A few familiar faces with who I had a discussion about the current state of match fishing and the seeming reluctance of people to pay an increasing amount in relation to inflation. Anyway, that ended with me a Lee Werrett putting the match fishing world to rights, without actually changing anything!!
I drew peg 48, which is the end peg on the spit, so no parking behind my peg today, but its only a short walk. My main attack was going to be pellet, banded 6 or 8mm, it was quite windy, so I plumbed up at 2+3 and found a slope rising to my right, I picked a spot a few inches up the slope as a starting place. I did plumb up a bit further out in case the wind subsided - but it didn't and that rig remained unused. the rig for the slope was a 0.5 NG Gimp 0.16 line with a 16 LWG on 0.14, with a band. A 0.4 NG Gimp was also set up, this with a bulk shot direct above the 6" hooklength, which was the same as the other rig.
I set up a margin rig with a 14 960 to 0.18 again with a band, to fish at 9m down towards the point of the spit. I also assembled and clipped up a method to fish to the island, that went on the roost and stayed there until it was disassembled and put back in the bag.
On the all in I cupped some 4 & 6mm pellets in on the pole line and started catching small carp and mini tench right from the off. This got a bit better when I put a big pole pot on and fed via this, as it was too windy to throw accurately at that distance and a bit too close to use a catapult. Only problem was the size of the fish, I had some meat in the bag and started flicking that in at topkit range, with a few pellets. A switch to this saw me put a bigger stamp of fish in the net for a short spell, before the smaller ones came back and then the little tench rocked up. I upped the feed and this brought the carp back, but nothing too big. I had been feeding the margin, with a little GB and pellet and went in there and had 3 fish straight away, then nothing. Refeed and back to the short line, this gave up a couple of better fish and then slowed up, so back to the margin, this saw the biggest fish of the day, which was 7 or 8lb netted.
The fish would come straight to feed in the margin and then go once it was eaten, maybe it was a little too shallow? I tried to get round it with a big pot on the pole and feeding this way, but I am not convinced it was enough feed - these are hungry fish and it is great to actually fish a veniue that responds to feed, some venues now are like winter fishing, as you have to be so frugal with bait,
I swapped between the short line and the margin up to the end, pulling the band of the hair rig into the meat - I went up to 10mm meat to try and pick out better fish - this was quite successful and I didn't miss too many bites, I even had a stunning golden tench on it, lovely looking fish.
I thought I had about 115lb, but its hard to judge with these small and varied sized fish, the scales said I had 137lb, which enough to take the section and 4th place, well done to Dave Romain on what I believe is a new record with 192lb. I will be getting back to Toder again soon, as it was an enjoyable day and I managed the a couple of the better stamp fish for the first time today.
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