Open Match, The Grange (Caravan Park). Scunthorpe

So folks,

I decided to attend this match after having some really good success with my practice session 500lb plus bags! So it hard to be worth a shot.

The night before i organised my lines and what lines i would concentrate on. I opten for a 6m Paste line and 2 marginal lines in with the pole method fishing with paste on the method and between 5 and 10 dead reds on the hook. Although i did take a little insurance policy in fetching 10 dog biscuits!:p i didnt fetch alot as i didnt want to waste my time on trying to get them going on 'em. As i know the big weights come of the deck during the day. Its a waste of time until the end of the day.

I arrived and the weather looked good. A good turn out at around 20 anglers. 20 anglers fill the venue! I was eager to draw a good peg. I picked out 6! Peg six looked pretty good. It was only 2 pegs down from where i had the 500lb bag. I also really fancied this margin...

I decided to start of with just the paste line out at 6m. Its after a drop off from 1-2ft to 4ft but before the big drop to 7ft. I had mixed succes on this line. The lake has a huge head of roach stocked with size able shoals and nice specimens if you can get them, but once they are on your bait. They'll stay and you wont be able to feed them off. So i decided to put only small peices of paste in, and due to the size of the fish i was targeting it would prove to be a good change.

Soon had my first fish an average size fish for the lake, Maybe 3/4lb but a nice common anyway. I managed to get around 10 or so in the net for the first hour, but i needed to change as i new my catch rate wasnt enough, or at least wasnt as good as it could/should be. I decided to call it a day on the 6m lines and switch the the method line. All that read this blog will no that i support filling the margins in no matter what the season and time of year and its exactly what i did today. For the dead reds to work effectively and at its most. I kill 2 pint of red maggots and put upto a pint of maggots in with my sloppy g/bait mix for the method (Now, i dont normally do much with my paste. I stiffen it up a tiny bit just so its able to swing and not drip off but i want it to form a cloud as soon as it hits the water, especially as i am only fishing in 1-2ft of water MAX).

Within seconds i was in to this nice one. Doesnt take long to get a weight built in with these. I was averaging a fish every 2 minutes for over 2 hours. I couldnt get it in quick enough.

Was fishing really close in by the 4th hour. I was really happy with what i had managed to get. It did start to slow slightly. But i had more or less demolished all features in the peg. It was a slight pain in that i did keep getting a visual of a 20lb+ mirror below my feet that just wouldnt fall for my bait! With it slowing i decided to give it a go on my right hand side. The margin which i really fancied, again it wasnt long before i was into one. Better ones this time 8lb plus.

With the last 10 minutes of the match looming i was fishing extremely close to the feature on the right...

Managed to captures this picture just as a fish decided to run!:)

That was it. Time was blown, I estimated about 250lbs of fish, but i have been majorly off before. I hadnt noticed many people catch at the same rate as me. Though i was still nervous.

The top 3 was.

1. Nathan Johnson 356lb 11oz

2. Peter Jackson 153lb

3. Clive Dorkins 151lb 6oz

The better catches of the day. But netherless it was all good sport and great result!

Results, Cold Weather paste fishing - Hallcroft, Reed pool

So continuing on with the cold weather paste fishing.

...and what better way to prove that paste works in the colder months than commiting to it in a match?:)

I drew peg 13 which incidently is one of my most prefered pegs on the pool. Its a pretty no brainer peg. Margin to the left of you 2 feet of the bank is a legde which goes from 1 to 2 feet. I always fish at the bottom of this just out side of a bush. 6m and 11m line on the smaller ledges. The 6m line is always my fav, the 11m line just being a negative peg which isnt fed at all and is purely a get out of jail card and sort of an insurance policy.

My rigs for this type of weather with paste is basically the same apart from the line. Which i tend to just go above the 4lb mark adapted to a 13h elastic. Its a little light for the size of the fish i was targeting today 10 - 16lb region, but i wanted to get every fish out and there is a very high chance of getting the odd bream and chub so its a fish for and get every fish out method. I still use the same mix as previously posted but i just use a smaller cup as to avoid over feeding and leave it in to a max of 30 minutes, but i still fill the cup up. I didnt change anything else throughout the day. I still filled in the margin shelf with pellets and even decided to feed small balls of paste whilst i was fishing the other lines.

It wasnt long before i was into a nice lump. Played it steady but comfortably on the 13h elastic and it some came to the net and it was a lovely sized mirror, around the 15lb mark. Shortly followed by another 2 of the same size. But then it went dead for some time. Around an hour or so. I still plugged away on my 6m and 11m line and decided to go all out for the margins at half past 1. It did pay off. I had 3 fish for 30lb within 45 minutes and by the last hour i was getting one every 20 minutes biggest being a common of 19lb.

The day ended great. Its a shame it was a match as i would of liked to get a few pictures for you. I ended up in first place with 146lb with carp and 2 bream. It was a succesful day and a very good endorsement of winter paste fishing.

See you soon.

Nathan @Fish4Thought

Cold weather paste fishing - Hallcroft

Alright folks,

So i'm going to be doing abit of cold water paste fishing tomorrow. As we all know, you wont get the stamp or the amount of fish like you would in the summer months, BUT dont let that stop you trying it. I'll show you the differences in rigs and allocations of bait which should help you get the better out of a bad situation.

So check back soon and i'll have it up for you.

Nathan
@ Fish4Thought

Langold Lake - Peg 78

Hi Folks,

So continuing on with my Peg 101 Peice. I'm at langold lake today. Peg 78 to be precise. Its a fairly "Bland" Peg to look at but it has hidden depths:). It was good weather for Langold lake, Basically a storm, Nice and choppy with over cast weather.

My plan as always for Langold lake was to fish for everything that swims. Expecting Bream, Roach, Perch & Possibly some good tench.

My swim choice was dictated 50% by the weather. It was blowing in to the corner of the lake oppisite the cabin. So i was going to position my self there which is why i picked peg 78. I opted for an 11m and 6m line. With good plumbing you are able 2 fish on 2 ledges at the same time. The frontal ledge and the ledge coming from the corner so it drops from 4/5ft to 7ft and this is were to fish! I chose to start the session with a .8gr Map LAKE float as it was very windy this was put onto 3.1lb straight through with a 16 B510 Barbed.

My other line was just below the very first ledge on the wall. Dropping from 3ft to 4/5ft i this is a get out of jail card and you mostly get small stuff on here from tiny skimmers to perch, this is the swim you want to be on just to keep things going into the keep net on the hard match days. This was to be fish with 2.5lb Straight through to a 18 B510 Barbed with a colmic gold float @ .30gr.

I started off as i always do. Filling it in with 4 balls of my ground bait mix. The mix can be found here - http://nate-fish4thought.blogspot.com/2011/08/previous-wednesday-langold-lake.html

As always you need to be as precise as you can with the balls, you can use a pole cup but i just use my hands for simplicity and it spreads it around as soon as it hits the surface. As usual i planned to fish this swim with a mixture of Worm/caster and a get out of jail card of dead reds.

So i started on my 11m line onto the bottom of both the ledges as previously said. It wasnt long before i was into the first fish of the day. A small 1/2 skimmer. Good start and this can often be a good sign. They came rolling in for an hour or so but nothing particularly special but good sport anyway. At about 11 o clock the wind eased off so i decided to opt for a rig made up of PB22 .5gr to 3.5lb/2.5lb hook link tied to a 16 B510 barbed. By the time 2 o clock came i had done 36lb of bream and bits. But asusual for the lake it went dead.

I decided it was time for the 6m line and dead red. Which i had been putting golf ball sized balls of ground bait in for around 4 hours @ a ratio of ever half hour. As soon as i put it in i was straight into the smaller skimmers 1 - 6oz. I was getting one a chuck but with feeding the amount you do, your swim tends to get full and soon enough the pike were there to bother me. I did get 2 on but never ended up coming out just a bit of a fish! It was almost a sprint to get the smaller stuff in as a jack pike had taken residents just below me. Which is when i decided to start packing up:).



...........Some of the better catches of the day.


All in all it was a very good day ending on 42lb of Bream, Skimmers, roach and the odd perch. As i said previously its a nice day which takes you back to earth from the 200lb commie bags and gets you to appreciate it a little more. There are a few more people on the lake now a days which is a good sign. Hopefully the feeder pegs will be fishable some time soon:).

Nathan
@ Fish4Thought

Method on the Pole - Grange Park (Golf Course)

Hi Folks,

So, it was the first time i had been to this venue. All i knew about it is that it was small and fished well on floaters and bread on the later hours. This is the Website for the venue - http://www.grangepark.com/. Just like to say thanks to the owners for letting me use my keep nets. When i arrived at the venue it looked pretty grim. To look at it was to imagine someone had built a big house, a golf course and indoor tennis court then just added a lake for another profit branch. It was well kept with vegetation and there is no visible pegs just banks. So its fair to say that i didn't predict a very good day.

Overhead view of Grange Park....

And then my peg, with my possible swims which i planned for while setting up....

The basics of any new venture on new venues is to use different lines on different times on the day. I opted for my basic very much religion of lines. 2 Margin bottom, 6m bottom and 16m bottom and up in the water with a far side chuck on the feeder at around 100 Yards. The lake only has around 30 'Pegs' as only the left and bottom side of the picture are actually available banks for fishermen. The lake was very low. It looked as though it was around 4ft done. I had to position my seat box in the water to get out a bit.

I opted for a Paste based approach with a back up of dead reds. As stated in earlier post's, i decided to stick with a no feed approach for the in front swims and stick to a feed heavy approach to the margins. The shallow rig was a basic rig 4x10 Colmic golden float with 3ft of 4lb Power Line tied to a 16 B911 fished with Stiff Paste around 5 ft under depth.

After a short plug on the 6m Line, i found a slight ledge, now over all the lake is a bowl. Its goes from 1ft - 14ft in the middle. I chose to fish just before the drop off to 7ft which is in 4ft of water. I opted for my paste set up as previously posted and that was that. Within 15 Minutes i was into a fish, it was around the 3/4lb Mark, i noted that it was a very good fight on the 13h elastic, probably caused by the shallow water.

My First fish (Pretty much all too follow was the same stamp of fish).....

So the fish came rolling in on the paste. After about 2 hours i thought i would try another method having had around a carp every two minutes. I did see LOADS of carp in the margins in around 10 inches of water or less! I did try to take pictures of them but i couldn't through the reflection of the water but there must of been around 20 carp to 8lb just in front to the left of my platform. I first tried to fish my regular rig and even my super shallow rig as pictured a few weeks ago, but with the liners i simple wasn't able to keep my hook bait around the paste for more than 5 seconds. It needed sorting, I figured i would try a method feeder on a pole, still using paste on the feeder but mixing a couple of dead reds in with the mix and fishing 5 dead reds on a size 12 Animal. Basically it was just a method on a 5ft piece of line. Not a long hook length at all, around 2 inch MAX. It wasn't long before they were coming in fast...


Here's the rig.....

You just swing it...

Then Drop it...

Note, I don't use the upper sleeve on the method, as i don't really need it to be aerodynamic and it really just helps to keep the rig free running. About 1ft above the method and every foot above that put a tiny amount of rig putty just to pin the line down. obviously just leave two foot from your top kit so you can pin it down. Its worth while remembering to make sure the method will slide off the line over the putty just in case you get snapped off. My rig was made up on 8lb Amnesia memory free hook link to 10lb Power line. I went in heavy due to the shallowness of the water and I wanted to fish 15h elastic just to stop the initial run, but still keep it light enough so they hook them selves over the elastic.


If you haven't fished this method before, I like to call it the Traffic Light method, As my Connector is Red and my elastic is green - All you do is wait for the elastic to scream off, and then it shows green, so stay calm and don't strike at all just lift in. So that's where i get that from :). It isn't advisable to fish this method near snags as the fish is always one step a head of you.

Just how close in i was fishing, I was using my roost as a feature!.....

So As soon as i got them feeding on this is i literally caught everything. Plopped it in then straight away in screamed off, i was touching the bottom with the end of my top kit just to stop all the liners. After around another 2 hours i had landed about 60 Carp it took longer to load my method and bait up than it did to get a bite when it was in the water. I did notice a lot of fish rolling around 1.5m in front of me - i then decided to give it a flick just to the front of me. It took a little longer to get bites in front of me, but eventually i got them going, the fish tended to be a bit of a better stamp of fish, probably around the 5lb mark and upwards with the odd 10lber coming out....

Eventually i had to pack up because it was nearly dark! But this venue is very good for anyone wanting to bag up, I did notice a lot of the locals go on dog biscuit all day, but they only got around 10 fish. I did have a very large audience at one point, due to the amount of fish i was catching, I don't think anybody on the venue has seen methods like i used today, mainly because its very family orientated and not match fished at all. Total weight of 501lb from 8 hours of fishing. I thought it fished pretty well. Very easy on the method feeder with the pole. Noted everyone was struggling on a lot of other methods.

Go and have a go, You'll love it!

Nathan
@ Fish4Thought