The last few weeks I've been fishing at Coleman's cottage in
the spring league. This is run by the onsite tackle shop owner Paul chambers.
This league is 12 consecutive matches, which in my opinion is a few too many as
its hard for anglers to commit to that many matches in a row without having
team commitments, an example being I had to miss the first round due to it
being the same date as the Essex interclub league final round on Maldon canal.
This meant I was on the back foot straight away and seeing as I will be missing
the last two rounds, I will have no real chance of winning the league, but my
goal has been to finish in the top 30, as the top 30 go through to a Final
where you fish for (hopefully) a decent pay day. Being at Coleman's, which is a
fantastic venue, it has drawn many top anglers in to fish, including big names
like Simon Colclough, Terry Edwards, Gary miller, Tony Curd and Danny Grimsby to name a few and with attendances so far up
to 74anglers, it's not easy to frame. Sections have been 6 or 7 in a section,
with a section win gaining 4 points, 2nd gets 3, 3rd gets 2, then if you weigh
you get 1, yet again I personally don't favour this way, but I guess it is done
so that people can't walk away with it so much and you can afford to miss a
match or two.
I have fished 8 rounds of the league so far, I've drawn
really poorly on some, and bang on with others, doesn't seem to be any middle
ground for me so far, and I think I have 17 or 18points, which puts me roughly
around 14th/15th/16th area of the league table, more importantly I think I have
enough points to stay in the top 30 if I don't fish any more matches.
My most fun match of the series has to be when I drew peg 56
on stepfield a few weeks ago, this is one of the 3 or 4 best pegs on the lake,
if not the best peg on there! it's fair to say I had abit of a grin on my face
when I drew it out the drawbag. it's been a good section winning peg since the
league started, and also framed in a couple of matches. new side of stepfield
is full of small f1s, mostly averaging less than a pound. my way of fishing
this lake seems to be abit different than others, most people tend to fish long
or start on 2+2, but I start on a top kit! yes a top kit! providing I have at
least 3 foot of water, if not on goes another section and that where I start.
My aim on a match on here is to catch as short as possible for as long as
possible, they always back off after a while, but you can catch very quick when
you catch short, I basically catch till I can't get a bite and then add another
section and start again.
I started the match on this day on a top kit plus one, as on
plumbing up I had about 2 feet on a top kit, then a section further out it was
like a cliff face and went down to about 5foot, although ideally id rather
catch in shallower water, I couldn't find anything better short, and with such
a feature underwater like id just found, it had to be the perfect place to
start. I Also plumbed all the way across finding the depth, it gradually got
deeper to the middle and then sloped up, and I found I could use the same rig
from about 5 sections to 8 sections if I needed too, then I set up another rig
where I had about 3 foot of water across slightly to my left, this peg has a
lovely aerator straight across but with
the wind I never had a chance of holding the pole. I also clipped up a bomb rod
next to the aerator in case I couldn't hold the pole at all (it really was
blowing a gale with winds up to 50mph on the day) whilst clipping up I hooked a
carp, in the mouth, it had actually taken my quick stop, must have been hungry!
after that I decided the first thing I would do on the whistle was to chuck the
bomb over and see if I could snag one or two quick at the start, as carp are
not easy to come by on this lake, and are a lot bigger than the f1s! My rigs
were all 4x14 malman slim f1 floats, these are basically a super strong Chianti
float which is perfect for this type of fishing as you need the super sensitive
presentation along with a strong float to withstand bagging. I dot my floats to
a pimple, and then use bristle grease to hold them up, this is the best way to
fish for f1s with pellet when fishing dead depth, I then use a strung out bulk
of no 11s spread 1cm apart, starting from the 4inch hooklenght of 0.10 using an
18 b911 f1 hook, for me this has been the perfect rig set up. I also have 4x12s
for shallower water, also 4x10s in case its incredibly hard and 4x16s for down
the track in the 6- 7foot+ depths. although these floats may seem heavy for the
depths of water, I have found its on the final 10-18inches of water that really
matter to getting a bite, so the quicker you can get to that point the better,
especially when your catching quickly.
On the whistle I put about 30micros on my top kit plus one,
and chucked the bomb out with some pop up bread on a hair, I had 2 big f1s in
two chucks, which was good! but not the carp I had hoped for, on my third chuck
it sat for about 2 minutes before a small f1 so I came short on the pole.
I was straight into fish on the pole, catching a smaller
stamp of f1s than usual, but I was putting fish in the net one a bung and from
my experience of this lake it's hard for anyone to beat that even if they are
getting odd carp and big f1s. I caught nonstop for the first 2 hours, feeding
about 20micros in a small frenzee soft pot for every 2 or 3 fish. the reason I didn't
feed every fish is quite simply because its way more time consuming filling a
kinder pot up each time. I was fishing either a 4 or 6mm expander on the hook, I
like using ringers expanders as they stay on the hook great just from pumping
them and you don't need to add gelatine or anything silly. 6mm caught me bigger
fish, but once id caught the big fish in the swim I then missed bites from
smaller ones so it was important to keep changing to make the most of the peg.
now a key thing I have found particularly on this lake, is how you lower the
rig in, despite the fact I was catching one a bung, if I didn't lower the rig
in correctly you could sit there and not get a bite, my method here is to bomb
the rig so the float is out the water and a little line, maybe about 8inches in
total from float tip to water, then lower it really slow, and I mean really
slow, this never fails to get a bite! on the rare occasion it does, it probably
means there's not allot of fish in your swim, but I don't leave it more than 10
seconds then I lift and drop again, this is a deadly tactic for f1s and one you
should try if you don't already!
back to the match, after 2 hours my swim completely died, by
this point the wind was so bad I had no chance of holding the pole anywhere
across, I tried adding another section and I could barely hold 2+2! I knew
straight away I was in mega trouble if I couldn't get the fish short again, I
then decided I had to try the bread again and try my best to rebuild the short
line. I simply threw 5 or 6 4mm pellets every minute over the short line whilst
fishing the bomb to hopefully draw some fish back and get them confident while I
wasn't fishing it. on the bomb line, I really didn't expect it to be that good,
on previous occasions I've always caught a few carp on it, but only big f1s
seem to have it as it seems too positive for small f1s, id also found a feeder
was no good because however small a feeder you used it really was too much bait
and they back off, fortunately though I had a really good hour on the bomb, catching
a few carp but plenty of big f1s, I had possibly about 30lb in the hour on the
bomb, which was probably more than id caught in the first 2 hours on the pole,
so I wanted to get the most out of this, unfortunately id died completely and
the bloke to my right started catching so I guess they had moved on.
At this point I came short on the pole again, and found
myself missing bites! id clearly drawn the fish shallow by my regular loose
feed, a quick try on a shallow rig just didn't catch the fish quick enough and
they just didn't seem quick enough. I went back on the deck and started
trickling in micros which really got the fish going again, I caught more and
more as the day went on after this, especially the last hour it seemed to the
best it had been all day, I kept having odd chucks on the bomb during this
final spell, hoping to snag an odd carp, but only found the odd f1, and by this
point they were no bigger than the pole line so just persevered for the
remainder of the match, finishing with 150fish in total. A proper cracking days
winter fishing that for sure!
My fish totalled 102lb so you can see what I mean by small
stamp of fish! 2nd on the lake was further down the lake with 37lb. the peg to
my right had weighed 21lb and the peg to the left had packed up and gone home!
Id walked the lake, and section and even framed in the match taking 2ndplace
payout, most fun I've had all winter!
The reason I say that was the most fun match I've had and
not the best is because I was on the flyer and won easily, the best match I believe
I have fished this series is when I drew peg 54, which is close to the flyer,
but 55, 56 and 57 are certainly better pegs! On the day I managed to weigh in
89lb, and take the section win against some top anglers on all of the better
pegs, and finish 3rd on the lake and 5th in the match. I fished identical
tactics to how I fished peg 56, except on the day I actually managed to catch
really well shallow on a top kit for the first hour to put 60 fish in my net
before it started tailing off as the lake tends to do, 2nd in the section was
peg 56 with 80lb on the day with a browning backed angler. so for me this has
been my best match!
I've had a few other decent matches, but I've drawn horrible
on wood lake and have been on the wrong peg on the wrong day on a couple of
occasions, but I've beaten the anglers either side of me nearly every time,
which is sometimes all you can do, these harder pegs have made me really work
hard to get extra points, and without that extra effort i probably wouldn't be
in the top 30, so I'm happy with that.
In the next few weeks my team Bills tackle will be
practicing for the first round of the angling times/ bait tech super cup, we
have drawn Colchester at their water so we expect it to be a tough match, but
after we reached the final last year we are all going to be fighting to make it
their again as it was a fantastic experience and a competition I would love to
win. I will post updates once we have fished this match
thanks for reading,
Reece.
