Wednesday 21/04/2010 - Carps AC - Plantation - Main Lake

What a fantastic match, with the venue fishing its head off. I drew peg 10 on the day which was permanent peg 23. The peg is just off the top right hand corner, without a Carp Slayers island chuck. In any case I had decided to fish for the Silvers. Targeting initially the Skimmers, with the Ronnie’s as back up. I also thought the RH margin might produce a few Carp, but would leave this to much later in the match. I set up 1- 4x14 Jolly at 10 metres for the Skimmers. One swim out in front over GB and another at 2-o-clock over micro pellet - same rig did both. I also set up a 3.5 metre whip for the Ronnie’s for the caster, to be fish down wind at 2/3-o-clock which was gusting a bit too hard I thought for the whip. Plus I set up the paste rig for the margin. I potted both lines for the Skimmers and started to feed 6mm in to the margin. I also started to loose feed caster for the whip. Straight away I was getting a lot of fizzing interest in the GB. Unfortunately not the 3mm expander hook bait. I did have one 12 oz Skimmer. So I tried over the micro which resulted in two 3 oz Skimmers and a tiny Ronnie. I then decided to try a paste rig out over the GB line as this sometimes works over a fizz, but on having an indication struck and the 7th section snapped in my hand – bugger. Down to see Mr Rixon ("long time acquaintance") tomorrow he will sort it all out for me - lucky enough the Colmic pole comes with a 2 year guarantee. On to the whip with caster it was to be then. I didn’t look back I had either a Rudd or Ronnie every put in ranging from 2oz to 1lb. Although at the half way stage I had noticed visitors in my margin, however, I stuck with the whip until the last 20 minutes where in the margin on paste I hooked five Carp landing three – losing two through rushing them. The three Carp weighed in at 21lb 9oz and my Silvers went 44lb 10oz - not bad for half pint casters (my net of Silvers are pictured right) for a total of 66lb 3oz. This put me first in the Silvers and fourth in the match and a pick up of £35. Other than the pole incident it was a very enjoyable and memorable match. Incidentally as I was packing up the fish were still fizzing over the one ball of GB I fed – what on earth was this all about – anyone know?

It wasn’t only the Silvers that fed well but also the Carp. The match was won by today’s travelling partner Martin Rayet (pictured right with some of his catch) with a fantastic 228lb 4oz - all Carp net from peg 27. Martin caught shallow on the pellet waggler at distance on 8mm banded pellet over loose fed 8mm pellet. Martin rotated three swims – open water, near the island and up close to the island. Martin fed 4 pints of 8mm pellet throughout the match.

Full Result:

1. Martin Rayet 228-04-0 peg 27
2. Leyton Palmer 123-02-0 peg 26
3. John Thompson 91-14-0 peg 24
4. Mike Nicholls 66-03-0 peg 23
5. Dave Bacon 47-03-0 peg 19
5. Steve Dawson 47-03-0 peg 30

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 44-10-0 peg 23
2. Mike Owens 31-05-0 peg 18
3. Steve Dawson 30-12-0 peg 30


Finally the picture above right shows poor old Steve Dawson landing the job of scalesman for the winning catch!!