Sunday 24/10/2010 - Carps AC - Wednesday's Qualifiers Final - Sedges Fishery

There was a clash of matches between the Carps AC Wednesday Qualifiers final at Sedges and the SW Teams of Four at Landsend. My first priority was not to let the team down, but knowing John Bradford would jump at the chance of fishing for Charlie’s Angels at Landsend, I asked him to stand in and he did. So the Sedges it was then with Mark Tanner. We had breakfast in the Hill Top café and to be fair it wasn’t too bad, at least they now have brown and tomato sauce back on draft.

Another great welcome from Denise and Jamie awaited us at the fishery, with a lovely cup of tea. With thirty fishing all of Brick Lake was pegged plus all of the near side bank of Tile Lake, pegs 40 to 35. My priority for peg choice for Silvers was pegs 4 to 8 and 19 to 13 on Brick and 40 to 36 on Tile. Bound to get one of those you would think. No it wasn’t to be. First into the draw bucket and out comes peg 32. This was one from the far end on Tile Lake – not been here before. With the wind blowing from the North in to peg 40ish I wasn’t that hopeful especially against the pegs behind me. However, if the Skimmers on Brick don’t feed then I might have a chance of framing in the Silvers. I do try to keep positive! First of all I set up the maggot feeder to fish live red maggot against the far tit for the small Carp. I managed to set it up and fold it away without a tangle – and that’s as much as it was handled all day. I set up a 4x14 – PB14 to fish CW&C on the top set, where I had 3 ½ foot of water. I was really only using this at a test bed for the CW&C as this bait can kill the swim very quickly this time of year. I then set up the main attack which was a 4x16 yellow topped Jolly to be fished at 10 metres with caster and maggot and at 11.5 metres with soft pellet. The same rig sufficed for both as it was similar depth at 9 footish. The swim was dead calm so dotting down was easy enough. I started by putting in 50ml of CW&C at 1 metre, followed up with one small ball of GB (Gimps and Magic) laced with dead reds at 10 metres. Lastly I fed 25ml of wetted micro and 2mm expander at 11.5 metres. The plan was to start fishing over the CW&C and if I caught positively I would started feeding it through a kinder pot over the 10 metre line. However, I had nothing, so decided this bait would be far too risky. So out on the 10 metre line with double dead red and I had a run of Skimmers to 2lb. After every fish I would kinder in a few dead reds with twice as many casters. This kept the fish coming albeit very slowly. I did catch two small Carp on this line to 2lb. I kept trying the 3mm expander at 11.5 metre but could only get line indications. Back on the 10 metre line and I had a run of five Eels to 1lb which was enjoyable – I love catching these fish. My thinking was that the 2 mm expander pellet was falling through the water too slowly, bring the fish up. So I had a brilliant idea I put the feed expander in the GB. This appeared to do the trick (but you never really know what’s going on down in the depths) as I had another two small carp and five Skimmers. I kept alternating between these two lines until the end. I did have a problem once the sun came round which made it necessary to tip the float with a bit of black as sometime I could see the yellow, other times the black. I did miss two bites because of visibility near the end. My four Carp weighed in at 6lb 4oz and I was surprised when my Silvers weighed in at 20lb 7oz, giving a grand total of 26lb 11oz for fifth overall and first in the Silvers – Brick Lake Skimmers failed to make a presences – yippee. It wasn't only a very pleasant memorable days fishing but, also a good pay day - the best of the year - so far.

The match was won by John “Turkey” Thompson (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 68lb 15oz from peg 19 on Brick Lake. John started on the usual GB and then pellet. It wasn’t until John switched to corn at 14.5 metres did he start to catch Carp. John initially fed one (opened) tin of corn (very brave I thought) and fed another three tins through the remainder of the match.

I must mention runner up Terry Bruton (pictured right with his best fish of the match) who weighed 44lb 1oz from peg 34 on Tile Lake. I thought Terry fished a very tidy match using 6mm expander over kinder potted hard 4’s. Well done matey.

Full Result:

1. John Thompson 68-15-0 peg 19
2. Terry Bruton 44-01-0 peg 34
3. Vince Brown 35-09-0 peg 40
4. Dave Bacon 32-03-0 peg 20
5. Mike Nicholls 26-11-0 peg 32
6. Mike Owens 26-10-0 peg 18

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 20-07-0 peg 34
2. Mike Snudden 19-0-0 peg 39
3. Terry Bruton 15-08-0 peg 36