Thursday 27 July 2017

Thursday 27/07/2017 - Harescombe Cost Cutter - Match Lake

Although I heard that the venue wasn’t fishing that well I thought I would give Harescombe a visit, if only to meet up with the regulars, a great bunch of friendly guys of like minds. That includes Roy “Disney” Liddell.

First visit since 9th of March during which there has been change in the rules, we can now feed GB in a cup. Not for me at mo as there are far too many small silver fish.

After a far too big a breakfast “Disney” and I discussed peg 29 which neither of us liked. Now what happened next if all down to Disney, first into the draw bag and to the immense joy of Disney out comes peg 29 - Bugger.

Arriving at the peg I found I now had to look at Disney who was on peg 2. Luckily I had gentleman Terry Jones next door on peg 30. Peg 30 is Ok providing peg 3 is the next peg, not peg 2. What stood out was how much the fishery is being taken over by Hazel trees/bushes; these need sorting now before the job becomes massive. Andy Price!!

Now for a top tip never spill super glue on the plastic zip of your bait bag, otherwise the only way to get in is through the side with a sharp knife!!

At least the weir was only dribbling because if its running had the peg becomes very difficult. However, the water looked very clear. All this said it must be a fish holding swim. The problem is where to fish for them. Above the water I counted 15 possibilities, let alone plumbing around where there weir had scoured the bottom.

Selected three swims the first two margin swims, one to my right tight in and the other left to the end bank at top-set plus one both could be covered by a 4x10 Yoof. The other swim was at 2-o-clock at top-set plus one which was 4 ½ feet deep which suited the 4x12 Winter. There was a slight flow from the weir enabling this rig to naturally drag up the slope. I started by feeding the three lines with 6mm meat and wetted micro. The upshot of this was for 1 ½ hours I struggled with the meat and 4mm expender both being gnawed to death by small Silvers in all three swims. Only had hard 4’s or corn in the bag so selected the rusty tin of corn. So I switched to kindering small kernels of corn with corn on the hook using the 4x12 Winter rig. This worked well, but was missing loads of F1 bites. It was only a small tin of corn and wasn’t enough to prime the margin as well. I stayed away from the margin until the last hour and tried the meat and had a Barbel of about 2lb. In again and another Barbel which took the meat on the drop, unfortunately it fought so hard it broke 0.14 hook length! I was warned before hand that the Barbel had grown on! The meat was once gain gnawed to depth so switched to the corn and had enough left to feed a few more F1’s into the swim.

It was another great days fishing with plenty of bites. I must add that I had a beautiful 12oz Roach. I weighed 50lb 11oz for third overall so happy with this from unfancied peg (only by my and Disney it’s really a flyer if you know what your doing).

The match was won by Stuart Graham (pictured right trying to hide behind the weigh board) with 81lb 13oz from peg 18. Stuart fished over to the piles using banded hard fours fished over loos fed fours. When it went quite he switched over his GB line to add some decent Silvers. He then switched to 10 metres to keep the F1’s coming switching to caster shallow. Apparently that side of the Lake was very coloured. The water runs in and out on the same side.

Very enjoyable and will be back soon.

Full Result:

  1. Stuart Graham 81-13-0 peg 18
  2. Russ Baker 54-13-0 peg 24
  3. Mike Nicholls 50-11-0 peg 29
  4. Mike Goodluck 47-13-0 peg 22
  5. Martin Hook 42-03-0 peg 14
  6. Paul Haines 42-01-0 peg 6
Weigh Sheet:


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