Tuesday 26 May 2009

May 23rd - Pleasure Session at Morndyke‏

Seeing as I was at Evolution festival in Newcastle on the Sunday and Monday I decided to make sure I got fishing on the Saturday so I didn’t miss a week. I’d spoken to Gordon and decided to join Honest John and himself up at Morndyke. After carrying out a few early errands I got to the fishery at just gone 9 and John and Gordon we’re just about set up. They we’re pegged on 7 and 8 so I decided to plump next to them round the corner on peg 9. I’ve never fished this area before and tend to fish on or towards the central island. I quite fancied a day on the method but all the pegs I fancied for this we’re taken so I opted to fish paste again and with a marginal bush on either side I had plenty of scope for different lines to fish.

Gordon and John were both fishing paste for the day too so it would be interesting to see what the outcome would be regarding who fed what and in what quantity etc.

I finally rigged up with a rig identical to the one from the week previous, and also mixed up some more of the pellet power+ paste. I first of all went out to the right bush and plumbed about for a bit. I decided to fish a foot or two away from the bush, one it meant the float was easier to see against the back drop and also the bottom flattened out nicely where as under the bush it was on a fairly steep gradient and I didn’t want all my feed to roll to bottom of the slope away from where I was fishing.

First put out with a blob of paste and half a dozen 6mm pellets and after a couple of minutes I was into my first fish. Now the fish in Morndyke average at about 4lb although that average will probably be nearer 4.5 to 5lb now! The bite was much just like a typical bite on any bait, not a frustrating bite you often get with paste, I played the fish for a minute or two as they fight like crazy in here and you just can’t get their heads up! I put the power on as it charged under the platform and we parted company. A couple of extra winds of elastic onto the bung and I wasn’t going to be beaten again!

Next put out I waited a minute or two and was soon attached to another, this led me a merry dance and due to the amount of pressure you have to put on them I ended up landing it with my number four still in place. It finally took a gulp of fresh air and soon nestled in the bottom of the net, this was a good fish by fishery standards, probably knocking on 6lb. I had a couple more before I felt the swim was fading away from me.

Now feeding patterns, Gordon didn’t seem to be feeding anything, John was big potting after every few fish and I was dripping half a dozen pellets in with my hook bait. The thing is no real trend could be found as we were all catching.

John had started fishing shallow and took one straight away. Seeing as my line had pretty much died I dumped a pot of bait in at 7m straight in front and a pot full down next to the bush also. I would then fish the 7m line and start feeding pellets at 13m every few seconds.

I managed to take a fish straight away off the deck at 7m but no more. I went back down the bush and managed a couple more but I had to wait a long time between bites. I’d been feeding the shallow line for the best part of 90minutes now and decided to give it a go, 30 minutes later and no signs what so ever I decided to sack it off and save my bait!

John and Gordon packed up at 4pm and by this point I think I had 11, John had 16 and Gordon had 19. I decided to stay on for a further hour as it had picked up a little. I managed four in the space of half an hour whilst they were packing away. It started to spit and I thought it was best to head home also so chucked the remainder of paste away but then the sun came out again and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I pinched the rest of Johns left over paste and after they’d gone I managed another 3 fish in quick succession taking my tally to 18.

So another better weekend and a few more paste lessons learnt, I finished with 18 carp for about 70-80lb, easily my best result of the year and probably more than I’ve caught in the last few weeks put together!

No club match this coming weekend so probably another pleasure session somewhere, perhaps Morndyke again!

Monday 18 May 2009

May 17th - Pleasure Session at Sessay - Oaks Lake‏

With no club match this weekend and with the weather not looking too promising I was in two minds whether to go or not. However come dinnertime on the Sunday I was itching to go and decided on an afternoon up at Sessay where I planned on practicing my paste fishing. I arrived at the fishery at about 2:30 and all the lakes we’re matched up, there was no room on Alders, Poplars or Maple so I had a quick walk round Oaks and Firs and eventually decided to settle on the Oaks down the bottom end where Chris and Andy Nattrass were fishing. They’d both had a few on a variety of methods so I was fairly confident of catching a few for a change.

I’ve never really got into paste fishing but would quite like another string to my bow seeing as its wearing a bit thin of late and nothing seems to be working for me!

I only set up one rig, a 0.5g BGT paste float on 0.17 Powerline, a hooklength of 0.15 Powerline to a Mustad Carp Pellet in a size 14, although these hooks are a bit bigger than conventional hook sizes. Elastic was 14 Maver latex.

For bait today I mixed up some Sensas Pellet Power ground bait into a stiff paste with the view of adding more water the more confident I got with it. I also had a handful of 4mm pellets to kick start the swim.

I plumbed up carefully and settle on a flat area at about 7m. I’d plumbed up so that only the very tip of the float was showing however the shotting would only just drag the body under and the paste would do the rest of the work.

First put out with a ten pence size blob of paste and half a dozen pellets saw no action and when the float finally rose out of the water I struck to discover the paste had eventually gone. I would repeat this for the rest of the day and slowly build up a swim with my hook bait. On the third put in, the float rose out the water again and I just presumed the paste had disintegrated again before it slowly slid off into the depths and I was rewarded with my first fish, an F1 of about 2lb. For the next hour I was slowly building my swim and apart from a few liners I had nothing else in the net. I decided to dump in a small handful of pellets to see if I could interest a few more fish. By this time it was absolutely bucketing it down and most people were packing up or had already gone.

The big dump of bait had worked and I was soon into my second fish of the day, similar to the first, another good F1.

I’d been continually adding a bit more water to my paste so by the end of the session it was just about hanging on the hook and it proved to work as the bites were coming faster and easier to read.

I was slowly getting used to reading the bites and knowing when to strike and luckily I had plenty of chances to practice, I ended up putting 13 carp in the net, all at least 2lb a piece and a couple at 3 or 4lb, oh and one lonesome Ide! So all in all I probably had about 30lb in 3 hours, and the first hour I only had the one fish!

I’d had a really good day and given myself a proper induction into paste fishing. I just need a good draw on the next match to try it out again!

Monday 11 May 2009

May 10th - Sessay - Maple‏

With Gordon going to Holland straight after the match I had to make my own way to the venue for a change. I woke up with plenty of time to spare so after making my flask and packing the carryall I decided to make my top kits up and transport them to the venue ready to plumb up straight away. This would save me a bit of time before the match and I wanted to have a good plumb about on what ever peg I got and get a better feel for my swim. I’ve become a bit lazy and settling on fishing comfortable swims and not necessarily the right swims and so wanted to make a conscious effort of getting my rigs right for the day.

Come 9am and the draw was underway, ideally I wanted a peg between 30 and 45, we only had pegs 1-45 and I felt these latter few would throw up the better results. Needless to say I drew peg 4, I was still fairly confident but a difficult 7 man section would mean I’d have to pull out all the stops. Ian Farrington was on peg 1, Gordon was on peg 2, Owen was on peg 3, Leroy was on peg 5, Tel was on peg 6 and finally Nige was on peg 7. Owen is a new member to the club and told me it was from reading my blog that had encouraged him to join, I just hoped all my previous ramblings wouldn’t give him too much of an inkling into how to fish the venue!

Seeing as my top kits we’re already set up I set about preparing my expanders and then get on with the plumbing. I plumbed up from tree to tree on the far bank and found a fairly consistent depth of just over 2ft right across, although the right of my swim was perhaps 2 inches shallower. There was also a fair bit of crap in the water as the grass and the sedges had recently been cut, hopefully this wouldn’t hamper presentation.

I had 3 Malman Cedar 4x10 rigs set up, all on 0.14 to 0.12 Ultima Power match, one had a size 16 B911, one had a size 18 B911 and the other was set up for fishing to the mud again with a 16 hook. Elastics were 12 latex and 14 for the mud line. I also had a track rig set up.

Bait today I had everything for a change, the past few weeks I’ve limited myself so to not complicate things but when your baits aren’t working after the first few hours you’re left up poo creek without a paddle! So today I had half a pint of red maggots, some micros, some 4mm expanders, some 4mm meat, corn and even cat food in my bag as a back up!

At the all in I shipped out to the left sedge armed with a 4mm expander and tipped in a pinch of micros. After a lift and tap the float dibbed and I met this with a gentle lift, thus setting the hook and resulting in the first carp of the day, a mirror of about 3lb. After reading Clive Pritchard’s blog I decided to follow his rule of thumb in just gently lifting into bites rather than trying to yank the fishes head off, his reasoning was that if it’s a liner, that’s when you start foul hooking fishes in the upper depths, well, so far so good as this was hooked neatly in its top lip! I managed another 2 F1’s about 10 minutes apart which put me on about 7lb after the first half an hour. Then guess what happened? Correct, it went dead again, so many matches this year I’ve started off catching fairly well at the start of a match only to be kicked in the teeth and brought back down to earth! With our matches being 6 hours in duration it meant I went 5 hours without a fish before adding 3 further F1’s to the net by fishing as long in my peg as I could with corn and no feed. Meanwhile no one else was really catching either, most had a similar quantity to me and it was just a case of who had the bigger fish. However, Owen caught quite a few, he had at least double what I had and probably lost more than I had bites too, that’s the last time I tell him anything!

Come the weigh in, Gordon had to shoot off so I was left with weighing duty in his place. Ian on peg 1 weighed in 17lb odd, Gordon was next with 18lb odd and I thought to myself ‘’there’s another quid gone’’! Owen weighed in a very respectable 31lb which would easily take the section. I then weighed in, 14lb odd; ho hum…….another quid gone. Leroy weighed in 11 or 12lb, Tel had tipped back, as had Nige. There were then no real weights apart from those in the frame. T-Koz had 37lb, Stu Stott had 46lb odd, Chris Nattrass had 47lb to take the match win and Steve Hoddo made up the final placing with 41lb.

Even those who had weighed in over 40lb had said it fished crap, granted it did but try going 5 hours without a bite! Then you know its fished crap! Even the lads on the open had struggled to put any sort of weight together although Robbie managed a match win with nearly 70lb, I’m gonna have to take some lessons I think!

Wednesday 6 May 2009

April 26th - Sessay - Poplars‏

After a disappointing previous week, I’d tried to formulate a master plan which would hopefully overturn my run of bad form. Gordon picked me up, this week Rab had decided to have an early night so not to sleep in again!

We arrived at the fishery in good time and gave us chance to have a bite to eat and get some bait.

My bait for the day would hopefully cover every eventuality. I had a big tin of frenzied hemp, a pint of casters, half a pint of maggots, 4mm expanders and some dampened micros.

I was intending on fishing pellet for carp, and using the hemp and caster for everything! With the maggots to offer as a change bait.

At the draw I managed to pick out peg 38. By my reckoning this wasn’t a bad peg as it’s in a bay and you have quite a bit of water to go at. My section competitors for the day we’re Steve Hoddo on 42, Gordon on 41, Tupper-Ware on 39, someone on 36 and Honest John on 35. It was going to be very difficult to get anything from this match due to class of angler in my section, and Gordon….. Plus I owned the quid from the previous week and was reluctant in giving him it back!

I set up 2 lines for the far bank, one at 13m to my left for fishing pellet and a line at 15m straight out in front with caster and hemp. The fishing seemed to be enjoying themselves in the margin, time and a place please!

At the all in I went straight out to 15m with double caster on the hook and tip in a kinder of hemp and caster, I jiggled the float, lifted it and eventually after 15 minutes had an F1 in the net of about a pound. Straight back out and no more bites so I dumped in a big pot and went onto the pellet line as Gordon was catching and Tupperware was getting plenty of indication.

First drop in, with a pellet, I forced it tight to the cover and sprinkled a pinch of micros over the top, the float dipped then slammed under and after a 5 minute battle managed to put a common of about 4lb in the net, happy days! Next two put ins the same again and another two carp adding a pound and half each to my total.

Then the match for me and many other went a bit stale. I didn’t have a bite fish for the rest of the day, although I was hooking them. At one point I resorted to fishing the method on my pole so I could distance my pole tip from the fish but after a fruitless hour I was getting bored. Gordon was catching fairly regular but predominantly small fish. Tupperware had a good last hour and managed to catch up with Gordon a bit but it would be tight.

I fouled hooked 3 or 4 fish which all screamed off before either snapping me or attaching my rig to the island!

Come the weigh in I tipped back to save embarrassment, Honest John only had one foul hooked carp all day, the bloke to my right had 17lb I think, Tupperware had a low 20 which was good enough to beat Gordon’s even lower 20. the worst part of the day was yet to come, I sheepishly walked past Gordon and dropped a quid in his hand………..

Dennis Geldard won the match off peg 1, i think? With just over 50lb, so well done to him!

After missing the bank holiday weekend due to Uni commitments I’ll be glad to get back out on the bank with a few lessons learnt and a hunger to catch for a change!