Silverfox Match Angling: Thursday 14/04/2016 - Harescombe Cost Cutter

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Thursday 14/04/2016 - Harescombe Cost Cutter - Match Lake

It was only my second visit this year to Harescombe Fishery but will be back again soon. A nice breakfast was soon devoured cooked by affable Andy Price. Andy had closed Field Lake in case the turn out exceeded the pegs on Match Lake. Luckily we had 20 anglers booked in so all on the Match Lake which has 27 useable pegs. Personally I don’t think Field Lake should be used until more than 27 anglers are fishing.

Into the draw bag and out comes aluminium disk peg 12. Having looked around before the draw I did fancy the far end, the question was, is peg 12 far enough up? I did have anglers both sides so I wasn’t sure about the margin as the left side had a land slip, but the other side had some cover but both sides were fairly flat to about one metre out from the bank which doesn’t help presentation.

Choose the RH side for the 4x10 Yoof and the top-set plus two for the 4x14 Jolly in four foot of water. Because I had doubts about the inside I also plumbed up over to the island at 13 metres using the same rig as the margin but adding about three inches, marking both depths with the black marker above and below the float on the G-Line.

I started on the Jolly with semi-hards over kindered pellet. I started well catching five F1’s in about the same number of put-ins. I then had a Skimmer so re-fed, had a couple more F1’s then it went dead getting un-hittable bites from the small fish. I had a quick look in the margin with pellet over the loose feed I had been dribbling in since the start which resulted in a good size F1. I felt it was a bit too early for the margin so fed the 13 metre line with a small pot of pellet/meat mix which resulted in a fish a bung with 6mm meat hook bait for about 30 minutes with most of the time shipping in and playing the F1’s out. This swim went quiet so re-fed which resulted in five lost F1’s on the trot – were they fouled or lightly hooked – I don’t know and never will. The next two middle hours were hard, slowly adding the odd F1 from 13 meters and the RH margin. I started to catch better on the 13 metre line until a horrendous thunder storm arrived complete with hell stones as big as my semi-hards. The thunder/lightening was overhead so I quickly abandoned the long pole and switched to the margin where the fish had switched on. I reckon I added 25lb in the last 45 minutes.

I finished the match (5 hours) with 76lb 11oz for third overall. I was content with this considering the peg and with anglers both sides. But I felt could have done better. I lost the biggest F1 I have seen at this fishery some where between 3 and 4lb which after a decent battle I got it in the landing net for it to bloody jump out and escape – fair play to the fish.

It was another enjoyable day at this fishery – except for the storm.

The match was won by Martin Hook who found himself on peg 17 and made the most of having an empty peg to his right and three empty pegs to his left. See the video below where Martin explains how he caught.