Well i attended my first match at Langold lake for a while this weekend just gone. Pleased i got back on it though as it brings you back down to earth from the 100lb bags on commercials.
Well, to start off i drew peg 49. Which is right on the end of the swimming pier. I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Next time i'm down i'll get a picture for you, its a long pier no more than a mtr wide and drops to around 10-12 feet of water! Well, as soon as i put my rod bag down and got the feeder rod out that went straight in :(, just fortunate enough that the feeder got caught on the roost so i could get it back!
My plan of attack before i had drawn was just the feeder at say 40 - 50 yards (this will suffice on most of the pegs) but i drew a peg which could well be decent on the pole so i decided to set that up too.
Rig wise i opted for:
Feeder rod, (10ft) 4lb maxima - 2ft of 0.10 tied off to a 18 B510 with a small but heavy drennan ground bait feeder.
Pole line, 10-11ft deep .11 - .09 tied off to a 20 B510 in conjunction with a 1g Preston PB22 with the bulk of the shot 6 inch from the hook.
And bait wise....
I'd had alot left over from previous days so i had alot of choice. My main items for trial were (In this order)...
- Maggots
- Dead Maggots
- Dead Maggots with Tumeric
- Worms and Caster
My plan was to feed light until i'd found the fish, as no one was really sure where about's the bream would be. So as soon as the all in went vocal, i decided to go straight on the feeder.
The tip didn't move so much!
Infact, by the first hour and half i'd cast in a few times and couldn't even buy a bite, but it wasn't just my area - everyone was struggling.
I decided to give the pole a bash and for the next half an hour just didn't see anything. I believe when times are hard in fishing it pays to be inpatient especially for bream on a day match. After all you have to find em..(Unless your planning heavy baiting!!).
I decided to have a chuck around with a bomb with 3 Dead Maggots smothered in Tumeric. as i was the last peg on my section, i section to cast up the lake and maybe find a bit of shallow water. so i cast around 50 yards (around about 3/4 pegs up from me and left it for a while....Or i intended too! The tip went straight round and the fish just darted for the margins, fortunately the wind was in my favour and the fish began to come straight to me and to my surprise it was a small tench...
Well, for the rest of the match i never had a single bite. I couldn't see anyone else getting ANYTHING apart from the guy next to me who managed to get a perch. I noticed a few people packing up and i couldn't figure out why?? If its fishing hard then surely its easier to win as you only need one decent fish!
Throughout the day i started to have trouble from all the debris floating down from the shallows....Its a real pain sometimes but it shouldn't bother you to much if you know what your doing..
Top Tip
If you start to get floating debris...
Instead of whipping it up and down and disturbing your tip...
Which intern will cut or vibrate the debris away.
The last couple of hours of the match were rather tense for me. I thought i'd won it with that tench but wasn't sure and just wanted time to be called. The last two hours really dragged but i still didn't see anyone else get anything.
Time was called anyway,....
Top 3 were....
Nathan Johnson - 2lb 1oz
Ian Burnet - 1lb 13oz
Mark Woodcock - 13oz
It was a very hard day! Not much shown at all, pretty lucky to get that tench really. Just proves what an advantage an end peg actually is! I'll put it down to the weather and the pressure for the lack of fish showing, but i was still pretty surprised to see a tench this time in the year!
I'll be back there next Sunday, think it'll be my local haunt for the next couple of week!
Catch ya later.
