Welcome to my fishing blog… July 2022

July 24th – Ian Chapple Memorial, Whitehouse Farm

I didn’t go fishing last Sunday as it was only fair to take ‘her indoors’, outdoors. We decided to go for a meal to the Boathouse pub, which is situated just the other side of the river bridge at Newbridge. So, I still got to see the river, eat well and drink some beer, so all was not completely lost.

However, today it was back to Whitehouse Farm for the Ian Chapple Memorial. Ian Chapple was a life-long member of the Alcove club and had been the match secretary for a number of years. He was one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet so it was a very sad day when he passed due to cancer. The event is actually a fund-raising open match and is always well attended, with 32 anglers booked in for this one. 

So, the fancied pegs were 6,7.8, 14, 17 & 18 on Margarets lake together with pegs 1, 3,4, 6, 11, 14, 15 and maybe 18 on Georges. Good weights and winning weights have come from all these pegs in the past. So, into the “lucky” draw bag and out comes not so lucky peg 12 on Margarets. Unfortunately, this one is not on the list just mentioned. Pegs 13, 12, 11 and 10 on Margarets are quite deep and at this time of year, you need a shallow peg, especially if you want to catch carp down the edge. So, my plan was to go for silvers.

I set up two pole rigs, one for fishing at full depth, which was 9 feet and one for up in the water at 2 feet. There isn’t an island chuck on peg 12 so my options were quite limited. My deep water rig was a .5gm Chianti float with a bulk shotting pattern set 12 inches from the hook. Mainline was 0.15 (5lb BS) Guru N-Guage with a size 16 LWG barbless to 0.11 (3lb BS) Guru N-Guage and pole elastic was 11 DuraSlip Hybrid. This rig would be used for corn, meat, worm, expander pellets and bunches of maggots. Obviously, I would be willing to change down hook sizes if needed. The shallow rig consisted of 0.11 Guru N-Guage mainline with a 8-inch hooklength to a size 18 LWG barbless on a DuraSlip 9 elastic. Two simple rigs that can be chopped, changed and adapted as required. I like simples!

At the all-in I cupped out some 2mm micro pellets at 7 metres. I also cupped out a ball of Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer groundbait laced with dead reds at 10 metres. The plan was to leave these 2 swims for 30 minutes while I focused on single maggot up in the water at 4-5 metres. It wasn’t long before I was catching small roach and perch on the maggot line but bites were slow to come. After 30 minutes I had 7 small fish in the net. It was time to try the 7-metre line with a grain of corn but no takers on this so I changed to a 6mm pellet of meat. I always cut my meat into pellets rather than cubes because nothing in nature is square. It might take a bit longer to prepare but I think it can sometimes give you an edge.

Well, a 1lb skimmer took a liking to the meat followed by another but then it went quiet again. You instinctively know when it’s going to be hard and as the minutes ticked by it was becoming obvious that fish were very few and far between in this peg. With almost 2 hours gone, the angler to my right on peg 11 had one small perch and I had about 3lb. The angler to my left was hitting skimmers almost every put-in and catching on both meat and corn. I fed a few more micros on the 7-metre line and cupped out 2 big balls of groundbait laced with dead reds and corn on the 10-metre line. This was now becoming my ‘get out of jail’ plan… or was it my desperation plan? One or the other!

I could see club regular, Bill Ferris, on peg 17 catching silvers steadily and he also had a couple of carp, so I knew I was never going to catch him up. I had a few more small roach up in the water but nothing else. Back out and now onto the 10-metre line with 2 dead reds on the hook, which by the way was 8 feet deep, so I simply adjusted the depth and used the same rig as I was using on the 7-metre line. Just as the float settled, it slid away and I was into a decent skimmer of about 2lb. Here we go I thought but it was a full 30 minutes before I had another smaller one. I was getting really frustrated now.

There were no signs of any carp cruising around so not much sense in setting up a mugging rig, although I was racking my brain to find a way to up the catch rate. Well, I persevered on the 7-metre line trying a variety of baits and caught a few more skimmers after long intervals. I finally finished up with 7lb 12oz and nothing to show for my efforts. Bill on peg 17 won the match with a nice mixed bag of silvers and a few quality carp for 38lb 10oz. This was a really good weight on the day. Silvers ace, Steve Dawson, was second with 32lb 2oz, which included 2 carp… very unlike Steve but he struggled on the silvers putting just 3lb of them on the scales. Generally, a disappointing match for me… must do better!

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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

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October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

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