My first visit to The Glebe, having heard good reports about
the fishery, I managed to get into this match due to someone dropping out. I had managed to get some information from
venue regular, Chris Needham and Andy Kinder, thanks Chris & Andy, I was
basing my approach around corn, pellet, dead maggot and casters, which I wasn’t
going to take, but changed my mind in the run up to the match after speaking to
Chris.
The match was a two dayer, 60 anglers with 30 on pool 1 and
30 spread over some of the other pools and then swap round next day. I had Mike Walker as a travelling partner for
the event and it was an early start picking him up at 5am. We made god time and
got there in the 2 hours 15 the sat nav had predicted, in fact we were a little
early and found a breakfast/burger van that did a very tasty egg and bacon
roll.
We had a walk round lake 1 before the draw and I did fancy
peg 30, it has a pipe running into it and the carp were lining up in the
outflow, it looked solid, that and the wind was blowing right into that end.
The draw for the pairs was made and my partner was George Tamayo.
My ever unreliable drawing arm put me on peg 28, close, but
not close enough, Mike drew peg 66 on pool 4, so after dropping him off, I got
to my peg and set up a 4 hole cage feeder to fish tight to the far bank,
clipping up to get it tight to the rushes.
To windy to consider a waggler, I did set up a rig to fish pellet at
full depth at 14m, a corn rig to fish at 6m, just up the slope, a margin rig,
although I didn’t think that would be too productive with all 30 pegs in. As I had some time, I did set up a paste rig
to fish over the pellet line at 14m.
Starting on the feeder which I had been assured was the
banker to get a few fish in the first 3 or 4 hours, I found it tough going, as
did everyone else I could see, I managed 4 fish in the first hour, so came off
the feeder and had a look at the 14m line, there were fish here, but the wind
was making it virtually impossible to present a bait and I was catching odd
fish, but I felt it should be more. I
had tried to find some trip back against the wind, but no matter where I tried
there was none. I tried paste over this line and had a couple of fish, but the
wind was making it just as impossible as the pellet rig.
I looked on the 5m corn line and this produced the odd fish
and it took me longer than I would have liked to work out the feeding and the
best way to lay the rig in, once I sorted this out the catch rate improved and
I was adding fish to the net, although I wasn’t catching as fast as peg
30. I had fed some maggot and GB in the
margin and this did produce some fish, but wasn’t prolific, only to be expected
with every peg in.
Had I sussed the corn
line out a bit quicker, I feel I should have been pushing Dave Pearson for the
lake win, which he did with 166.00 from peg 25. It was close with the other top
weights on the lake being 154.08 RossN peg 7,
147.00 Barry Wynn peg 30, 138.08
GotGaz peg 11, 138.04 Matt Blackmore peg 24 and myself with 137.12 peg 28.
This was a long way from the winner on the day, Andy Kinder
with 306.00 from peg 92, six weights over 200.00, there were including the 300
and 200’s, 35 weights over a ton, fantastic fishing.
After the match it was back to the Longshoot, where we were
staying, it wasn’t the most salubrious surroundings I’ve ever stayed in, the
bathroom tiling was very late 60’s /70’s, the mattress was strangely ribbed,
but as I only spent a short time in the bed, it wasn’t of great
importance. The carvery was OK for a
bargain £4.95, the bar had karaoke and Andy Kinder gave a Elvis impression,
which resulted in Churchy lobbing his undies on the stage…… from there on the beer flowed and it was a
good night, Matt Blackmore ordered up loads of pizza’s, kebabs and cheesy chips
that showed up about 1am, so a nice healthy preparation for Saturday’s round
2!!
Me and Mike decided not to wait at the shoot for breakfast,
thinking we’d visit the same roadside van as the morning before, that was a
tactical error, as there was a glaring space in the layby, where our breakfast
should have been. We found a corner shop
near the venue, it had very little stock and we had to breakfast and survive
the day on sausage rolls and chocolate, lesson learnt for next time.
Onto the draw and Mike drew peg 5 on pool 1, whilst I drew
peg 67, next to where Mike had been the day before, the lake had thrown up some
good weights with 3 200lb+ nets from the middle pegs and Mike weighing 171 from
peg 66. 67 hadn’t faired so well, but there were obviously fish in the area.
Trying to use the advice I had been given and that Mike had
caught well on the feeder I set it up again, once again the wind ruled out a
waggler, so 4 topkits completed my set up. Two for the 5m corn line, one strung
out shotting and one bulked. A margin
rig and as I had nearly 3 pints of casters left, I found a nice flat area about
2m from the bank to my right at a comfy topset + 1, this was about 18” deep and
was going to be fed with caster and pellet, paste fished over the top.
On the all-in I started on the feeder again and started
catching straight away, but these were small stockies and within 30 minutes I
saw peg 69 catching bigger fish on his 5m line, today was so different than
yesterday, the peg was tripping back hard against the wind on the 5m line and
this led to bites, but also liners, as there were fish there, but not settled
on the bottom feeding. I had seen some
swirls over the caster line and decided to have a look therewith a big lump of
paste and had a nice run of fish to about 6lb, before the line went quiet. A
switch back to the corn at 5m brought the odd fish and with a things slowing
down all round the lake, I fed the margins with about 2 ¾ hours to go. Leaving the margin to settle I had another
fish on the paste, they weren’t queuing up for it, but patience was rewarded.
When I dropped into the LH margin, I had an 8lb fish
straight way, then one a bit bigger, I refed and lost a couple of foulers, with
the reeds at this venue it is impossible to get the rig tight to the bank. I
let it settle and had a fish from the RH margin, before hooking a lump from the LH edge which went 16.08. The RH edge produced a couple of fish and the LH edge
was just causing me a headache with foulers, so for the last half an hour I
went back on the paste line and landed 4 or 5
7-9lb fish before the all-out. I
had a couple of skimmers in my silvers net, decent ones taken on paste and a
couple of squeakers, they along with the carp went 191.08 for a lake win and
joint 5th overall – this was leading with the last lakes results to
come back and it had thrown up 4 200lb+ weights to knock me down the frame. Partner George hadn't faired too well in the drawbag and we finished off the pace of the top pairs.
Churchy taking the win with 252.12 from peg 99, GotGaz 248.00 peg 98, Mr Bald 222.00 peg 109,
HillBilly 199.08 peg 106 with myself and Jason Elwell on 191.08, from 67 and 77
respectively.
Thanks to the organisers, Neil of HillBilly floats for
sponsoring the event and to everyone who made it an enjoyable weekend, just
glad I didn’t draw lake 1 on day 2, as the spawning fish meant weights were
well down, with 69lb winning the lake.
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