Partridge lakes

November 23rd , peg 105 Covey five

With my wife having a rare Sunday off work i decided to take full advantage of it and made a trip to Partridge lakes to contest the open match , the weather leading up to today had been pretty awful in fact the previous night we had a proper deluge of rain and this had a bearing on the weights caught during the week , in fact Saturdays open taking place on Covey 5+6 was only won with a mid thirty pound weight and all the top six weights came from Covey six which had a club match on today so wasnt in the open .The team match taking place on Covey 1-4 was won with 90lb but the f1s definitely seemed to be balled up with some people getting good weights while others really struggling .

On arrival at the venue i was in formed that their was ninety anglers in attendance which just goes to show the popularity of the venue , which meant they was going to be Covey 1-5 plus Marsh canal in the draw bag and the only one i didn’t want to be on was Covey five after last weeks struggle on their in fact 23lb won that lake yesterday . My drawing hand let me down yet again as number 105 stuck to my mitt so off i headed back to Covey five although it was one of the better pegs in the section and i last fished this peg on the Maver Match this qualifier where i broke my number four section on my pole and got well an truly battered on both sides so you can say it brought back some bad memories .

I decided to use just three rigs today ;

3ft both slopes , 4×12 malmans benny float with 0.12 garbo main line which had a 0.10 garbo hook length and a size 20 gamma pellet hook , elastic was orange matrix .

4ft both slopes , 4×12 malmans benny float with 0.12 garbo main line which had a 0.10 garbo hook length and a size 20 gamma pellet hook , elastic was orange matrix .

5ft channel 4×14 malmans benny float with 0.12 garbo main line which had a 0.10 garbo hook length and a size 18 gamma pellet hook , elastic was orange matrix .

malman roob

My bait was ;

1 pint red and white maggots

1 pint micro dusted with f1 dark ground-bait

small tub of white and normal expanders

When the all in sounded i went straight across on to my 3ft rig because i didn’t feel that they would be any shallower in these cold conditions , i tapped in a small kinder pot containing a few maggots plus a nugget of micro + ground-bait i had a single red maggot on the hook after a couple of minutes my float dipped and i foul hooked my first f1 which came off on the way in not really the start i was looking for . I began picking up the odd f1 on this line but they were only small and the guy on peg 106 was getting a fish a chuck fishing towards the point of the island at 2ft i was thinking that maybe i had made a mistake not setting a rig up at this depth but it didn’t work for me on my last visit , in the first hour i had eight f1s and when this line started to fade i set up a new one towards my right but feeding pellets this time because this was my best bait last time i was on here and a quick f1 hit the net soon followed by an f1 of around 4lb Bonus .

In the first two hours i had twenty fish in the net which was better than i had hoped for but i kind of lost the fish at this point for nearly an hour i had fed my channel line every 15 minutes with a kinder pot full of maggots since the start but i couldn’t get this right and i am really struggling to get this line to work . I began loose feeding six maggots every five minutes on to my top three-line towards the left of my peg first drop produced a big f1 and this got me another run off fish a bigger stamp than across too but i did need some were else to go when this line began to fade like it usually does when f1 fishing , with the wind beginning to get up and the sun going in it was noticeably colder so i decided to put in a new line across at 4 ft deep this got me another run of f1s and i rotated between both shelves to keep the fish coming but in the last twenty minutes they backed off and i couldn’t get a bite , which was my fault because i think that i had over fed and had not prepared some were else to go .

When the all out sounded i was unsure on how i had done and felt that both pegs 106 +108 had beaten me because they seemed to have caught a lot more consistently than i had so when the scales came round to me my 44 fish went 42lb which was more than i thought and better news was to follow when in fact i had won the section plus got second best weight on the lake Bonus number two . When i got to the cabin to pick up my money it looked like i might have also had a chance of framing too but not even i was that lucky and ended up 6th or 7th out of ninety anglers contesting the match with 60lb winning and a mid 50lb getting in the frame .

To be honest i was more than happy with the result but not really how i fished today i think it was another chance that i had blown for framing or even better and they don’t come along that often although i do seem to be getting more chances recently which goes to show that my fishing is improving after making the decision to quit my angling club , all i need to do is stop my mid match quiet spell which is easier said than done though plus like every match angler i could do with getting on the bank a bit more .

Partridge lakes

Saturday 11th October , peg 59 Covey three

After last weekends good results fishing wise i was understandably really looking forward to getting back on to the bank and my first matchup was a return to Partridge lakes to contest the open which would be taking place on coveys 1-5 .The weather in the week leading up to the match was best described as pretty awful with heavy rain and a serious drop in temperature and on the drive to the complex the dashboard showed a mighty four degrees although it was forecast to be dry and sunny today , when i arrived there plenty of people were knocking about which just goes to show how well contested these matches are and in fact we had sixty anglers attending it .

My home for the day was yet again Covey three but this time i was to be found on one of the few pegs i hadn’t been on before number 59 but with the amount of times i had been on it ( 19 in 38 visits ) i should know how best to fish it by now , all the pegs on here are very much the same with the far bank being 12 meters away and today i had an overhanging tree to my right margin with some reeds to the left margin plus the point of an island at 13 meters , all this had a bearing on how i would target the match and my main lines were going to be ;

Far bank slope at 3ft and this is where i decided to start the match using pellets as i felt that the conditions were right for this bait but as you will find out later i was way off the mark , my rig was a 4×12 malmans benny float with 0.12 garbo direct to a size 18 guru lwg hook and elastic was red matrix .

Near bank slope at 4ft this is usually my most prolific line on my last couple of matches here and i fed it for an hour before going on to it but unusually this produced only a solitary foul hooked fish , my rig was a 4×14 malmans benny float with 0.12 garbo direct to a size 18 guru lwg hook and elastic was red matrix .

Margin at 2ft side of the tree and yet again this was my best line with 24lb coming in the last ninety minutes on corn over ground-bait the rig was a 4×14 malmans speedy float with 0.16 garbo main line to a 0.14 garbo hook length and hook was a size 14 lwg , my elastic was yellow matrix .

I decided to use a heavier float this week on my margin and alter my feeding in this area to big kinder potting corn plus ground-bait after every fish or missed bite instead of using a cupping kit , i did this to try to cut out the foul hookers and i found that it worked really well in doing just that but my rig might have been to heavy for the f1s as i had too much bristle showing ( something for me to think about )

As i mentioned earlier i felt that it was pellet time so my bait revolved around this but i also took my old faithful that has done me well on here ;

3 pints red-white maggots

1 pint micro dusted with ground-bait

1 pint margin mix ground-bait

1/2 pint of sweet corn

small tub mixed expanders

When the all in sounded i shipped out to ten meters tapped in a small kinder pot full of micros then lowered my expander in among it and re fed every five minutes but not a great deal was happening , i did get enough indications to keep me interested and before i knew it forty minutes had passed with no fish in the net . Thinking back i spent too long their and the bites where probably from gudgeon but at least i hadn’t fallen too far behind as only one angler in my eyesight had caught more than a couple of fish .

I had fed my near bank slope with maggots every five minutes since the match started so i hoped that a few fish had settled their but fifteen minutes past without a sign , a change of shotting pattern to a staggered bulk and then a strung out pattern for if the f1s were of the deck although only a few ide was showing so it didn’t look promising but by doing this only resulted in a foul hooked fish not the start i wanted and the fish certainly seemed to be going in to winter mode .

Before the match started i felt that i needed twenty pounds of f1s before i went on to my margin swim to be in with a chance of getting the section win i wanted so i needed to get my finger out and find some much-needed fish , i set up another line further towards the point of the island at 3ft but this time with maggots and finally i managed a run of eight f1s was it the change of swim or bait that caught me them ?

With two hours remaining i began feeding my right hand margin with ground-bait and a few grains of corn , while i waited for this to settle i re tried my near shelf line this produced another f1 and an ide so with some hard work i had managed my twenty pound but i needed the margin to produce like i hoped it would .

First drop at the side of the tree and carp number one was in the net at around five-pound it was a much welcome addition to my weight , a few more followed mixed in with the odd f1 it wasn’t exactly hectic there and i don’t know if this was down to my feeding or the fact that the fish were not in this area but at least i didn’t foul hook any but i did notice that the lad to my right had caught a few f1s at 1ft deep really tight to the bank which i didn’t expect to work in the cold conditions where as i was fishing at 2ft ?

As the all out sounded i was unsure how i had got on i knew that i had beaten those anglers within eye shot although their was one guy on the fifty numbered pegs which i couldn’t see and when i went to see the lad on the next peg whom i knew informed me that he had packed up after just two hours so it looked like i had won my section and this was confirmed when the scales arrived with me putting 44lb on to them .

It was another confusing match for me and the fish were not giving themselves away easily but all over the coveys people were struggling to get over thirty pounds apart from on covey five which fished reasonably well with three of the top six weights coming from there , over all my weight was second best on the lake that’s two weeks running now and i hope that i can keep it going as i am back at Sycamore fisheries tomorrow looking for a four timer which i don’t think has been done on their before but it will be hard because its on both canals and that usually brings the better anglers out for some strange reason .