear Tree come out, it was close to the end of the island near to the gap in the middle of the lake. The peg is not the shortest chuck to the island but with the light wind coming from an angle from behind feeding on the waggler was not going to be a problem.

Arriving at the peg I had pretty much made my mind up the waggle shallow was going to work even though the weather was not that warm, so plenty of 6mm pellets were in the carryall, along with some expanders, corn and some mixed maggots as backup in case it was hard and I ended up fishing on the deck! I also had some method goundbait mixed up too but didn’t expect to use it.

Two 11ft Preston waggler rods were set up with my own 6aaa Styro Wags, one set to just over 2ft and the other 1ft. A 10ft Shakey Match 3 feeder rod to fish bomb and pellet, this had a 12 in hook length. The pole was also set up with two shallow dibber rigs set at 1 and 2ft, a on the deck rig using my own Diamond float, and a margin rig again using one of my floats plumed up to fish down each margin at about 6 meters.

So all the gear was set up and I was ready for the off, or I thought it was. I blew the whistle for the start and used a large pot of pellets to feed 4 pole lines, 2 margins and 2 in front in case the wag didn’t work. Just after doing this I realized the landing net wasn’t set up! So a big pouch full of 6mm pellet was sent toward the island while I set up the net. 3-4 more were sent out and I was eventually ready to cast. Out went the 2ft deep rig and I immediately had a bite. A small carp was hooked and bumped. A couple of casts later another was in the landing net.

Feeding frequently I was straight away putting a good run of fish together. They were around the 2ft mark to start but soon I was fishing 12in deep rig as the carp rise up in the water to the feed. With an hour gone I had 19 in the net. All the while I had been feeding at about 11 meters pellets little and often to see if I can get the carp within pole range. So I went out with the 2ft deep shallow rig to have a look and also rest the waggler line as things had slowed up. I stepped up the feeding to every 10-15 seconds while dropping the rig in. on about the 4th go the float dipped and a fish was on. It took a few minutes to land but turned out to be about 4-5lb so a good bonus. Another five minutes on the pole with no other bites and it was out again with the waggler.

The rest on the line worked well and it was solid, I had about 10 fish one after the other. Another 10 followed but not quite so quickly and with about 2 hours and 15 minutes I had 40. Time to rest the waggler again so it was out with the shallow pole. Same thing happened as before and this time I had two carp quickly and then nothing! I continued to pick off the odd fish on the waggler but it had slowed up a little with 1 hour 30 minutes to go I was putting carp 50 in the net. I also had a quick look down the margins both sided that I had been feeding and this produced one carp of about 2lb.

By this time the waggler had died on me, a quick look on the pole shallow also produced nothing so a re thinks of tactic was needed. I figured I had fed it a bit heavy on the waggler and driven the fish to feed on the deck. So the bomb rod was quickly baited up with a 8mm pellet and cast out to where I was feeding. My suspicions were right and the rod banged round with the first of 18 carp to be caught almost one a bung in the remaining hour and a bit left in the match. This saw me with 79 carp at the end and I guessed I had 90-100lb.

It turned out I ended up with 103lb for quite a convincing win and a good start to the season.

Full result and league places below.

1 Nick Gilbert 103-13
2 Matt Love 5 79-9
3 Ian Carley 5 78-14
4 Jonny Watt 5 73-14
5 Jeff Driscoll 4 63-6
6 Russ Evans 4 50-9

League Placing

1 Nick Gilbert 5 103-13
2 Matt Love 5 79-9
3 Ian Carley 5 78-14
4 Jonny Watt 5 73-14
5 Jeff Driscoll 4 63-6
6 Russ Evans 4 50-9
7 Dennis Price 4 47-3
8 Mark Hathway 4 44-8
9 Collin Wood 3 49-13
10 Nick Allen 3 43-10
11 Paul Slater 3 39-7
12 Chris Jones 3 16-14
13 Trevor Little 2 48-8
14 Pete Allen 2 23-3
15 John Haige 2 19-5
16 Brian Pink 2 9-11
17 Rusty (on Holiday) 0
18 Alan Loader (forgot about the match!) 0
19 Pauk Kell (forgot about the match!) 0