Cable Pond Clare

This Sunday I was off to cable pond in Clare, I've never been to this lake this late in the year before, so I had no clue as to how it would fish. I had bloodworm and joker with me in-case it was really hard, and hoped to catch a good bag of silvers over this.
My match was already looking downhill before id even got to the draw bag as I realized id forgotten my wheel kit for my seatbox! All i can say is I will never make that mistake again, and it certainly wouldn't be possible to carry my gear along a river bank like in the old days.
I drew peg 17, which I felt was down the wrong end of the lake, although we have been here only a few times, the winner always comes from the top end as they seem to get bream and the bottom end doesn't! So being the very bottom peg I didn't feel overly confident, but there's section points and matchman points to be won at every match so I was going to try my very best.
I started the match by feeding chop worm and caster on one line, and joker on a longer line, unfortunately there's not much to say now as I simply sat there for 2 hours bite less  I was working through the lines and by half 12 id managed 3 little perch and a roach, not even off the joker line!
At this point i went behind to my gear and got my bomb rod out, on three 10mm discs of bread went and I chucked it just off the island in front of me, its about 7-8 foot deep just a few feet away from the island here.
I sat for no more than 30 seconds before the tip wrapped round and I had a carp on, I couldn't believe it! After a 5 minute battle I had a nice 7 lb carp in the net, certainly not a bad thing considering I couldn't get a bite on a bloodworm.
I spent the next few hours fishing the pop up bread and having a quick look on my pole lines and just going through the motions, I picked up a few more little perch but nothing was happening.
Word came down that someone was getting a few bream and big roach up the top end, so with an hour to go I knew i had to get another carp if I was to win, I didn't feel as though anyone was going to beat me for the section with silvers, and I certainly wasn't catching any so I felt going for another carp would be the best thing to do.
I fished the last hour casting all over the swim just trying to place my bread in front of a carp, but no joy, with 5 minutes to go i reeled in and had a roach about 6 ounces hanging on the end, little bit random, it even doubled my weight of silver fish! I was left with the tricky idea of whether i should recast to where i caught the roach, which is where I caught the carp earlier, or cast into the fishy looking channel to my left, I decided to cast back to the same spot, and whack, the tip just wrapped round, 30 seconds later the whistle blew!
I took my time with this one, as it was absolutely a make or break fish, after a 8 minute battle it was in the net, a nice 8 lb carp.
I must admit, im not normally one to get lucky in these sorts of conditions, im normally the one who works hard catching loads of fish just to be beat by some lucky sod who catches a lump!
Unfortunately though I wasn't lucky enough to win, first place had caught 21 lb of bream and roach, a fantastic weight considering the lake was iced over the day before. My final weight was just over 15 lb, more than enough to win the section as 2nd in the section had caught 5 lb.
So I had managed 2nd in the match and 1st in the section, from a peg where I could have come dead last, its fair to say i had a fair bit of luck, but i fished to the conditions and unfortunately there were just no silvers in my peg, not even joker could pull them in, I had to catch some carp and I managed two, I didn't even set my rod up at the start as I just didn't think you would catch one after the lake had been frozen as this isn't a normal commercial full of fish. So Id had an extremely good result considering, I had beat all my main competitors in the overall league aswell which was a bonus. You need results like this in order to win league titles, so I hope I can keep it up for the remainder of the season.
Its off to ash grounds at the Fennes next week, which I really look forward too. You can catch some awesome bags of roach here in the winter, and if your in the right peg you can even bag up on f1s or bream on the right day, so bloodworm and joker will be the order of the day, and i fully expect to catch a good double figure bag of silverfish next week, providing the weather stays consistent.
Thanks for reading this week.

Tight Lines
Reece Hearn.

Fennes Hobbs Croft Match

This Sunday I was off to Hobbs croft lake at The Fennes fishery, this lake can offer some awesome silver weights over the winter months, and despite last weeks blow out I was eager to get to fish this lake with my bloodworm and joker! The weather leading up to this had slightly improved, although we had freezing conditions all week, Saturday was 4c and Sunday was 8c, so fortunately the ice had melted for us to fish on Sunday!
At the draw I drew peg 69, this is a very shallow peg, no more than 2 and a half foot at 13meters, fortunately the water was up a little bit so I had more like 3 foot, and the winner had come from peg 67 last week so there should hopefully be some fish about! I didn't really know what pegs would fish, was the temperatures had been up and down for the last 2 weeks the fish could be anywhere.
My plan for most of the swims would have been a 2 line approch, an 11meter ball it in bloodworm line, and a shorter caster/ chopped worm line for some perch, but being in this shallow water id decided i would fish 11meters on the pole and also set a tip up to try a pop up boilie or bread if bites slowed down, in the hope I may hook a carp that might be moping around.
At the all in, I fed 4 loose fed pots of joker simply split with leam, I then put 3 double leam balls of joker in on top of this, the reason I didn't put it all into balls was because it was so shallow, I felt i would get a quicker start by loose feeding the first bit, and the double leam balls would hopefully hang around for a while before they broke up, in turn increasing the time I would get bites, i also added about 1/4 of a pint of casters and the same in dead maggots to this mix. I always aim to be able to catch on caster over my joker no matter where I am fishing, you always get bigger fish on caster, and on good days you will catch just as quick on caster as you will a bloodworm or a maggot, and if the fish are twice the size then why not?
I chucked the tip our for the first 20minutes to let the line settle, nothing came of it so i went over the joker, I started catching straight away on maggot, and bites were coming faster and faster, after an hour I changed to caster to straight away get into the better roach, I caught continuously until about 12:30 when bites started to dry up.
I decided i would top up with another ball on joker, and then chuck the tip out while I ate my sandwich, as i was taking my first bite of my sandwich i noticed my tip was wrapped round, picking up the rod i could feel some resistance but it wasn't quite right, then all of a sudden it shot off, foul hooked carp! I had it on for about 5 minutes before the hook finally pulled, little bit gutted but i didn't feel as though anyone was going to catch a carp today so not to worry. I had another chuck for no more bites then back onto the joker line!
Action was instant, and i was catching fish a chuck and topping up with another ball of joker every 30-40minutes for the remainder of the match, unfortunately with an hour to go I ran out of my joker, I only started with about half a match pack as i was too generous to give some away before the start! If i had have had a whole pack I'm confident i could have had another 7-8lb as the fish were really having it. Unfortunately though my bites dried up for the last hour and it was just the odd fish.
I weighed in 19lb with 147 roach, so a fantastic days fishing, but what more it could have been if i didn't run out of bait! It also cost me the Match as the bloke opposite on 76 had caught skimmers and perch from the deeper water and weighed 21lb, I'm confident I could have beat this had i not run out of bait, but such is life!
So 2nd it was, yet again some solid points!

Next week im off to cable pond in Clare ive never fished this venue in winter, but previous experience tells me there's alot of skimmers and big roach, and some great big carp, so il have to just go by what happens on the day!
Thanks for reading!
Reece.

Weekend matches, Rayne lodge and The fennes

This Saturday I was off to Rayne lodge top lake for an open match, this is the most consistent lake of the 3 at Rayne, and catches can sometimes reach 100lb even in winter. The weather leading up-to this was awful, with temperatures not going above 4c during the week! We had some severe frost for Thursday and Friday night so there was a possibility we might need ice breakers! Fortunately though, the lake was not frozen, although the bottom lake was completely iced over as it is a fair bit lower than the top lake down a steep hill.

The fancied pegs on this lake in these conditions are always 20 and 21, these pegs can cast right into the bowl area where the fish hold up in winter, and you can catch really well on pop up bread, 3,4 and 8 are also good pegs as they can also cast near the area.

At the draw I pulled out peg 3, not a bad peg, and also a peg id drawn the previous winter and won the match from with 94lb. I had a good angler on peg 4 to my left, and a good angler on peg 20, so I had my work cut out!

Id decided to fish a long pole line, a margin line about 2 meters out, and also a bomb rod with pop up bread. The plan was to start on the Bread in the hope that I could nick a few fish quickly, then after an hour or so hope to find some bigger fish on the long pole, and if it was really good then maybe the margins would produce a couple of lumps.

I started the match by popping up 3 punches of bread 12inches off the bottom, this is always my starting point at this lake and if it works you can stay at this depth all day, unfortunately my tip didn't go round! And after 3 chucks and 15minutes id had nothing, but nor had anyone else. I decided to try 2 punches instead of 3, as I had done on the bottom lake a few weeks back, I cast out and as I was sinking my line I felt the rod go, Carp number one was in the net. I cast out again with 2 punches only to miss a bite, possibly a skimmer I thought, so I went down to a single punch and had 2 carp in 2 chucks, but it just didn't feel right as i was getting a lot of indications and normally fishing bread your tip will whack round or drop back. I decided to try 2 punches of 6mm bread instead of my usual 10mm, this was bang on the money and the tip went round 5 times in a row, by this time the fish seemed to be a bit more confident and i was able to go back to 2 punches of 10mm bread, bites came quicker and I was hooking into everything, by the time id had 20 carp, I hadn't seen anyone else get more than about 5 or 6, so I was miles ahead at this stage. Unfortunately  things began to slow, and  my catch rate dropped, I decided to try my pole lines, but not with too much confidence as I hadn't seen a fish caught on a pole, I didn't get anything on the pole so it was back on the tip.

The only problem with this peg is that you can only chuck to the end of the island, and not into the bowl, so I had no way to follow the fish to where they had backed off to, fortunately it would prove to be too little too late for my competitors as they could only seem to catch at my pace even though I was now struggling. 

I finished the match with 34 carp, managing to pick up a few more fish on the bread, and one on the long pole! Id tried changing depth and bait sizes for the last few hours, but it didn't seem to matter what i did, 12inches off the deck with 2 pieces of 10mm punch was the most productive, I feel this was best as its big enough to provide lots of visibility but also small enough for the carp in this lake to easily suck up as they swim along.

My final weight was 76lb 8oz, which was more than enough to beat 2nd place peg 4 next to me with 50lb, there was another 50lb weight and also a few in the 30s and 40s, so the fish were still slightly spread out, just seemingly most had made the move to the bowl area.

So a good start to the weekend! Another good result and match win on a water that I just keep growing in confidence!

Sunday was a bit of a nightmare to be quite honest! Id drawn 80 on hobbs croft, which is a good perch peg in the winter, the only issue I had was that the perch didn't want to feed! I don't think a single person caught one on the lake. Another problem i had was that bloodworm and joker was banned for this match, so unless by some kind of miracle the silvers were in my peg, I was going to really struggle!

I ended the match with 32 small fish for 1lb! A lovely half ounce average :( nothing whatsoever worked on the day, and I feel I have some good experience on this lake, especially in winter as i fish here often. The lake was won from a peg in the shallow water off peg 67, he caught 14lb of skimmers on pellet, I believe the fish were here because the sun was shining on this area all day, and obviously shallow water warms up quicker than deep water! Another good weight came from behind the island on peg 74, this can be a great winter peg, in the summer we don't put this peg in as its a waste of time, you just cant compete, but in the winter for some reason the better silvers hold up here, the angler in this peg managed 13lb of quality roach and skimmers, at least some people had caught some fish and had a days fishing! The next best weight was 8lb from another shallow peg mostly skimmers as well.  99 times out of 100 id be happy with peg 80, unfortunately today was that 1 in a 100 day where is just wasn't meant to be! its about 5-6ft deep here, the shallow pegs are about 2-3ft, mind boggling, but that's winter fishing for you!

As you can see above i have poorly edited this overhead image so you can see where the winning weights came from, as expected, on ash grounds in the bowl area, the winning weight consisted of one carp, 8 f1s and a bream, the eventual winner was Dickie Carr so well done to him on a hard day.

Next week I am back on hobbs, fortunately I have a match-pack of bloodworm and joker ordered as it is allowed next week, so I should have something to talk about next week! I hope! I will be hoping that I draw one of the 3 pegs that had the best weights this week, or even the shallow bank along the right hand side. the only reason this wasn't in on the match this week is because it was iced up! But I fully expect this area to hold some quality roach that will feed on the bloodworm.

Thanks for reading this week, I look forward to posting next week,

Tight lines,

Reece Hearn