Silverfox Match Angling: Thursday 12/05/2016 - Harescombe Fishery - Coast Cutter

Thursday 12 May 2016

Thursday 12/05/2016 - Harescombe Fishery - Coast Cutter - Match Lake

Back to Harescombe and after yesterdays walk where I got absolutely soaked I was looking forward to a dry day, which is what we got, albeit the nippy wind has returned from the North West.

After the usual breakfast and natter, first in to the draw bag and out come peg 30. Without doubt there are worse pegs but with all the rain over the past two days and the weir was running harder than usual which isn’t a good sign. The NW wind was also blowing hard in to me. For company on peg 29 was Roy Morley and on peg 3 was Stuart Graham. I set up the usual 4x12 F1 float to fish short and the 4x10 Yoof for both margins. Whilst checking the F1 float is was clear the presentation would be difficult with the water from the weir running to my left back towards the weir, plus the wind was blowing it towards me. The Yoof wasn’t much better so a hard anticipated. Plenty of colour though!

I started short on the F1 float with 4mm semi-hards on the hook. However, the decision was where to feed which I don’t think I got the first pot right because I started to catch two metres from the feed. I had a good first twenty minutes catching six F1’s and six Skimmers.

A noise similar to a dull bell ringing was coming from Roy on peg 29. Roy had a hard plastic pot on the end of his top set and was tapping out hard fours through drilled holes in the pot using a float called a Rattler (I think). I found it most distracting. This is no way to fish.

Then for some unknown reason (at the time) I couldn’t get a bite. I tried both margins where I had been loose feed a small amount of pellet with the semi-hards on the hook and struggled to catch the odd F1. It appeared to be fishing hard all round the Lake probably due to the influx of the cold rain water. Because of the awful presentation on the F1 Float I decided to stay in the relative calm of both margins. It wasn’t until the last forty five minute that the fish decided to feed in numbers. Was it time of day? The wind had dropped? The weir had slowed allowing the float to change direction? Who knows except that I doubled my weight during this time, adding two nice Barbel.

I finished the match with 46lb for third overall which on hindsight I was pleased with.

The match was won by Terry Girdlestone with 62lb 12oz from peg 21. Terry explains how he caught in the video below.

A first for John Wood (pictured right picking up his winnings from fishery manager Andrew Price) gaining his first pick-up at the venue with 40lb 10oz which included 20lb of Chub all caught on maggot from three quarters. Well done matey.