To start, i will tell you a little about myself. Im a 20year old match angler from Essex, and i fish with my local Braintree and bocking angling club, along with taking part in open matches. Ive been a keen angler since the age of 6 when my grandad first took me fishing. And ive taken part in matches since i was 11. I quite litrally live to fish and couldnt see it any other way!
To start with, i won my clubs evening league, winning 5 of the 8 matches, and placing in the top 3 in the ones i didnt win! We fish our evening league at 2 different venues, one being our club lake, which is full of rudd, perch, cruicians and small carp. The other being the Fennes hill and black lake, which has a good head of lumpy carp and some good bream. I managed to win all 4 of the matches held at our club lake, on the same method each time. I like to think its abit of an art form as only a couple of anglers seem to have got the grasp of it so far, is basically consists of fishing for bites, using balanced tackle so i can land the crafty cruicians aswell as make the most of the massive head of rudd and perch. A common bag of fish for me from this lake is about 20lbs of small silvers, and any added cruicians and carp i catch. I actually set the lake record with 35lb 8oz using this method, which included 18 of the cruicians! The most important part of my method is to keep busy, theres not a moment in a match when im not moving, i tend to fish on a top kit plus a short no 4 to get me into the deeper water but also keep me fishing to hand to keep my speed up, because of this, i am able to feed by hand, and feed accuratly.
Onto the feed, very simple, 3pints of red maggots with a few whites as a change bait, whites often catch me a perch a chuck when im struggling, which soon add to your weight. Also a sloppy soil/groundbait combo. Being quite a clear lake i feel as though the cloud created by the slop really gives the fish confidence, and you can often have them in a frenzy getting a fish a chuck, which just doesnt happen if you simply loose feed the maggots.
The way in which i feed tends to be loose feed 10-15maggots, flick rig in, feed small ball of slop by hand, catch fish, repeat. Sometimes you have to alter whether you put your rig in first, maggots first, slop first etc. But as a rule maggots, rig, slop is where i start and work from there.
Onto the Rigs. I always start on the bottom, which at this lenght out tends to be 4-5ft, and work my way into the session, you tend to find that you catch bigger fish on the bottom aswell which always gives you a good start, after about 15minutes il be looking to go shallow or if im getting bites on the drop i will change sooner, as fishing shallow always produces quicker bites. I tend to start at 2foot deep in 4foot of water on my shallow line, and go up and down depending on where the fish are. my best bags of fish have been at 2foot as the cruicians dont seem to come shallower than this and they really are good bonus fish. i often have 3 shallow rigs set up at 1,2,3ft and one for on the deck. Shotting patters have a big impact aswell, sometimes you will just be missing bites galore, change the shotting patter and your into everything, often there are so many fish in the peg you can just have a bulk of shit 6inches from the hook, sometimes a bulk and one dropper or 2 droppers, sometimes a spread shirt button style shotting patter works,its different everytime i go there! Alot depends on what stamp of fish are in front of you, as there are the 8-10oz rudd then theres the 2-4oz rudd! If the big ones are in front of you then happy days, you will catch at 2 foot and catch everything. If the smaller ones are there then you have to be quick and efficient and feed heavy until bigger rudd and cruicians turn up. This method really works well and ive drawn poor pegs and struggled for the first hour, just to pull the fish in and catch like a bat out of hell for the remainder of the match.
Ive employed this method of fishing at other venues i go to and really caught very well. Some venues seem to be good with casters in the slop instead of maggot, some with worm and caster etc but its all down to the lake you are fishing and what baits work well, one thing for sure is worms work everywhere!
My Match this sunday was on the Fennes hill and black lake. I drew peg 17, which was one of 2 pegs i didnt really want! This peg is home to some big carp and not usually many silvers as its abit tucked away in the corner, i had a big reed bed that went 13meters out on my left, and the rest was open water. But being the match angler i am, im always looking to extract the best weight of fish from my peg as possible! So i set out an approach in order to do this, i fed a line at 13meters on the end of the reeds in about 5foot of water with pellets, i felt becuase of the cold nights i wouldnt catch the carp in shallow water, if they fed at all! so with my reed line here i felt as though i could get f1s carp and maybe even a bream or 2. I also fed a 6meter worm,caster,slop line, the idea of this was to catch everything that swims. i was hoping i would get into the big roach and perch and the odd bream would come along, so by fishing 6 meters i was making the most of being in deep enough water for the bream and also being close enough to catch roach quickly. I felt as though the match would be won with about 40lb becuase the cold nights had kicked in, so i was confident with my approch, even though i wasnt in a noted peg.
The Match began, and i fed a pot of slop of 6 meters, and a few pellets at 13meters. I was straight into roach at 6 meters, while everyone was out on the tip hoping to catch a quick bream or f1, i was busy getting a bite a chuck! I managed about 4lb of roach before i saw anyone even catch a bream! Every 2 fish i was feeding a small pot of slop, and every 5 fish i was feeding a pouchfull of pellets onto my 13meter line. after an hour id had 4 big bream and lots of roach and perch, quite litrally a bite a chuck! But it died off, so i potted another big pot of slop and went on the 13meter line. First put in was a 2lb f1, second put in was a missed bite and that was it. clearly regular loose feed was not the way! So i potted in a big pot of pellet and went back to the 6m line. Straight back into the action, a fish a chuck! I was finding when the bream where there, the best bait was an inch long piece of worm, but when they wernt double caster produced some really nice roach, it was just a case of swapping about! After 30mins i went back onto the pellet line and had another f1. Then nothing. I felt as though the cold had put the f1s and carp off so decided to keep pinging a few pellets with a pult and the odd pot every now and then. By the end of the session id had 1 carp of 5lb 3 f1s and a few skimmers on the pellet line, not so great, but still important fish to catch to build my weight.
My main line at 6meters was awesome sport all day, and by following the feeding pattern i explained, i had fish every single put in, be it a roach, a perch a rudd or a bream. My approach to catch all that swam was the right method of the day, and i finished with 63lb, with probably 20lb of roach in there aswell! A truely awesome mixed bag of fish! second place was 40lb of bream and f1s, So id done more than enough to win, and wouldnt have done it if i had neglected the small silvers.
My summer as a whole was superb, making my first ever ton at rayne lodge fishery, then 2 weeks later making my first ever double ton with 201lb, to break my club record! Then just 2 weeks ago i had 431lb at arrans lake in chelmford, truely fish soup! This year was my first year using method feeders and pellet wagglers aswell, and all i can say is these have transformed my catches from just framing to winning! Ive learnt alot this year! Because of this im currently leading my club championship, won plenty of matches and trophys! And had a truely brilliant summer, despite the rain!
To finish i would like to say thankyou for reading my first ever blog! Im sure theres many improvements to be made, which i will look at and improve for next time! I hope to post up my weekly match reports as i fish every sunday and opens on saturdays when they are available!
Tight lines!
Reece Hearn.
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