Hewlitt pit

14th September

hewlit pit

After managing to book a couple of days off work i decided to go for a few hours fishing on my local water trying to reignite my passion for the sport before my winter league starts in a few weeks but to be honest my heart still isn’t in it especially at this time of year leading up to my birthday which will be the first without my dad but anyway i forced myself to go and i could always come home after a few hours with the fishery being right on my doorstep . I planned on just using pellets today so hopefully it would be a nice easy day catching a few f1s but because i had not been here i couldn’t be certain how it would fish , it used to be a very good water for fishing shallow because it was quite deep but with the recent drop in temperature plus plenty rain going in i hoped this would keep the fish on the deck and i would not suffer with liners too much .

On arrival at the venue i was surprised to see three anglers already there and they was all fishing the far bank so i settled on my favorite peg six although this meant i had the wind blowing in my face and with the forecast rain it looked like i meant be getting wet but at least it wasnt cold , i plumbed up a rig at five meters out at a slight angle towards my left so i could play the fish in front of me without disturbing the shoal and i found it to be nearly six-foot deep so i used a positive 4×16 malman roob which is my favorite float when soft pellet fishing because it sits really well in the water with a slightly thicker tip so you can shot it to a pimple which helps to magnify the little dinks from the finicky f1s .

I began my session just after ten and began feeding a large kinder pot full of micros every couple of minutes to try to draw some fish into the peg , i would just tap the pellets in letting them fall slowly through the water to hopefully catch the attention of the f1s and i kept my rig really still once it had settled directly over where i had put the bait in setting a little trap . It took about 15 minutes before i had my first fish which was an f1 about 1.5lb and it was the slightest indication on the float which i could have quite easily mistaken for a line bite , it didn’t take long before i had the fish lined up and i even switched to a small kinder pot because i was getting that many indications but even though i had been carefully with the feed the bottom was soon fizzing like mad , i tried changing to feeding hard 4mm pellets but that just slowed the amount of indications that i was getting and when i started foul hooking the odd fish plus getting liners i decided to put in a new swim in shallower water .

My new swim was in five foot deep and only a couple of feet from my original one so i was pretty confident that i could move the shoal of fish , it took only ten minutes before i was back catching again and by clumping the micros in with a few hard 4mm pellets mixed in my catch rate was soon up to speed again . After a couple of hours of catching my expander pellets had started to break up because i had made the rookie mistake of leaving them soaking in the water for too long and i had not brought any more with me so i had to try using a banded pellet , 6mm pellets was to big making me miss too many indications and the 4mm ones meant i was waiting a lot longer for a bite than i did before , taking a shot off my rig which lifted my float bristle a touch and waiting for a proper pull under helped me hit more indications but it definitely wasnt as good as using expanders but it’s nice to try to make things work on these pleasure sessions .

When the bailiff came round to collect the money he told me that the fishing had dropped of a touch recently with most of the locals choosing to target the bigger carp in the edge on mussels and also that the matches had been stopped due to a lack of people turning up because one lad had won them all , this was a real shame because when i was just starting on the match scene this was one of my favorite venues because you was guaranteed a dozen competent anglers every week and it was an important stepping stone for me before a ventured onto the bigger contests but i suppose some people just like spoiling it for others .

my solitary skimmer in my catch full of f1s

Anyway back to the fishing and i was still getting an indication everytime i put my rig in but even though i had been very careful with the feed it was back fizzing up again , so it was time for another new swim but this time i really struggled to find a good area because there was a big snag where i ideally wanted to put it plus with the shelf being rather stoney it didn’t plumb up that well and i ended up putting another section on to try to find a flattish area . It took me about thirty minutes of constant feeding before i was getting any indications which was only to be expected with it being so far away from my original swim and i was now getting drastically low on expander pellets plus i was getting a bit bored of catching f1s because every one of them was nearly identical in size . So i decided to see if i could catch any of the big carp in here and i set up a margin rig with heavier elastic in because i had been told they are up to twenty pounds in size , i plumbed up on my top kit plus one near an overhanging reed bed were it was relatively flat and i could easily throw hard 4mm pellets around my float to attract some fish into the swim , i cupped in by remaining micros and expander mush before going over the top of it with my rig which had a hard 6mm pellet on the bait band and it didn’t take too long before i was getting indications but not from the fish i wanted because i was back catching the f1s , it was strange because i could the boil from big carp every time i hooked an f1 but they didn’t want a hard pellet today and after around four hours fishing i had managed nearly 50 f1s plus a solitary skimmer so you could say it was a good days fishing but to be honest i didn’t really feel it , maybe it was the time of year and i had other things on my mind or maybe i need the challenge of match fishing im not to sure but i hope to find out in the next few weeks after my opening winter league match on Bradshaw’s lake three .

Thanks for reading Matthews580.

Three years and still going strong

Well, it was brought to my attention that it’s been 3 years since I started to write blogs, as an un-sponsored angler I am totally unbiased about the fisheries I choose to go to and also all the tackle I choose to use. I hope you get from my blogs what I hope to achieve, which is a good honest review from the fisheries I attend to the type of line I use. Everybody is different with their choices of tackle & you should always use what you feel is the best for you, it’s all about personal choice! I have gained over 200,000 views over the past 3 years & that is just absolutely amazing & I can’t thank you all enough for taking time out of your day to come & read what I have been up to, about what an average match angler has to say. Just recently you will have noticed I have changed the style in which I write my blogs, for Christmas my long-suffering wife bought me an action camera so I can video as I fish & incorporate them into my blogs. I’m still having a few teething problems in getting used to the camera but I don’t think I’m doing too bad so far! I’ve got a few ideas on how to make it work for me better but, I’ll need to get out onto the bank for a few pleasure fishing sessions to work it all out, it’s difficult to work these things out within a match which, I intend to do over the next few weeks as I’m having a break from match fishing before the big matches start again in May.

Round up of winter league at Old Hough

Short video of a three hour session at Hewlit pit

Partridge lakes , Holbar lake

April 23rd , peg 46

After the recent sunny weather i decided to make the most of it and grab a few hours fishing after work and with Partridge lakes being only ten minutes away i decided to head their but i was unsure on just which lake to fish on as all the waters there are highly stocked with fish , with my first fisho qualifier coming up on Moorlands farm which are mainly big lakes and catching carp in the margin will play an important part to doing well i decided to see how many anglers were on Holbar as this is the only place on the complex which respond to this method .

After parking up my car on the road near covey i went for a look to see just how many people were fishing on it and i was surprised to see nearly every other peg taken in fact it looked like their was a match taking place but i spotted on the opposite bank a gap of four empty places so i hastily drove to Holbars car-park and made my way to the peg after speaking to a few anglers on the way most had said that it had been hard going in the spring sunshine , when i approached the group of pegs i settled on the last one which gave me a bit of space plus there was plenty carp showing in both margins  .

I decided on a nice easy day so concentrated just on both my margin as i could do with the practise because it is something that i don’t do a great deal off these days in fact my last try was in the second round of the Angling times super cup at chapel pool , i plumbed up to find 2ft against both sets of margin reeds which i felt would be a bit too deep but that was as shallow as i could find and i would no doubt suffer with foul hookers if i got my feeding wrong .

My bait today was going to revolve around using particles as ground-bait wasn’t allowed at Moorlands fishery so i had ;

1 pint of corn

2 pints of 4mm pellets

I hoped that this would last me for a few hours , at 3 o’clock i was ready to get started and i put in two cupping kits full of pellets+corn on to my left hand margin within minutes i began getting line bites before my float shot under with a nice 2lb f1 being my first fish of the day not a bad start but better was to follow when my next fish was a double figure carp that only just fitted into my landing net and it is times like this that i wished someone had come along with me because the catch picture does not do it justice .

After landing the carp i stopped getting liners so i decided to feed another two cups of bait then went on my right hand margin there i decided to kinder pot the bait in to see what response this would get me , the reeds on this side were already knocking so i expected an immediate response and that i did as first drop my matrix 14s hollow elastic shot through the water then after a five-minute fight a double figure mirror carp hit the net quickly followed by another of similar size so with thirty minutes gone i had caught nearly forty pounds i just hoped that it would continue .

I started getting little knocks on the float which i thought at first were just liners but i soon found out that they were from some roach at over 8oz nice fish but not what i was looking for on my heavy carp gear , i re-feed again then swapped sides again to my left and this produced a couple of smaller 5lb carp plus the odd big f1 i then hit something that was a lot bigger than i had caught or it was foul hooked because it just took of giving me no chance of stopping it so predictably we soon parted company and a new 014 garbo hook length was required .

Losing this fish disturbed the bottom of my margin peg because i started getting caught up on an underwater obstruction every time i hooked a fish and i also began foul hooking fish in fact i had a spell of five in a row so i decided to rest this side choosing to concentrate on my right hand swim , i didn’t feel that kinder potting was bringing in enough carp so i choose to begin feeding here a bit heavy with a cupping kit this worked really well as i was soon back catching the lumps again with the odd f1 mixed in .

After about ninety minutes the wind picked up a bit and started blowing into my peg , i thought that this would make my margins even stronger but it kind of killed it because i couldn’t even get the silvers which were their in numbers before . I decided to re plumb a bit further along both margins and decided to mix up a bit of ground-bait to see what response this got , i put two cup full in on both my margin swims making as much disturbance as i could to try to draw some fish back into my peg after a while i began getting indications again first from silvers plus the odd big skimmer but it wasn’t long before i got back into the carp again  .

The only trouble with my new swim was that it was a lot nearer the reeds and if i didn’t connect quick enough or struck in the wrong direction they would bury me into them i managed to only lose a couple of carp that way but it wasn’t long before i trashed my rig so i decided to call it a day at 630 , i ended up with six doubles , eight singles plus lots of big f1s+skimmers and a sore shoulder not bad for a few hours fishing after work it also set me up nicely for Saturdays Fisho qualifier at Moorlands fishery .