Simple Match Fishing Forum

i'm back after a week off trying to sort out a few things for the sensas final i planned to practice for 3 days before the two day event .i can honestly say it was the most bizarre week Ive had and this is how i got on
Day 1 Monday morning it was a day on my gear new line on my reels laggy a couple of top 3 kits sort what i was doing and then a few brownie points by tiding up plus the normal 20 phone calls ::) ::) ::)it seamed the coldest day and made me think why would you want to go fishing on Tuesday
day 2 Tuesday up at the crack of dawn kids taken to school then down the motorway to packington missing all the rush hour traffic and arrived through the rain and snow to the fishery i had a quick coffee and a chat to see where to and fish but the info was a little harsh its been rock hard fishing on all the lakes molands had a match on it and the smaller lakes had ice on them lucky for me the early numbers were hadn't been taken so i thought peg 8 would do nicely



i couldn't believe how much work the lads had done most of the tree's and bushes have gone looks a little unsightly but will improve the fishery 100%
the wind was strong but at least over my back
i decided just to fish pole as i could make a few rigs as well which i could use later in the week it must of been at least -9 in the wind and i really started to ask the question why had i bothered any way plumbed up one line at metres and one at 13m which is the limit for this competition I'd been told that the weekends match all the weights came to fishmeal based G/B so i dug out a bag of Sensas gold and a bag of lake Ive used this mix a time or two and found it mixed really well


I'd mixed it the night before with warm water just to make sure nothing floated off it
the rigs were quite simple .4,.6 and a .8 plus a really light rig with strung out shot



plumbing up on these sorts of waters is very time consuming part as every little hole or depth changes need to be explored for this i use two or three different plummets a clip on one if i want to fish over depth then a big and a small flat plummet the small can show you if there is a lot of silt in the peg with the amount of pellets and G/B that are used create a large amount of waste and can move with the winds so its important to find these clear bits




if you have never been to packington the silverfish fishing can be second to none and chatting to John and dave they have just put in 1,200lb of red fins prime red fins from 10oz to a pound and a half all from the trout lake
plus these fish would of course feed mainly on bloodworm as only artificial flies have ever been used on the trout lake
my bait was either Russian or English joker the difference is plain to see
Russian is very small and tends to lie on the bottom


where as English jumps around even with low temps when they are acclimatized to the water i always put mine in the water from the lake or canal then net it out when adding to leam or G/B

Ive listened to the likes of bicko, sam wildsmith over the years and to be fair i must be a slow learner :-?as its taken me years to adopt this preparation and only now realising the advantages [well as soon as i start drawing again]
hook bait is simple good old bloodworm for a start

easy to look after clean fresh water everyday can keep them for weeks

another lesson from bicko always measure your bait quantities so you know how much youve put in and its easy to tell others if you don't and you say ive put a handful in well with my hands that would be a pint of joker

for this day i put 100ml in 6 balls of leam and a little G/B JUST TO MAKE A BED i then though i'd give myself a chance and added 200ml to make 4 really rich balls of G/B and cupped them in
as the match is fished for four hours i started at 12 midday til 4 pm
it was very slow but in the end i caught nothing at 5m so it was out to 13m where i found loads of bites but mostly very small roach and rudd and you could of put 3 to 4lb of them together but hay this is a commercial you need bigger fish and a few of them i tried everything and all the rigs and nothing bigger was coming ok it was freezing but i though at some point the bigger fish would show plus the bits were getting harder to catch had i fed too much for the conditions if i topped upwould it bring back the small fish by mid afternoon the tow had picked up so i icked up the strung out rig PLAN Z double bloodworm and lowered it in bingo i was play a bigger fish



shortly after that one another


everything was looking good in the snow and rain but this didn't last long as i had one more but what a beauty and fight i ended the day with 51bits for around 4lb and 3 big roach all around a pound mark plus this beauty



it was home time and i felt for the condititions it was a ok weight of fish

day 3 Wednesday
i couldn't go i had a meeting in birmingham but wanted to go as the lads went to barston to have a go i couldnt wait until dinner to find out how they were doing

then the news none of them had a bite again it was bitter cold Gaz in the end set a feeder rod up out of boredom and managed two bream so they were there but the presantation on the waggler was one to sort out
Day 4 Thursday coming up

DAY 4 Thursday
again it was the coldest night for weeks and as i went by makins i could see it was iced over
and as i arrived at the gates i could see the whole lot had frozen over even big gearys plus a bloke had said barston was froze over as well i was joined by Markj so coffee was the order of the day again i wanted to fish molands again as the roach fish was great but about half a dozen had gone down there for a match
right we thought we'd go and have a look and to be fair to the staff they charged half price because of the ice
as we got closer to the lakes the ice might not go all day we saw a few braking the ice so we decided to go off and fish big gearys and as the sun had come out we'd fish with it in our face which was really warm i might add lucky for me Mark had brought his ice breaker



it was only cat ice so in no time it was clear



but that's as go as it got one fish each and yes we sat tere for 4 hours Alan scotthorne and Lee Kerry had braved fishing anniversary we the same success as we had one fish each mindyou they didn't hang around as long as we did
still we went and had a look at molands
and all the ice had gone and to top it all off we found a few anglers all catching and i mean catching although it was past match hours tench bream and them big roach all coming to the waggler or pole the big question was in my mind is it too cold for fishmeal based G/B
Day 5 Friday

back down the road again the french had arrived and so had starlets barnsley and a few other teams and as the forecast had said rain most of the pegs with the wind over your head had gone but what i thought if i fished just around from the i could see what was going on

i had mixed a different G/B AND WOULD ONLY USE FISHMEAL ON THE WAGGLER


lake and silverfish my favourite mix a lovely smell and mixes up nice again a lot of leam to bulk it out

again it was cold and windy so i fished a little shorter



this would give me a better chance with the waggler
well what happened next balled it with a leam and G/B mix with again very little in it then some rich and full balls with dead pinkies and casters in them
i watched Steve Hemmingrey ball it and his waggler line Alan and Lee Kerry both balled it and of course the french
well again it was a slow start but all i can say is either the fish knew we were in for some bad weather but it fished its head off whether it was on the waggler or the pole everything i did i caught on
but i didn't have the amount of bream Lee kerry had or Steve but i made up with thoughts great big roach again the tow played a massive part and the lightest rig was by far the best
you could catch two or three big roach and then they seamed to back off so I'd pick the waggler up and again straight into them this went on throughout the four hours until the tow and wind dropped then i seamed to struggle so i picked my .6 over depth rig and bingo two tench in two casts followed by a bream and a few skimmer by this time it was after 4 pm and I'd got all the bait for the lads i really needed to go but when the clicker says 40 fish 33 of them being great big roach 2 tench 3 skimmers and 2 bream its a red letter day
i forced myself to pack up and went to see Lee and Alan both had different days Lee's last couple of hours bream bream bream and Alan's was trench big perch roach and the odd bream everything pointed to the rise in temperature could mean a great competition a heads
the differents practice can make starlets had half at barston half at packington the same with dorking and barnsley the info they had gathered between themselves must of been incredible and set them up really for the final

Day 5 the day one
26 of the best teams in the country all wanting to win at all cost
but the weather was horrific driving rain gale force wind and we are fishing a float only match well i drew the best peg ive ever have at barston 27 next peg des shipp next to dez Sean ashby by rights my peg is better but the conditions changed all that


down towards Des and Sean on my left


to my right young up and coming star Ben Sharratt ben and his dad both fished the sensas pairs league and both did well and has been snapped up by Shakespeare super team



these photos don't really show how bad it was
still the word was it could fish a little so i increased the bait to 250ml with dead pinkies casters and the odd dead red
again i balled the pole line it never crosses my mind to cup them in i'd be knacked its bad enough cupping the rich balls in


i only balled 6 in and cupped 4
as the day went it was horrific Des was 5 nil up on the waggler Sean was close behind and i just couldn't get a bite at the half way i kept topping up both waggler and pole and swapping from one to the other bank walkers were saying it was fishing its head off yet i hadn't had a bite i couldn't believe the float wouldn't go under then i saw young Ben catch one on the pole could this be the start i waited to see if he had another but it looked a one off i was looking at the last 40minutes of the match biteless when the wind had just dropped a little i picked up my lighter rig and sat on it for what seamed hours when it went under it was a proper bream as well 3lb plus next put in and another ::) everything had started to go right i picked up my bagging rig not a bite so i went back to the lighter rig and straight under again by this time even Des was looking at the pole 5minutes to go and the float went again but des had also had two but not on the pole he had them back on the waggler i landed the 4th and just couldn't get a bite to finish with the 4 went 10lb 10oz Des managed to get one more for a weight of 20lb and Sean 17lb if only they had come earlier still i'd of taken 6 points earlier

DAY 2 Sunday
the day started off with a Sharpe frost  and very little wind yet the floods were out everywhere  .on arrival  barston lakes looked completely different it was flat calm    and forgetting the match is brought forward a hour for the presentation i was handed my peg at this point you are a lucky angler or your not each set of draws has end pegs in them you might get them on the Saturday or you might get them on Sunday well mine was peg 9 barston with the 18th hole opposite    flat calm with the odd ripe of a golf ball over shooting the green  if only i could of had 27 on Sunday and 9 on Saturday although only 8oz came off it on the Saturday  still i'm not one of the lucky ones. i remember Gary pook winning the section off peg 6 that day it was flat calm  but hay the sun was out again a waggler rod one with a 8gram float and one with a 6gram float just in case it was hard after the day before yet i spoke to a number of anglers and they all said it would fish as well as Saturday  great 8oz  this time i had bicko in my section rob hewison and Darren frost at the next peg
I'd made my mind up to ball it this time with leam to put a carpet down and the 3 or 4 rich balls with two going past my leam just in case they had backed off
and then the waggler again I'd got nothing to lose so i wanted to give myself a chance

needless to say it fished hard and Darren took the lead and then bicko shouted he'd got one then rob hewison and i was still bite-less 
rob hewison shouted down asking if i'd caught i replied i had 3 white and 2 yellow golf balls  at least i could laugh about it
then the float dipped go on go on strike  i was into my first bream thinking the same as the day before here they come
out again nothing for the next hour Darren had about 5 rob 2 and Darren two but the Frenchman Eric had caught 7 or 8 as well i re-fed the pole line and went back on the waggler with in a minute or two i was playing my 2nd bream but sadly that was it for the rest of the match  TWO went 5lb
i had to weigh in and although the lake was calm it was noticeable where the fish were caught in tight areas some had 10,12,14 bream while around them odd ones or just roach and small skimmers  i love to weigh in as you get a better picture for next time  i didn't take any  photos but hope to get them from Trev who did get a few snaps

the overall result 

in first place
1st starlets A   42.5 pts
2nd sensas Mark one  48 points
3rd barnsley A 50 pts
4th Dorking 51 pts
5th Shakespeare 54pts
6th barnsleyB  54 pts
7th sensas 28 french team 61 pts
8th Delco 62.5pts
9th saints 63 pts
10th Leicester sensas 70.5 pts

individually
1st Lee kerry barnsley A with 2 points [40LB5OZ] Lee won the competition last year on the Gloucester canal and to win twice is amazing and he is well worth his call up to the England squad 

2nd Oliver Scothorne BARNSLEY B 4 points[ 33LB13OZ]
3rd Sean ashby starlets A 5 points [41LB90Z]
4th Steve hemmingrey starlets B [41LB7OZ]
5th Ricky young hotrods 5 pts [37LB15OZ]
   

Great reading Joff.

cheers mrV 13 points was my total and i'm pretty sure if the draws were the other way around i'd of don't a whole lot better

brill read joff lad an pics

Nice read joff

Be good to hear the angle from a few of the Starlets lads on here on their great win

here is day 1s results take a look at the weights for a 4 hour match














first days results

tell ME where there is another venue where you can cater for 26 teams of 5  and catch this amount of fish after the weeks weather we also had remember both venues were frozen over on Thursday 

Yep great read joff,nice pics and them roach!

chopmaster the roach are in molands its well worth a visit while they are still settling down i'm sure when they were introduced it kick started other fish to feed as the begining of the week most other lakes including barston you couldn't get a bite .a local did say he'd had up to 20 lb of them on caster but i found once they had a taste of B/J thats all they wanted i will be going when it warms up a little for another crack at them before the pigs with fins wakeup

Joffy ma mon, do you have day 2 results ???

not yet as they had to shoot off to france with abit of luck i'l get them today

Joffy ma mon, do you have day 2 results ???

SORRY DAN I NEVER GOT THE SECOND DAY PASSED ON TO ME

on the other hand i have a nice message from john and the lads down at packington about the write up all the lads use the website
so if you fancy some roach sport head to packington on the molands lake
joe roberts won the vets match on big gearys with 45lb of skimmers and a lovely net of fish it was