Saturday 8th October - Manor Farm open

Today I decided to go to Manor Farm. With 15 fishing. 10 on middle and 5 on island.
I drew peg 10 on middle.
With the cold nights lately I thought it would have a big effect... which it did!

Decided on 2 lines of attack. 

14.5m of my Colmic Airon F44 pole where I'd fish hard pellets.

Colmic Next Adventure 45 bomb rod. Where I'd ping pellets at about 30m.

First hour I didn't have any indications then 2nd hour had a carp and an F1 on the pole.
No one was catching.
For the 3rd hour and a half I decided just to fish the bomb and catch what I could to rest my pole to hopefully catch on it later.
I had 5 fish on the bomb but they were only small F1s.
So back out on the pole for the last hour and a half where I caught steady till the end catching a few carp and some better stamp F1s.
I think coming off the pole when I did made a real difference and meant I could build it up for later on, something I do quite regularly which i think makes a big difference.

I weighed in 47-0-0 which was enough for 3rd overall and won my section.

It's official... winter is on its way!!! Feeding negative was by far best and just sitting and waiting for a bite.

Sunday 2nd October - Manor farm open

The match was on boundary pool today and with 23 people fishing it was going to be very hard!

I drew peg 22 which is in a bay that I've never been in and hoped the fish would be there as I'd struggle to attract any fish into my peg... but they weren't. 

I caught a couple of small F1s on the bomb and had to keep persevering with shallow on the pole as that's the only place I could catch???

Weighed 34-0-0 which surprisingly was enough for 3rd overall and a section win!

Roll on next time!

Saturday 1st October - Manor farm leisure

Today I went to Manor farm leisure for the open match on island and middle pool.
5 on island and 6 on middle. 

I drew peg 4 which I quite fancied for catching shallow on the pole.
Had a big common and an F1 early on the bomb and went out on the deck on the pole at 14.5m and didn't get a bite.
So picked up the shallow rig.
Caught really well on this for 2 hours catching some decent size carp and some f1s.

As middle usually does, it all completely switched off around 1:00 and probably went 40 minutes without a bite. 

I then had a few more fish shallow on the pole and managed to have 1 common and an F1 down the edge.

I weighed in 130-0-0 which was second overall.
With 146-0-0 winning so needed a few more bigger fish.

Sunday 25th September - Manor farm open

21 people fishing.
6 on boundary and 15 on island.
I drew peg 10 on island last weekend and don't really like that corner. And today I drew peg 9!
I didn't really fancy it.
Set up:
Pellet and method feeder to the island.
A bomb rod.
A deck rig on the pole at 14.5m incase I needed it.
I decided to focus my approach on rods as the wind was quite strong and I felt I needed to fish far out to get bites.

Had a ok start against the island on the method feeder. 3 carp and a big F1 but I couldn't work it out. I had loads of liners. And you chuck it a foot off the island and the bites stop?

Had a been feeding my pole and bomb line all morning so a quick look on the bomb resulted on a good run of big F1s which was nice to catch on this quite early. 
Tried the pole but didn't really think it would work so I was soon back on the feeder.

From 1:30 I decided to stay on the bomb as I normally catch late on it. (Last hour or 2)

The bomb line became quite good. Catching fish steadily till the end of the match. A mixture of carp and F1s on bomb.

At the weigh in I manged to have 101lb which put me 2nd overall. 
Well done to Jason Morris winning with 127lb.

Really enjoyed the match and was nice catching on rods for a change.  All summer I've mainly been catching on the pole so was nice to have a change.

Until next time....

Saturday 24th September - Last round of Redhill Pairs match.

Going into today we had a 13lb lead.
I was on sophies lake and drew peg 3.
James was on Mollies on peg 13.
I didn't really fancy my peg.  I had a strong cross wind and anglers either side with little room.
Kept it simple.
Pellets and paste short.
Groundbait and maggots down the edge.
Short line was really good to start with on hard pellets then got silly bites so fished paste instead which was better.  Although I had to wait for bites. The majority of bites were converted to landed fish. 
At 2 o'clock I caught really well down the edge at top 5 to the next pallet.
I thought it was would get stronger and stronger but it didn't really.
Big potting after 2 fish was best.  And fishing a full worm.
I weighed in 129lb for second on my lake and james had 54lb on his lake.
We finished 2nd overall and lost out first place by 1-12-0 so one more fish would of sealed it. But that's fishing!
Really enjoyed fishing Redhill and I've only been twice on these two matches so felt I did ok considering I didn't know the venue.

Sunday 18th September - Manor farm leisure open

Today I decided to go to Manor Farm for the open match that was held on island pool and middle pool.
24 anglers turned up and there were 6 pegs on middle and 18 on island so a good draw was needed. 

I drew peg 10 on island.  This peg is in the corner and with 8 and 12 in it really cuts you off and you don't have an island chuck. 

So kitted up 2 things.

14.5m of my F44. Where I'd fish shallow and on the deck on pellets.

Next Adventure 45 bomb rod. Coupled with a Zartan Reel to 0.18 Method Line.
The rig is a free running lead on a snap swivel. To a quick change bead, where I used a hook length of 0.16 F1 spider line to an 18 B911.

First half of the match I caught a couple of fish on the deck on the pold and 1 fish shallow but I was well off the pace.

So at around 2:00 I made tbe decision to stay on the bomb. This proved to be good. I caught quite steadily till the end of the match on the bomb catching a few better stamp Carp and F1s.

I finished with around 8 carp and 5 F1s. Giving me a total weight of 59-0-0. This was 2nd in my section and 3rd on the lake.

Peg 6 won my section and with that peg in your section it's very hard to beat.

I had a nice day and felt I did ok from that area as that would of been one of the pegs I didn't want!

Until next time!

Redhill Fishery Pairs match - Saturday 17th September.

I have been looking forward to this match for a while now.
To me Redhill is a venue that I've never been to before and a while back my good friend James Allen asked if I would like to fish the pairs match with him.
It's a 2 match series. Held on the 17th of September and the 24th of September.

After the hour and 15 minute drive from my house i arrived in a very sunny Monmouth and was really impressed with how tidy the venue is.

After a bit of discussion James decided to go on Sophies lakes meaning I was on Mollies.
Both lakes are a similar size with around 20 pegs on each lake.

I drew myself peg 17.
After arriving at my peg I did quite fancy it.
I had Ripple. A nice looking edge and a bit of depth.
Because I have never fished this venue before I decided to fish what I'm confident in and see how it goes from there.

I based my approach like this:

14.5m of my Colmic Airon F44 pole.
Here I would fish on the deck and shallow over the top on pellets. 

A short line at top 5 with pellets and paste.

An edge line. 11m to my right to the next pallet. Where'd I'd feed groundbait and dead maggots.

I kicked the match off with a big pot of bait down the edge and threw a few pellets in short. And pinged some bait long. 

I had an F1 first chuck on my short line and was clear it was going to be a fish race.  The fish are averaging around a pound with a few bigger carp dotted around. 

After the short line not really kicking off I shipped out my deck rig at 14.5m and began catching well. I didn't really feel I was catching well enough as the anglers on the opposite bank were catching as quick as me but short, meaning they were landing there fishing quicker so had to force my peg a little earlier than I like to. 

By now it was around 12 o'clock and I felt I needed to do something before I got to far behind. (With it being a fish race, once you're behind its very hard to catch back up.)

So out came the shallow rig. A few tweaks to the rig and feeding. And i was flying. It was noticeable the fish were smaller but I could catch them a lot quicker.

Between 1:30 and 2:30 I caught quite well and all the while I had been feeding some bait down the edge.

At this point there was a bit of of a dry spell where no one really caught so a quick look down the edge saw a few more fish coming to the net and just helped me tick over. Although I was catching down the edge I think this did a number of things which I felt helped.
1 - it rested my shallow line even though I was still feeding it.
2 - I caught a few bigger stamp fish down the edge.

At 3:00 there were 30 minutes remaining so I went back out shallow as the edge line seemed to die. Resting it proved really good and once again I began catching.

Last 15 minutes I Couldn't get in quick enough and had around 7 or 8 fish in this time.

I finished the match with around 65 - 70 fish.
Give me a total weight of 80-0-0. So as you can tell they were small fish.

This was enough to win my lake with 65lb second and 3rd was 60lb.

James Allen did really well off peg 14 sophies to weigh 160lb and second on his lake.

This match is done on weight and we're leading it going into next weekend. So hopefully we have a couple of good draws and do well!

Thanks for reading.