Charity Pairs, Larford, Friday 3rd April 2015

Larford for Good Friday, the annual Charity Pairs match, my first time fishing this and with getting on for 80 fishing, I was looking forward to it.  A good drive up, after picking up Mike Walker, so all seemed to be on track for a good day.

The format was that the pairs were drawn, first one out of the bag going on Speci lake, second out on Match Lake.  I would have preferred Speci lake, but had to be content with match lake, the draw wasn’t kind and all the locals advised me that I was in a poor area and a poor peg, 64.

I had come to try and win, I wasn’t going to mess about scratching round for small fish, so set up a straight lead to fish 8mm pellet, a method to chuck towards the aerator - surely that would yield a few fish – a rig to fish 6mm banded pellet at 14m, another for meat at 5m and an edge rig.

Starting on the method, the tip remained stationary, even though I was clipped up and virtually touching the aerator as the method went into the water, I’m not renowned for my patience on the feeder/bomb, so it wasn’t too long before that went up the bank.

I had been pinging a few 4 and 6mm’s on the 14m line and first put in a near 3lb carp graced the net, then two skimmers about 8-10oz, cracked it…… but unfortunately the fish thought other wise and the match turned into a real slog to keep bites coming, I had one fish from the margin, a hybrid about 1lb, nothing on the meat or bomb, all my fish (which weren’t many) falling to 6mm banded pellet at 14m.  I tried reducing the feed, upping it and double pouching, I tried cupping in some micros on the 14m line and it seemed best to just keep a few going in with the catapult, lifting and dropping and wait for a bite, a sign I think, that there just weren’t too many fish wanting to feed.

 A few small carp and F1’s and skimmers gave me 17lb, which was more than double the weight off the next peg (62) but unable to beat those further down the section, or end peg 65 who had a big rush bed and tree feature to fish to.  I had been advised that meat wasn’t working, but gambled on it, as it will surely switch on up there soon, I don’t think meat on the 5m line was the reason I struggled, genuinely think it was the draw.

Pleased to hear that Matt raised £1000 for the charity, but the fishing was grim for many, Mike had two fish, he was on Speci and that fished really hard.  Shame the fish weren’t as charitable as the anglers, that’s several matches on Larford that I have struggled to catch (each time I wasn’t alone in that) and with it being 81 miles away I can’t see me rushing back, as it’s 33 miles to Viaduct and even less to Landsend.   It’s easy to moan, but I think we should be thankful for the quality of the fishing in our area, we’re just missing a really consistent winter venue, but the rest of the year we’re spoilt for choice.  

Major projects going on at work for a couple of weeks, so not much chance to get out, looks like Landsend on Sat 11^th and the first of Tony Rixons’ short pole series at Trinity on Sunday 19^th, looking forward to that, as its one of my favourite venues.