South West Teams of Four, Cider Farm 19/09/10

An opportunity arose to stand in for an absent Gary Bedford in his team, so as it was a decent size match, I took the opportunity. It's been a couple of years since I've been to Cider Farm and I was amazed by the triffids , reeds that have sprung up in that time. Everything else was as I remember, a friendly welcome and some words of advice from Mark as he walked round.

I was handed peg 32 on Yarlington, a poisoned chalice, as Des Shipp had won the County Champs from this peg the day before, I’m not too keen on getting a peg that performed well the day before, as the fish can tend to move off or switch off if they’ve been hammered. I had various advice given to me about fishing to the bare bank, into the reeds and down the margins. I set up two shallow rigs, to fish up in the water and on the far shelf, a paste rig –just in case – and a rig to fish at full depth.

It was hard work, I started over by the reeds as there was some fish activity, they didn’t stay there long once the pole and some 6mm pellet went over there, I ended up switching between the bare bank across to my left and the full depth line at 13m, I had 21 fish, I could get a couple up on the shelf and then they’d disappear, no liners or any indication at all that they were there. I would switch to the 13m line and take an odd fish on corn, as well as one on paste, but I went 30 minutes on a couple of occasions without a bite. I tried a long line to keep the pole away from the fish, but with the overhanging vegetation, this was a non starter, I dropped down to 0.11 and a size 20 B960, this did seem to improve the bites missed to hit ratio, but didn’t stop the fish vacating the shelf after 1 or 2 of their mates had been caught.

I guess I spent too long on the paste, as had one fish on it and had an indication virtually every put in, although I think it was small skimmers, even though the blows over the line were ‘proper carp jaccuzzi’s’, My 21 fish went 46.12 and I lost out on picking up some coin by about 4lb, maybe persisting shallow would have seen that weight added to my net. Also I guess that this will be one of the last days this year I go fishing without maggots or casters.

It made a nice change to go to Cider Farm and I think I’ll be back in less than two years this time, although I do fear that the reeds could spoil the venue if they carry on growing unabated.

Results blatantly copied and pasted from Mike Nicholl's blog....

Full Result:

1. Des Shipp 103-15-0 peg 41 Yar
2. Rod Wotton 98-01-0 peg 1 Dab
3. Dean Mallin 89-04-0 peg 7 Dab
4. Paul Elmes 77-13-0 peg 16 Dab
5. Tony Rixon 70-14-0 peg 20 Dab
6. Mark Broomsgrove 69-0-0 peg 6 Dab

Top Silvers:

1. Steve Seagar 21-06-0 peg 15 Shep
2. Mike Nicholls 21-0-0 peg 21 Dab
3. Kev Perry 19-0-0 peg 3 Shep