Partridge lakes

November 9th , peg 98 Covey four

Covey four

After last weekends eventful couple of matches were i really struggled with foul hooked fish i was eager to get back on the bank and to try to put a few things in practice that i hopped might solve it , so off i headed to Partridge lakes although it had fished hard in the days leading up to todays contest with the Saturday’s match being won with just 60lb and even lower weights in the midweek ones , but at least the weather today was forecast to be a lot better which could help make it more of a level playing field for the 75 anglers here and this also meant there would be 15 on each canal as covey six was taken up by a club match .

At the draw i pulled out ball 98 which was in the middle of the split on Covey four not really where i wanted to be as i had not done that well on these sorts of pegs in the past , when i arrived at my home for the day i was talking to a fellow angler he informed me that 18lb was the best weight from that area on Saturday not really what i wanted to hear though but nothing i could do about it now though .As i began setting up it looked like i might have a bit of room with the nearest person being on flyer peg hundred , i thought that i might have a chance of a few fish but all that changed when some one settled down on peg 97 and it looked like i would be a bit hemmed in but i did have an empty peg to compensate for it.

I decided to think positive as it was a good area for carp so i wouldn’t need that many fish for a good weight and i felt that just 50lb could be enough to be in with a chance of framing , i settled on four lines to use today ;

Top three-line 4ft , 4×14 malman roob with 0.12 garbo and a 0.10 garbo hook length , my hook was a size 18 guru LWG and elastic was size 12 red Matrix .

Six meter channel line 5ft , 4×16 malman roob with 0.12 garbo and a 0.10 garbo hook length , my hook was a size 20 bagger Matrix hook and elastic was size 10 orange Matrix .

Ten meter far bank line 3ft, 4×12 malman roob with 0.12 garbo and a 0.10 garbo hook length , my hook was a size 20 bagger Matrix hook and elastic was size 10 orange Matrix .

Eleven meter far bank line 2ft , 4×10 malman roob with 0.12 garbo and a 0.10 garbo hook length , my hook was a size 20 carp bagger Matrix hook and elastic was size 10 orange Matrix .

I was a bit confused on what bait to take today as i had heard conflicting stories about pellet and maggots working well so i decided to bring both ;

One pint red and white maggots

Small tub of mixed expanders

One pint micros

One pint ground-bait

Half pint 4mm pellets

As the all in sounded i shipped out to my ten meter 3ft deep line and tapped in some micros capped with ground-bait , i began lifting-dropping the expander hook bait and it didn’t take long before a little dink on the float produced  my first f1 of the day but i think that after feeding with the same amount as at the start it might have over fed the area because i couldn’t get another indication or maybe they just didn’t fancy pellet today , a change of hook bait to maggot produced another quick f1 so it looked like that was the bait to be on but yet again after refeeding i seemed to have killed the area again but i soon found out why the f1s had vanished when carp number one made its way to the net at around 5lb it was a nice bonus .

After the first hour i only had three fish in the net and it looked like it could be a long day but i have found it is usually slow in the first half of the match before improving as it goes on so no need to panic just yet , i had been loose feeding six maggots every five minutes on my top three-line so i decided to give that a whirl and i began getting the odd indication before my first proper bite resulted in carp number two hitting the net quickly followed by a decent sized f1 but after all the disturbance i decided to rest it for a while so went back across to the far bank where i had caught earlier , no bites came on my original swim so i set up another one a few feet to my right but just fed six maggots this produced another carp plus a couple of f1s and in the first couple of hours i had five carp , three f1s for about 24lb which is better than i usually do on here and if i can have my usual good run of fish near the end i would have a chance of hitting my target weight but this is where my match started to deteriorate as in the next ninety minutes i completely lost the fish with only ide coming to the net even though i set up multiple swims and the only carp i managed to hook bottomed my elastic out before making a beeline for my platform and trashed my rig underneath it but its been a while since i lost a fish that way so i will let it have that one .

With just an hour remaining i decided to set up a new swim in 2ft of water across where to be honest i didn’t expect to catch due to the cold conditions , at first i started picking up some nice size ide before the f1s moved in and i even had a carp which i landed after the whistle .Overall i had seven carp , five f1s and six ide for 38lb and second in the section only getting beat by peg one hundred which i expected to win or maybe even frame as every time i turned round he was playing a fish so i was quite surprised when he only put 50lb on the scales after speaking to him he said he lost more than he caught fishing bread to the point of the island he was understandably disappointed as you really need to take your chances when they present themselves on here.

Yet again it was another match where i should have done better and i was surprised that my usual mid match run of fish did not materialise on the plus side i caught on every line i fished but couldn’t get a run of f1s going which was probably down to my feeding or maybe i should have only had two lines at one depth trying to pick up a couple of fish from one swim before swapping to the other this might have kept them coming for longer , rather than keep setting up new swims as in the end i had five lines along the far-bank within four meters of each other which could have split up the shoal ,I also neglected my channel line which could have caught me some fish in the mid match quiet spell.

I will be back there on Saturday to give it another go because i am really enjoying the fishing on their but if i can keep the fish coming it will not be far away from framing more regularly , fingers crossed.

 

 

 

Matrix super box upgrade

After having had my Matrix super box for over 18 months and it was beginning to look a bit tired with a few rips on the seat , so with me not having the money to replace it i decided to give it a bit of a makeover , the first thing i wanted to do was recover the seat and this was a lot easier than i first imagined ;

 

1, I ordered some heavy-duty leatherette material of the internet and i decided on a blue colour so that it would match my Matrix ethos luggage but i am sure you could find almost any colour that you would like .

2, The seat itself was attached to the Matrix frame by just four screws and when these are removed it is a reasonably easy job to recover it .

3, You will need a heavy-duty staple gun , material scissors and a flat screw driver .

4, The pole butt plate will need to be removed and you do this by easing the staples out with the screw driver , this separates it from the seat by doing this it makes it easier for you to cover it .

5, Cut a piece of your leatherette material one meter square is more than enough , i left this bit for my wife to do but there is plenty instructional videos on you tube showing how to do it and over all it is pretty easy to do its all about getting the folds right on the corners .

6, Using your heavy-duty stapler attach the material and the pole butt plate to the wooden base of the seat , then re attach it to the frame with the four screws and jobs a good’un .

7, To totally re-make the seat doesn’t look that hard either as it is just a piece of MDF plus sponge and then cover in the same way but getting the right type of foam could be an issue .

With the seat now being covered i decided to get the frame of the box and legs sprayed , i didn’t think that having it done at a car body work shop would last especially on the legs which can take a bit of a battering with your box attachments going on and off it . So i had a look on the internet and stumbled upon powder coating which was similar with the stuff coating your radiators but more hard-wearing , the only trouble was that it needed to go in an oven so all the plastic pieces would be needed to be removed , the main bits are riveted in place so these would be needed to be drilled out and the other pieces can be easily eased out with a screw driver .

After a few days i got my box frame back i needed to put it all together most off it could be gently tapped back on , but you will need a rivet gun and some 4mm rivets to attach the pieces to the main frame which is a lot easier than you would think and if i can do it i am sure anyone can .

 

As you can see it makes a big difference to how it looks and if you’re a proper tackle tart like me then you can personalise it just how you like regarding colours etc , all for less than eighty pounds .