Fingal Pond - 6th April 2013
AT LAST!
Our new season finally got under way at the weekend and personally I was more than ready for it. October was my last "proper" outing due to various reasons, mainly work and family, but I have made it my priority to try and attend most if not all of this seasons matches.
Anyway, our first trip was to Borwick Fishery in beautiful Carnforth. A cloudless morning greeted 14 of us (bit of a disappointing turnout to be honest) and the temperature was pretty low. Not a breath of wind either which is not really the norm for this neck of the woods?
It was my first visit to this fishery and I must say the set up and the quality of the waters as well as the sheer size were really impressive. The lad who runs the fishery was very forthcoming with information and handled the draw as well as the weighing in at the all-out. He really seems to look after the fish and walks round with antiseptic spray seeing to any fish you catch that have any sign of damage which is good to see.
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| Borwick - Peg 33 Straight Ahead |
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| View to my Right |
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| View to my Left |
A few of our members had been on the fishery a few times over the Winter to fish the Open Matches and reports were good. Catches of Carp averaging around 5lb with the odd bigger fish, large Ide and skimmers made for what we hoped would be a good day.
At the draw bag I managed to pull out Peg 33 which was the "end peg" of our match, on the deeper end of the lake and just where I wanted to be to be honest. My plan for the day would be to fish the bomb, and feel my way around the lake in search of the fish. With the weather still being very harsh lately I felt that using a method feeder would possibly kill the peg from the off and that the fish would still be very much holed up in the deeper areas, so my thoughts were that if I could have a cast around and find the fish, I could pick them off using highly visible baits such as corn or dyed pellets. Whilst setting up, I noticed a lot of fish cruising on the top of the water in our area of the lake, so I also opted to set up the pole with two rigs; one on the deck, which proved to be around 6ft at 14.5m and the other set shallow for those cruising fish.
The bait I used is something that I am going to try and keep consistent for the whole season if possible. Having read endless bait reviews in the angling press there is one manufacturer of bait that interests me, mainly due to the "science" behind it and the fact that it seems to be something different and not just the same old products and ingredients rebranded by A.N.Other. The company is Marukyu (still no idea how it is pronounced mind!) I tried one of the paste products last season and never really got to grips with it, but I am determined to try the full range of products and put the time into to really see if it can give me the edge especially on the harder venues we fish. On this particular match I opted to use the JPZ Pellets (Red) on the hair and also directly hooked, and also I purchased one of the groundbaits to use to coat the pellets I used rather than an out and out groundbait.
The other baits today were sweetcorn, which I planned to be my main attack, and 8mm "blown" hard pellets dyed using the fanastic Bag'Em Baits flavoured dyes. Super Sweet Yellow and Garlic Yellow made the sweetcorn truly high viz! The pellets were dyed yellow, again with the Super Sweet, and bright red using the Super Spicey dye. I won these dyes in one of the monthly magazines and was dying (see what I did there!) to use them too. This venue was ideal for it!
The match started slow for almost everyone, with only Denis on the opposite bank and Mark Anglesey two or three pegs to his right managing to catch an early Carp. Carl two pegs to my left also started his day with a 2lb bream shortly afterwards. All three fish coming to the method feeder approach.
I decided to cast into the deepest part of the lake from the off and after the pellet being in the swim for a few minutes I saw a few small indications on the tip, possibly from smaller fish but nothing positive enough for me to strike. Again, a switch to corn produced similar results.
On the pole line I flicked a few grains of corn out and the fish seemed to be certainly interested in the corn hitting the water, but didn't seem to be feeding. After around an hour of quiet on the bomb, I succumbed to reaching for the shallow rig on the pole, I have no will power or patience sometimes, but I always remember something I read from one of the top matchmen, "If you're thinking of it, you probably should be doing it" and with this in mind I set the rig at around 3ft with a view to swinging the bait out and keeping the pole tip away from the fish. Within a couple of minutes and another few grains of corn in the swim my float was hit by one of the passing fish and I lifted the rig managing to foul hook a carp in the pectoral fin. After a good ten minutes fight I slipped the net under a lovely Common Carp, around 8lb which immediately, albeit luckily, put me right up there in the match.
I quickly shallowed the Mick Wilkinson Pea up to around 18 inches and shipped back out as the fish were still cruising around the peg in front of me. Again a couple of grains were catapulted around the swim, and again a bite...missed! Not to worry, I was becoming more and more confident that I could get another and still there was only one more fish caught on the lake by Alex drawn a bit further down from me possibly around Peg 28. I didnt have to wait long before the float disappeared again and this time I hooked the fish cleanly, another Common around the 8lb mark, which again fought extremely well. It was evident that weights were going to be low so I let the fish plod around in the deeper water to tire itself out away from the rocks in the shallow water under my feet. Fish number two landed, and having around 16lb in the keepnet I remembered Carl saying at the all-in that he would be happy with 30lb, so made that my target for the day. Carl was one of the lads who had fished this venue, as well as being a good angler outright so I gathered he wouldn't be far out with his prediction.
After a quiet 20mins and a coffee, I hooked my third Common, and after a relatively short battle I had a smaller fish around 3lb to add to the total. I knew I was well ahead at this point and was pretty confident that this was the method. Dave to my left set up his pellet waggler and promptly caught his first of the day shortly after to confirm what I felt. It was at this point that a cold Easterly wind reard its ugly head, and with it the fish simply moved out of the area. I persevered with my depth, length and bait etc, but the Carp had simply gone away from the pole line altogether.
With this I went back out with the bomb, casting around the deep areas whilst having a look around at the other anglers who were motionless. One or two were having a walk around and the feeling was that the cold wind had killed the fishing for the day. Carl was still getting small indications on the feeder but no "proper"" bites, and Dave managed another small carp on the waggler. And it was Dave who must take the credit for how I finished the match really. He noticed a Carp rise in the far corner of the lake to my right and suggested I cast into the corner where the wind was blowing into.
It was a good 50 yard cast to that corner and with only a small bomb in my box (yep, the bag full of them was in the garage at home - why do anglers always manage to forget something?) it was a struggle to cast right into the correct area. I did however hook and land three more Carp from the area, one falling to a single corn hookbait and the remainder falling to the JPZ which I was really pleased with. Its surprising how reassuring it is to catch on a "new" bait and how you quickly become confident in that bait too.
At the weigh-in my total came to exactly 35lb which I was pleased with on the day given the conditions. A lot of it was down to the draw on this day. Many of the lads, especially the ones down the shallow end of the lake really had no chance from the off in retrospect. The temperature and wind simply forced the fish towards the deeper end. I couldn't hang around to speak to anyone at the end as I had to rush off to get to Manchester but I believe the closest weights to me were around 12lb.
Next up is a new fishery to our club season, Old Hough Fisheries in Middlewich.
