England Ladies Fundraiser Match, The Glebe. Tuesday 21st July 2015

I saw this match posted up on MFS and after enjoying my first visit to the Glebe fishery earlier this summer, I put my name down, as the chance to fish it doesn’t come round too often.  The match is organised by Julie Abbott, trying to raise funds to help the England Ladies team fish the World Championship, so a whilst every match is competitive, this was all in good spirit.

A 05.00 alarm call – not my idea of fun – days don’t really start until at least 09.00, preferably 10.00 for me, but load the van up, a look round the garage to make sure nothing was forgotten and then on the road.  The early start to avoid the worst of the midlands traffic worked and I found myself at Roys Rolls, a roadside breakfast van, which is about a mile or so from the Glebe, which was good last time and it was good again today.

A walk round the lakes and a chat with Mark Poppleton, who had assured me several days before, that I needed to take a feeder rod for lake one (and it was windy – again!!)  I was unable to find my bag of cage feeders on Monday, so bought 20 quids worth of new ones in anticipation.  I drew lake 5, peg 76, I was OK until I saw fellow drawbag disaster, Nick Merry heading to the lake, he gloomily told me we were on the worst lake – should that have come as a surprise to me……….

On the plus side, peg 76 is an end peg and it was the end the wind was blowing into, surely I would empty it from here.  Looking at the wind ripping down the lake I left the pellet wagglers in the van (a decision I nearly came to regret) and set up a feeder rod, and four topkits,  one for down the edge, I was convinced that this rig would be busy later on…..   

Two rigs for fishing out in front, the wind was limiting me to about 7m, unless I fished at an angle to my left with the wind, but here the bottom shelved up towards the end bank.  Finally, I found a flatish area about 4m from the bank, which was just under 3’ deep, very similar to where I had a few decent fish on paste on my last visit.

I then realised that I had left my two buckets with the carefully selected pellets and groundbait in, at home - I blame the early start -  thankfully I had a bucket and enough GB and pellets in the van, at the bottom of the bucket were the missing feeders, so I now have a lifetimes supply!!

On the all-in I fed the paste line with pellets and caster, fed some corn at 6m and then started on the feeder across, I was expecting fairly instant bites, first few chucks were made every 40 seconds or so to get some bait in, then as no fish were coming to it, I started leaving it a bit longer, this made no difference at all.  Looking down the lake, everyone seemed to be in the same boat, which in my very limited experience of the fishery was unusual. After ¾ of an hour, I put the feeder rod up the bank (yes, I lasted that long on it) and had a look over the corn, 20 minutes of this and nothing,  so back on the feeder and a switch to maggot on the hook, this produced my first bite, a perch that might make 2oz with a bit of wind assistance. A couple more casts with maggot brought little rattles and knocks on the tip, a sign to me that there were no carp in the area.

By now I had started pinging a few pellets down the towards the end bank rushes and took the feeder off and put a straight lead on, this cast over the pellets, was as the feeder, no liners, no bites.  Earlier than I wanted I fed the LH margin, just past a long sleeper which looked an obvious place to fish and then had a look over the paste line, which I had kept topped up.  I wasn’t very confident of catching on it, as it had, as the rest of the peg seemed barren of fish and so it proved, I had several ‘looks’ over it during the match and remained biteless.

It was now 14.40, (11.30 start) and I had a 3lb carp and a perch, I had an early look down the margin and hooked another perch which fell off unshipping the topkit, I was wondering whether to wrap it in and get home at a reasonable time.  I decided to give it a bit longer and went back on the corn at 6m and to my surprise the float buried, carp on.  I netted a 5lb fish and refed, float went under again, missed bite, back in, another fish, at last they’d turned up.  I could seem most of the lake, or at least the rods and poles of the others and I knew it was hard for everyone, so got my head down and whilst they weren’t queuing up I managed to keep the odd fish coming to the net.  Mick on the next peg had picked up his pellet waggler rod and much to my surprise, given the wind, he started to catch, so much so, I was in two minds whether to set one up.   I decided instead to feed pellets across and if necessary drop in on the straight lead.  The corn line went quiet, so I had another look into the margin and had a 4lb fish, that was to be my one and only from what I thought would be a banker.  I tried the straight lead over to the board opposite and did managed one carp on it, but the 20” hooklength rule seems like a recipe for leaving hooks and line in the far bank vegetation, it’s the venue rule so I stuck to it, but I’m not convinced it’s a good idea.

Back on the corn line and with an hour to go I had 50lb on my clicker, so started the second net for the last hour, this saw 5 fish go into it, certainly not hectic action, but much better than the first half of the match.  I was fairly sure than Mick’s pellet waggler approach had beaten me, I was thinking about 70lb in my nets, the scales came along the bank and when they got to Mick, top weight on the lake was from the other end peg, 85, with 51.08.  Micks fish went 82.04 and I was even more convinced then, that I made a big mistake in not getting off my box and setting the waggler up, but luckily my poor estimating skills saved the day, my clicked net went 59.00 and the last hour net 29.04 for 88.04 and the lake win.  Fellow long distance traveller Nick had 42.00 from peg 82 and his portent of doom about being on the worst lake was spot on, the other lakes were all won with better weights.

I had to hang around at the end for my lake money and so stayed the extra few minutes for the raffle, not that I need have bothered, there were loads of prizes, but even though I had a handful of tickets, my numbers remained uncalled.  £850 raised to help the ladies on their way to the world champs, shame it didn’t fish to the usual standard (apart from lake 1) and I was glad I didn’t go home early.

1: Mick Wilkinson  212.08 (inc 103lb skimmers) pool 1 peg 27

2: Roger Edmund 197.08 pool 1 peg 21

3: Mark Baker 169.08 pool 1 peg 17

4: Ian Farrow 167.10 pool 1 peg 1

Other lakes:

Pool 4; Doddy 103.08 peg 67

Pool 5: Chris Fox 88.04 peg 76

Pool 6: Paul Robinson 94.00 peg 90

Pool 7: Joe Wheldon 128.08 peg 100