Wednesday, May 06, 2009

One Good and Bad result at Monk Lakes!

I haven’t had time to do a blog lately so this is a double.

Although there isn’t much to write about on the first match down Monks Lake 1 and it was a disaster.

I pulled out peg 29 and because the weather was poor I had decided that the maggot waggler was going to be the killer method and catch me enough to win the section. I didn’t even think of a plan B I was so confident it would work although I was going to lose feed a pole line as backup!

So I set up the waggler rig with a 3aaa peacock insert shotted with 3 number 8s down the line set to just drag the bottom, on the end was a size 16 Kamasan 611 to a 0.12 trace. I also set up a shallow and deep rig to fish out in front. The shallow rig can double as a margin rig too cos I was feeling lazy and couldn’t be bothered to set one up.

I guess my lack of preparation, thought and cowboy approach to this match cost me. I blew the whistle to start and kicked off on the waggler, feeding maggots little and often I had 3 carp quite quickly and not a lot was coming out, I was just thinking to myself this will be easy, 50-60lb win the section, then go away with 5 points. At this point the waggler died and I was struggling. Not a good start!

I switched to the pole and that again produced nothing but the odd fish. To cut a long story short I alternated between the pole shallow and waggler for the rest of the match picking up the odd fish and ended up with just 20 carp and some other small stuff. I put 29lb on the scales for a 3rd in section so paid the price.

Lucky for me all the section winners from the week before dropped points too so it left me 3rd overall in the league.

Result below

1 Collin Wood 60-12 Peg 23
2 Nick Allen 59-7 Peg 36
3 Dennis Price 57-14 Peg 22
4 Rusty 57-00 peg 16
5 Russ Evans 53-10 peg 24
6 Squeaky (guest) 51-0 peg 31

League Placing

1 Ian Carley, 5-4, 124-8 9
2 Matt Love, 5-4, 107-1 9
3 Nick Gilbert, 5-3, 133-13 8
4 Collin Wood, 3-5, 110-9 8
5 Dennis Price, 4-4, 105-1 8
6 Nick Allen, 3-5, 103-1 8
7 Jonny Watt, 5-3, 95-5 8
8 Mark Hathway 4-4, 69-15 8
9 Russ Evans, 4-3, 104-3 7
10 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3, 82-14 7
11 Russell Graves, 0-5, 57-0 5
12 Paul Kell, 0-5, 44-4 5
13 Pete Allen 2-2 63-11 4
14 John Haige 2-2 33-1 4
15 Chris Jones 3-1 27-6 4
16 Brian Pink 2-2 19-15 4
17 Trevor Little 2-1 81-6 3
18 Paul Slater 3-0 39-7 3
19 Al Loader 0- 11-10 2

So on to round 3

This round was on Monks lake 2 and I needed a section win or I would have no chance of staying in contention for the title. Looking at the table with Matt Love not fishing this week I needed the leader Ian Carley in my section but more importantly I had to win it with a good weight so I could then move back to the top of the table.

The drawing god was with me today and I ended up on peg 49 and Ian was in my section on peg 51. So now all I need to do was win it with a good weight to move into first place again, easy  !

The weather had been good in the run up to the day with the air pressure high so there was only one tactic I was thinking off, yes you guessed it fishing shallow with pellet. The problem though was the cross wind, it was very strong and fishing beyond 9 meters would be a problem, as it was about 7 foot deep so balling in to draw fish close was out of the question cos I thought it was a little too deep. I was going to have to lose feed them in meaning it may be a bit slow to start.

I set up two shallow rigs for the day both had Drennan Carp 4 dibbers, 0.14mm traces with a 14 Drennan carp hook. One had a short line and the other long so I could use the two to fish anything from 3ft to 1ft deep, one of these could also be used down the margin. I also set up two on the deck rigs one to fish out in front at around 5 meters at the bottom of the shelf the other to fish at about 8 meters where it was slightly deeper. All of these were set up with a doubled Preston 6 Slip elastic.

Bait for the day was plenty of 6mm hard carp pellets with a few 8mm for change bait. I had some maggot and expanders too but didn’t expect to use many.

I blew the whistle to start and fed the 5 meter line with a few pellets and a small ball of groundbait and went straight out on it with a 6mm expander. It wasn’t long before I started to get a few bites and had my first small carp after about 10 minutes. Things were a bit slow and I had nothing else for the next 10 minutes! I was growing inpatient by this time and was feeding at about 8 meters with pellet about 6-8 every 10 seconds. I went out with the 3ft deep rig over the top and a few minutes later was into a decent F1 of about 2lb.

At this point could bore you with a fish by fish account of the action but to be honest all I did for the rest of the match was keep the feed going in and eventually fed the fish up to a foot deep and caught slow but steady the whole match.

I may have oversimplified things with the last sentence because of the savage cross wind hampering feeding and I had to constantly change the frequency and amount fed and the way I worked the bait to keep bites coming. I also had look on the deck if things got slow shallow to pick up the odd fish too.

I ended up with 67 carp and a few small fish at the end and I guessed they would go the best part of 90lb. I doubt it was enough to win the match but it was looking good for the section win.

It turned out my fish went 107lb which was a bit of a surprise; this put me 4th overall and gave me the section win I needed.

Result below.

1 Paul Kell Peg 45 143-10
2 Russ Evans Peg 56 123-5
3 Dennis Price Peg 68 111-9
4 Nick Gilbert Peg 49 107-4
5 Russell Graves Peg 74 96-10
6 Al Loader Peg 46 91-10

Peg Rundown

54 N Costar 68-4
52 C Jones 43-8
51 I Carley 80-6
49 N Gilbert 107-4
48 N Allen 66-3

46 A Loader 91-10
45 Pl Kell 143-10
56 R Evans 123-5
57 K Driscoll 83-13
59 J Haigh 73-14

60 B Pink 20-0
62 P Slater 32-9
63 J Driscoll 48-8
65 M Hathway 74-12
66 C Wood 89-6

68 D Price 111-9
70 J Watt 71-8
72 P Allen 69-15
74 R Graves 96-10
76 T Little 89-11

League Placing

1 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5, 241-1 13
2 Dennis Price, 4-4-5, 216-10 13
3 Ian Carley, 5-4-4, 204-15 13
4 Collin Wood, 3-5-5, 199-15 13
5 Mark Hathway 4-4-4, 144-11 12
6 Russ Evans, 4-3-4, 227-8 11
7 Nick Allen, 3-5-3, 169-4 11
8 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3 166-13 11
9 Paul Kell, 0-5-5, 187-14 10
10 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3 131-6 10
11 Russell Graves, 0-5-4, 153-10 9
12 Matt Love, 5-4-0, 107-1 9
13 Trevor Little 2-1-3, 171-1 6
14 John Haige 2-2-2, 106-15 6
15 Chris Jones 3-1-2, 70-14 6
16 Pete Allen 2-2-1, 133-10 5
19 Al Loader 0-2-3 103-4 5
18 Paul Slater 3-0-2 72-0 5
19 Brian Pink 2-2-1 39-15 5

For a bit of fun the Weight League

1 Nick Gilbert 241-1
2 Russ Evans 227-8
3 Dennis Price 216-10
4 Ian Carley 204-15
5 Collin Wood 199-15
6 Paul Kell 187-14
7 Trevor Little 171-1
8 Nick Allen 169-4
9 Jonny Watt 166-13
10 Russel Graves 153-10
11 Mark Hathway 133-10
12 Pete Allen 133-10
13 Jeff Driscoll 131-6
14 Matt Love 107-1
15 John Haige 106-15
16 Al Loader 103-4
17 Paul Slater 72-0
18 Chris Jones 70-14
19 Brian Pink 39-15