Thursday 24 September 2015

Thursday 24/09/2015 - Harescombe Fishery - Cost Cutter Open - Match Lake

I travelled today with the affable Tony Rixon, who arrived 5 minutes early still with plenty of time for a large breakfast – like being with Bela in this respect, double Black Pudding for the driver.

I just can’t understand why this fishery isn’t sold out for every match, it’s brilliant, especially with a tenner pools which is only two quid more than a day permit. That said we did have five up from Bristol.

After Tony’s round table piss take it was into the draw bag – me first and out comes peg 25. Hang on I thought there was only 24 pegs. Not now as peg 25 has been salvaged from the landslide. Arriving at the peg I was slightly concerned that the end bank was far too close to the platform (pictured right). Nonetheless it really doesn’t matter where you draw on this Lake as there are so many F1’s in the Lake. Apparently this bank hasn’t been fishing so well as the car park bank – I can’t understand why this should be so.

I set up three rigs: A 4x12 Jolly for down the inside shelf finding one foot less than the other two pegs I have fished so far, so not completely re-salvaged. A 4x10 Yoof recommended to me at Landsend by the Yoof Trigger. Not as good as the Drennan Chop wire stem because the bodies are far bigger and the wire stem although very stiff the smallest rubber tends to slide around wasting time to re-adjust, overall not a bad substitute. Finally I set up the Ronnie rig to fish at 12 inches deep, long lining to the end bank. All rigs to have a 6mm meat hook bait.

Starting on the Jolly at top-set plus one over micro I started catching F1’s straight away. Because I wasn’t sure where I would bag I started loose feeding hard 4’s down my LH margin, similarly over to the muddy end bank and caster down my very short RH margin – all hand fed. Unusual for me to have four swims in play.

The upshot was I didn’t stay with the longer first line long enough being distracted by Carp slurping up the muddy end bank where I caught some proper Carp on the Ronnie rig but couldn’t keep them in reach as they would quickly back off. I caught most of the Carp down to the Left and plenty of Silvers down to the Right over the caster including Chub, Barbel, Hybrids and Skimmers ending with just 9 species this time out – no Perch or Rudd!

I thought I was well out of it today; however, it is very difficult to know what you have in custody (a few ex police about today). I was surprised that my nets went 99lb 10oz with the last fish pinging off costing me third place.

Excellent days fishing, it doesn’t get any better in my opinion. Back in two week time. Tony has booked a Sunday match so watch his blog for details.

The match was won by “floorman” Adrian Clark (pictured right with the runner up) with 122lb 12oz. Adrian caught mostly on the method feeder chucked to his end bank with banded hard pellet and eyes shut. Adrian did have some on the pole enabling him to say he caught some properly.

Full Result:

  1. Adrian Clark 122-12-0 peg 14
  2. Tony Rixon 117-0-0 peg 9
  3. Stuart Graham 100-14-0 peg 3
  4. Mike Nicholls 99-10-0 peg 25
  5. Stuart Barnet 97-04-0 peg 6
  6. Terry Girdlestone 91-04-0 peg 12
Weigh Sheet:


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