Bait was caster, maggots, pinkie, punch over VDE Supercup mixed 50/50 with molehill soil for colour. In front of me I had an island of sorts with floating rushes at 13 meters which was about 3 foot deep. I had a good plumb about with a 50g plummet but could find very little difference in depth from the bank all the way out and the bottom was very soft and in places had leaf debris that came back very smelly on the plummet. I fed 3 lines, 1 to my left at 6 meters (11oclock) with pinkie, caster, GB. One at 13 meters against the rushes with the same and then another with caster and GB at 6 meters (2 oclock).
I set up 2 rigs really with the intention of only using the one. 1 was a 4x10 slim bodied float which I had made myself with a solid plastic 1.2mm bristle and 0.8mm stem. 4 number 11's actually took it down to the base of the bristle but I added a number 12 to take it down further and placed this on the hooklength itself about 5 inches from the hook. The rig was 0.12 to a 0.08 bottom with a size 22 drennan silverfish match hook. The second rig was really a bit of an after thought and I intended to use this for dobbing bread over on the far bank if I needed to pull a carp from out of the bag....
I started on the far line and straight away picked up a few small roach. It was taking longer than I had hoped over there to put a run of fish together so I was soon on to my left hand 6 meter line and I immediately started catching at a decent rate. These were not very big fish but they were fish in the net and that was the most important thing for me. I kept rotating my lines and kept catching and every so often changed hook bait to see if the response was any different. Caster picked up one or two better sized roach but I couldn't pick them up in any numbers so it was back on the pinkie to try and catch anything going. Changes to the depth of the rig, coming up off the bottom also resulted in keeping the fish coming but they just were not big enough to make a big impression.
About 2/3 of the way through the match I heard the call that a couple of carp had been caught. Not long after this I saw the guy opposite me net a skimmer of about a 1lb+ and the guy next to him net what I thought was a carp.
So then the stick and twist hits me. You have an hour and a half left of the match, what do you do? Do you carry on doing what you are or do you pick up the dobbing rig and try and find a carp? I want to be more proactive this year and going along with the "think it do it" attitude I dropped the bits rig and went over the far bank at 3/4 depth with 2 6mm discs of bread punch. Lift drop....life drop....an indication.....life drop and it shoots under.....in comes a small roach. I repeat this 4 or 5 times until I move along the reed line some more only to find more roach. On goes 2 8mm discs of bread and the same thing happens again! I persist but its no good, I just cant get through the roach. On goes a 10mm punch of bread. The wait for a bite this time is much longer.....but becomes unhittable! I again persist moving along the reed island every 10minutes trying to find a carp with no luck
After moving the rig along the extremes of my swim to the left I find a underwater bit of snag that does me over. I have to pull for a break and that was that! I was a bit annoyed but I had tried and it hadn't of worked out. I was surely going to get spanked by those with a bonus fish or carp. For the last 20mins of the match I went back onto my short lines and straight away I was into roach again ::) Those last minutes flew by and the whistle then went....The tales of the scales told that it had been the hard match I was expecting and people had struggled but frustratingly those rogue carp that people had managed to snare would of been costly for me for 2 reasons
1) Because I knew bonus fish or carp had been caught I went chasing one myself costing me precious time catching diddly squat.
2)If I stuck to catching the roach would I have managed to frame? I might of got very close. On reflection the peg was solid with them and it wasn't until I tried using the bread for the carp just how many of them there were and infact I think they may of even been of a better stamp
The framing weights were 4lb8oz (a 1lb of that being a skimmer the rest roach) 4lb6oz (2lb of that being a perch the rest roach) 4lb5oz (2 carp and a few bits). I had 2lb8oz of just roach and 2 very smaller skimmers. There might of been 40 or 50 fish for that weight and while I did enjoy catching them I rue the fact I got my head turned my the carp
So anyway question time. How would you of reacted to the noise of bonus fish being caught? Would you of stuck to your guns or had your head turned and why. In reflection I was right about it being a hard match and I really think on this occasion I should of not let my head of been turned by chasing that bonus carp.
Those two 6 meter lines. I would imagine I would of been much better off fishing these on a whip from a speed perspective. What sort of diameter mainlines would you recommend for whip fishing? Just stick to the same as you would on the pole? I have some Tubertini stix pole floats and another model which is more like a cigar shape with a tapper down to a very small wirestem. Would these be suitable for fishing the whip?
I seem to find that when I place small shot on the hooklength at some point during the session it becomes knotted directly on top of the shot. What exactly causes this and how do I stop it? I place this shot here when fishing for silvers so I can move it closer to the hook if I feel bites are not as positive as they could be. I find 9 times out of ten this does improve the positive bite ratio.
