First match for the 2011 campaign starts at Manor farm leisure in Harvington near Evesham. The weather leading up to the day was very cold with loads of frosts and the wind on the day was horrible – really blowing across the complex and was very cold to boot!!!!

Pool for the day was Island pool, and as the name suggests it’s a round pool with an island in the middle. Standard attack when its colder is to fish towards the island with the pole not really figuring but worth having as a back-up – peg 26 stuck to my hand at the draw. Not the best of draws as it put me on the back bank with the wind straight across me, but I had an island chuck to hopefully put some fish in the net

Bait for the day was kept fairly simple: -

• 1 pint of red and white maggots with loads of maize mixed with red dye as an attractor which clouds up nicely as the feeder sinks.
• 2 pints of softened micros
• 1 kilo of Top Secret Carp yellow, which was riddled through a flour sieve and darkened off with some black dye. The riddled ground bait gave me a really nice soft mix that holds together nicely, and can hold plenty of particles if needed, or will hold round a method feeder very nicely – I would be more than happy to use this as a 50/50 mix with micros to and would be confident of the feed staying on the feeder after the cast.
• 4 and 6mm expander pellets.

Tackle for the day was: -

• Shakespeare Mach 1xt 8ft picker rod, Shimano GTM with 6lb Daiwa Sensor and small method feeder.
• Shakespeare Mach 1xt 8ft picker rod, Shimano GTM with 6lb Daiwa Sensor and a small Drennan Carp maggot feeder, 0.14 hooklength to a 16 B611
• 0.75g homemade SP Pellet Pencil, with 1.5mm tip, 0.14  Ultima Power Silk mainline to 0.10 hooklength and an 18 G-Point Pellet
• 1.5g Garbolino DC18, 0.14 Power Silk mainline to 0.10 hooklength and an 18 G-Point Pellet
• 2g DC18, 0.14 Powersilk mainline to 0.12 hooklength and a 16 G-Point Pellet.

I had to go as big on the pole rigs as the wind was that bad, and the 1.5g just held nicely and 2g was solid. I set the pencil up in case the wind died down and I could get some decent presentation. The rods were for the islands – the method was clipped up around 2-3 meters off the island up the far shelf and the maggot feeder clipped ¾ of the way over in the deeper water.

I plumbed up 2 lines on the pole with 13m the furthest I could go with the wind directly across me and even that was hard work, but it plumbed up nicely. The plan was to feed one line with just pellet and the second line with small balls of the ground bait mix with some maggot packed in.

On the whistle the pole lines got fed and the maggot feeder was sent over towards the island (although it landed a good five yards to the right if where it was supposed to due to the wind). I was happy to sit on this for a good 10 minutes between casts, and on the 3^rd cast the tip pulled round and the first fish was on and in the net. No more bites followed for the next 30 minutes, so it was time to see if there was anything nearer the island – another 30 minutes and 3 casts later and 1 liner was all I had to show for my efforts – I had topped up my pole lines once with a tiny amount of feed during this time.

The wind was still bad but I’d sensed it has calmed a little so I fancied giving the pole  try – the 1.5 g rig was first to go out over the pellet line – it was tanking though like a river and I couldn’t really get any presentation with a pellet on the hook – I came back in, put 6 inches on the depth and swapped the expander for a red maggot and went over the ground bait line -  2 minutes later a roach gave me some excitement with a positive bite (and a bit of an overzealous strike, the roach got some air time). Straight back out and the float dipped again, thinking another roach, I was pleased to see the rig stay where it was and some elastic come out as an F1 plodded about – I was using middy 6-8 elastic doubled through my match kit which is absolutely perfect for this type of fishing.

2 hours in now and 2 F1’s and a roach in the net, but I felt there were defiantly fish on the ground bait line with the odd indication. I gave the other lines a try including the feeder lines, with no real indications and not a lot of confidence in my own head, so back to the ground bait pole line.

Another fish after the rest gave me some more confidence and a swap to the 2g rig gave me another fish straight away, so there was definitely something there. After this little burst, things did go quiet, so I topped up with a golf ball of feed with maggots packed in. I gave it minutes to settle and at the same time the wind died a little so I tried the pencil float over the pellet line and was rewarded with a fish. Another hour had passed giving me 2 hours to go – the guy to my left had been catching steadily on a maggot feeder half way over and was well ahead of me, and a few other on the better feeder pegs had caught steadily. Perhaps I should have gone over to the feeder and made it work, but I wanted to see what the Top Secret carp mix would produce for me.

The next hour followed a pattern of 1 or 2 fish before a quiet spell and the little top up with a golf ball of feed – going into the last hour I had 8 fish in the net, with only 1 coming from the feeder line. I managed 2 more F1’s off the pole in the last hour, but the temperature noticeably dropped and the wind was really cold – I must admit to giving in the last 20 minutes and threw the maggot feeder out for a rest!!! Luckily it pulled around and I finished the match with 11 carp and a roach for 22lb.

It got me 2^nd in my section, which was better than I thought, but didn’t bring any tokens my way – but It did give me a lot of confidence that the Top secret Carp brought and held some fish in my peg when everything else had failed. I definitely will be making sure I always have a bag or two available for use all year round.

Next item on the blog is Laurel Pool at Cob House fisheries, my local venue.

Scott

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