Welcome to my fishing blog… July 2022

July 3rd – Whitehouse Farm, Earthcott Green

Here we go again! This match was held on Margaret’s lake, which has 20 pegs although not all of them are suitable for one reason or another. 17 club anglers turned up for this one and the discussion before the draw was all about the chub. The previous match here threw up a good net of chub to over 4lb from peg 20 in a 19-10-0 total for second place. But to be honest, a win can come from just about anywhere at this time of year. So, after all the banter had died down it was time to get serious and pull out a plum peg. For me, this was peg 18, which has been a match-winner before so I was happy with that and I would be on the right side of the island should any chub show up.

Peg 20 was drawn once again by club secretary John Treasure, who without hesitation targetted the chub right from the off, as did I. My feeder rod today was an 11ft Tyson quiver, the reel was a Shimano Sahara 3000 loaded with 0.18mm, 6lb BS Matrix Horizon line. I love this line for feeder fishing as it sinks so quickly. My rig was a helicopter rig setup, with a 20-gram Drennan maggot feeder, 0.15 mm, 5lb BS Guru N-Guage hooklength tied to a Guru Super XS, size 16 barbless hook. These hooks are really strong and with carp to over 20lbs in this lake you need to ensure you have the right kit in case you have to ‘tango’ with one of them.

So at the all-in, I lobbed out the feeder tight to the island and within a few minutes, I hooked into a skimmer of about a pound. Now get this… I unhooked the skimmer in my landing net, and grabbed the fish from underneath, still in the net. I went to tip the fish into one of my 2 empty keepnets. Then just for a split second, I was totally overcome by an overwhelming feeling of indecisiveness about which net to put it in. As I turned the fish over and let go, it went down between the 2 nets and back into the water. I was now back to square one. What a plonker!

I baited up and cast out again to the same spot but had to wait all of 20 minutes before getting another bite. During this time I was really beating myself up and imagined not getting another fish all day. Thankfully the tip shot round and I was into a much bigger skimmer. This one was about 2lb and I carefully coaxed it to the landing net. This time I did what I should have done the first time. I transferred the fish to my keepnet via the landing net. Phew! I let out a sigh of relief as I was finally off the mark.

Meanwhile, John on the next peg had already landed 3 big chub so I was playing catchup. I changed to a bigger feeder so I could get more ammunition out to the chub but all I managed was another skimmer of about a pound. With about 2 hours now gone, I fed 3 small balls of fishmeal groundbait down the right-hand margin and a large pot of micros to the left-hand margin. I then picked up the shallow rig and started loose-feeding maggots at about 6 metres. This brought an instant run of small roach and perch but after 30 minutes the bites stopped.

Another chuck to the island with a method feeder and 4mm hard pellet got me another skimmer of about a pound but nothing else after that. Meanwhile, John was still bagging up on those chub and there was no way I was ever going to catch him. It was time to start thinking about carp. I picked up my margin pole, baited up with a 10mm pellet of meat, and slowly lowered it into my right-hand margin. I was getting indications and so I knew there was at least one carp there munching on the groundbait. A few minutes later I was playing a small carp about 6lb. Safely netted, I started ringing the changes.

I tried meat, soft pellet, hard pellet, and paste down both edges but there were no further signs of any carp. A few minutes before the final whistle I heard that someone on the other side of the island had caught an 18-pounder, so it was game over as far as I was concerned. At the weigh-in, that 18-pounder plus a couple of pounds of silvers gave John Dursley, who was opposite on peg 8, second place but as expected, John Treasure on peg 20 did the business with 29-10-0 of quality chub for a convincing win. I ended up with just 11-9-0, missing out on a section win by just 4 ounces. Remember that first skimmer I mentioned? Ouch!

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January 2023

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June 2022

July 2022

   3rd – Whitehouse Farm, Earthcott Green

   10th – RBL Club Match, Chequers, Hanham

   24th – Whitehouse Farm, Earthcott Green

August 2022

September 2022

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

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