Dol-y-gaer

Chipshopped again! But you probably guessed that anyway. Peg 13 put me absolutely bang central in the 26 pegs. And the pegging was extra tight. Peg 24 today was peg 9 a couple of weeks back.

The overall impact of the pegging and a run of cold nights was to flatten a normally prolific venue. I had 4-13-0, Luke Sorokin to my right had 10 Lbs, Chris to my left had more than me but less than Luke. Luke caught most of his fish short. Chris caught long as in 60m long. I’m struggling to process that so I may not bother. My short line was Perch Central then died completely, my 40m line wasn’t much better. I didn’t put a fish in the net for the last 90 minutes.

33 Lbs winner from Adam Toomey off peg 26 (yes, as in end peg). 19 Lbs second (peg 24), 16 Lbs third (peg 25). My section went for 11-13-0. The other sections went for 14 Lbs and a big 15 Lbs. In two cases at leastr section winners had a spare peg to their left.

Must try harder…………..(or draw pegs with space)……..

Evesham – Wychavon Final

Every time I fish an Evesham BH Final I promise myself that I’m going to fish a proper match, stick/waggler/pole for silvers. None of this garden gnome nonsense nwith the rod up in the air waiting for the butt to hit you in the groin. No siree, not me.

So here’s an action shot off peg 84 from today………

Dol-y-gaer

Despite the battering Sunday I’d finished the match in a more positive frame of mind than previously, but when I assessed my day I realised that there were a few aspects that I needed to revisit outside of a match situation if at all possible. Tuesday was out on account of Storm Francis wreaking havoc across the country, but fortunately with the completion of the Evesham qualifiers last week I wasn’t committed to a Wednesday match (Staverton is no longer on the list!!), so Nigel and I arranged to meet up there for a proper practice session.

Amazingly the reservoir had come up another 4′ and was now 12′ deep. Nigel and I managed to squeeze in on the roadside bank which is close to being unpegable at these higher water levels. And basically we both had a lovely day, bites start to finish, probably both knocking 40 Lbs or so of Skimmers and Bream. And we both had the chance to test some ideas and check options, which probably cost us 10 Lbs or so each on the day when our ideas didn’t pan out.

My checklist from last Sunday was as follows:-

• was I fishing too heavy given that the main target fish were Skimmers rather than Bream? NB I’d definitely noticed other anglers carefully netting fish which I was quite happy to swing. A. Yes, scaling down to a more sensible hook size/line combination definitely got me more bites through the day. The only downside was that I was busier with the landing net.
• did a free running rig result in better bites than a bolt rig? A. Yes.
• did feeding 4mm as well as 2mm pellet have an impact? A. Not sure, certainly didn’t do any harm.
• did a method type feeder work? A. Well Yes (a bit) and No (mainly). I tried a 28g medium hybrid with a pineapple bandum without any interest. Switched to hair-rigged corn and nailed a proper Bream straight off!! A couple of Skimmers followed but the bites were more typical of a normal rig than a method-style bolt rig. A switch to dead reds wasn’t a particular success either. But the biggest issue was that by the time I’d tried a few options and missed a few rattly bites etc. I got to the point where I’d hardly netted a fish for an hour, and in the meantime Nigel had been catching freely. What had happened is that I’d starved the swim because the hybrid wasn’t introducing enough feed into the swim. So the method will not compete with the cage/groundbait feeder but could be a useful set-up to chuck 2m past the feed line every now and then to see if there are decent fish holding back.
• Was it a coincidence that making a change could spark the swim back into life? No, a change of bait or feeder size usually provoked some sort of positive response – quicker bites, bonus fish etc.

So, all in all an excellent practice session. To put our weights in context though, a 5.5 hour knock-up on the opposite bank kicked out weights ranging from 47Lbs to 88Lbs off the Dam wall end peg. Simply Lovely.

Dol-y-gaer

Sunday Open on this prolific venue, 20+ fishing and I ended up on peg 3 which, on the day, was second from the top end on the roadside bank. That meant much easier and quicker access if nothing else, so a big plus point.

I targetted lines at 25m and 40m, which seems to be about standard for the venue, which was deeper by about 4′ following some rain in the week. icked off with 6 cage feederfuls long then dropped in short with a medium sized cage feeder. It was a bit perchy at first but then I started picking up a few, and was just sort of getting into my stride when a Cormorant popped up and made a bit of a mess of everyone’s swims. My inside line never recovered even after being rested so I had to follow Andy Powell on the end peg and go long which sort of worked but it was still a bit perchy.

I ended up with 19-7-0 so decent enough day’s fishing but I was chip-shopped again with 42 Lbs off the end peg to my left and 28 Lbs to my right. But I felt that I’d made less mistakes than in some of my recent matches, still struggling to nail down the best feeding options and definitely missed a trick today in not persevering with corn on the hook. Must try harder.

Hendre Lake

Groundhog Day?? Well, not really. Did briefly consider doing something on the Wednesday but the day just seemed to slip away. So back down Hendre early today (as in 10.30am early, not crack of dawn early), and in the interests of some variety moved up one peg to the left to see if it was less weedy, which proved to be the case.

Route 1 approach today, hybrid feeder, strong fishmeal groundbait, micros, bandums and an 8″ hooklength, aka full on Hendre breaming. However first order of business was to have one chuck on my Drennan Matchpro Super Feeder as I’d just set it up with braid and I wanted to check it out. Guru window feeder with a 40g weight, effortless 50m cast, lovely. And just as well that I only wanted one cast, as the feeder link failed (power gum came out of the crimp, only time that has ever happened to me), so it was goodbye feeder, chiao, a bientot, totsiens, auf wiedersehen. My loss, Guru and Angling Direct’s gain.

OK, put that behind me (literally, pack the rod away and carry on). Fished at 32 turns, small hybrid first chuck. Next chuck saw a proper straight rodder, picked up, felt a bump and came back sans hook but with a small blob of slime instead. Fouled!! Then I had a funny 10 minutes or so where the reel line had so much residual twist that it was wrapping itself around the guides. It was so bad that I ended up scrapping out 5m of line and then having to guesstimate where to reclip.

Eventually I had a sensible pull and nailed a decent Bream, big bronze animal. Better!! But soon after I hooked a second and then everything went slack. Terminal tackle gone!! On the basis that I’d only recently cranked 4Lbs of Bream through a weedbed I can only assume that I’d been cut off. (I seem to remember a ssimilar problem on that peg previously, and I did sort of snag up a few times later). But my loss was etc., etc.

So, to recap, I’d cast off a feeder, then had all sorts of line twist issues, then been cut off and lost a second feeder. It wasn’t shaping up to be a good day. But then it did start to pick up. Three and a bit hours in I’d only landed 3 Bream, but two hours later I was up to 13, all decent slabs bar 1 big Skimmer. It was steady rather than manic, apart from a short spell where we had a brief precursor of Friday’s stormy weather. 10 minutes of strong winds, light rain and the waves being whipped up into white horses. But of course that is exactly what the Bream like. Bit of a struggle with the net so must have been knocking 40 Lbs. A nice slimefest to keep me happy for a while. But it did demonstrate beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Hendre Bream are out and out fishmeal and pellet junkies, for now at least.

Hendre Lake

Monday was, not surprisingly, a rest day. There was a bit of sorting out of tackle following the weekend, plus some riddling of casters and freezing of maggots etc., etc. Later on in the day both Ivan C. and Martin C. spoke to me about the final Evesham qualifier on Wednesday. I was unconvinced because I’ve only ever been interested in the Wychavon (originally I wasn’t interested in either, I was expecting to fish the BJ festival). But I undertook to sleep on it. Tuesday morning I was still pretty much anti- but I ordered bait anyway. But when the deadline came I just wasn’t feeling it so I decided to give it a miss. To be honest as well as the total lack of incentive to qualify I was mindful of the weather forecast and also that there will still be a lot of very challenging pegs even though the weekend’s flush-through may result in some decent fishing on a fairly limited number of obvious flyers.

So, early Tuesday afternoon and where to go? The answer was Hendre, and I had a number of key objectives (NB as you may have noticed I never actually go to Hendre just to catch fish, there’s always a list of things to try out and so on. Probably a function of it being so local).

• practice my distance casting with cage and window feeders on the big rod
• try out a braid ‘direct’ set up (i.e. no shock leader) on one of my Dutchmasters.
• use up some casters.
• try out Clive’s Back Bream groundbait

I’m sure there was something else……..oh yes! Catch some fish, although to be honest that wasn’t necessarily a CSF.

So I set up the Castizm with a 50g Guru weight forward cage feeder and launched 6 feeder-fulls out at 48m (baby steps, Rome wasn’t built etc.). Then I fished short at 24 m for an hour or so. I was getting roached out on bunches of dead reds (chunky Roach though, and immaculate). A change to corn brought more Roach but also eventually a proper slab, which I had to drag in through what is now some seriously worrying weed growth. Fortunately the Bream didn’t really fight once its face was covered with weed. And it was alright on the braid direct, but the set up was, well, direct for the want of a better word.

I had an early look long with no result so dropped back short but that was slow as well, so ended up fishing out the last 90 minutes long with various bandums or wafters on the band. and 10 minutes before the death I had a better pull which was a second slab. But that was it, no action replay next cast so I packed up. In terms of the key objectives, how did I get on? Well…….

• I was comfortably hitting the clip at 48m and there was more in the tank to work up to. I’m still wondering how much difference a proper 5000 sized reel could make.
• The braid ‘direct’ set-up was fine and I would be OK now to work without a shockleader up to maybe 40m using 0.12 braid. I did cast off a rig but on examination I was fishing too heavy a window feeder for the range anyway and my knot must have slipped, so operator misjudgement compounded by operator error.
• My caster backlog has gone.
• Once again I thought the Black Bream was a lovely mix and smells amazing. And I did catch 2 Bream. But only the 2 Bream. It certainly seemed to attract decent Roach though! The Jury’s still out on this one. All my recent experience at Hendre tells me that the key to success is to fish a strong fishmeal groundbait and micros on a flat-bed feeder with a bandum on a 8″ hooklength. Which is not how I approached it today as I was experimenting in a number of areas.

One thing that was evident today is that I must take the opportunity to drop in on Hendre with the hemp and tare, there must be a serious weight of Roach to be had if they can be lined up on the seed.

So, a rare Wednesday off, especially if the autumnal low-pressure lands as forecast. Ten days to the Wychavon which will mark the end of my Summer campaign. Then Tidefest, followed probably by a couple of weeks Barbel fishing in preparation for the Wye Autumn and Winter campaigns.

Pontsticill Festival

Avid readers of this blog (or is that avid reader??) will have noticed that around this time of year I usually go a bit off piste and end up going somewhere or fishing something which is totally outside of my norm. In most cases the results are horrendous and I end up vowing never again, but I do have to remind myself that my first visit to Tidefest was one of these left-field excursions.

Anyway, this year’s dalliance was attendance on the two-day Pontsticill Festival, and as usual the results were horrendous.

Day 1 As part of the Covid-19 safe arrangements, I’d already been pre-drawn on Dolygaer. I then drew peg 47 which was 4 up from the Dam wall but still well in the narrow part due to fairly tight pegging. I kicked off fairly short at 30 turns but struggled for bites after an early handful of small Skimmers. In the meantime Russell to my left had had a reasonable run of better Skimmers fishing longer, probably 60 turns, and then after a slow start Paul to my right started picking off some decent fish, this time at 70 turns. So I was being outgunned. I chose not to embarrass myself by even attempting to fish that long but instead went out to 55 turns, where in the 5th hour of a 6 hour match the Skimmers and Bream eventually showed up and I took 6 or 7 pounds before they moved on. 11-8-0 on the scales with 19Lbs either side, so I was well chip-shopped. But nowhere near a good enough start with two 50 Lb weights on the road side bank and a 48 Lb of the end peg on my bank.

Day 2 Peg 13 on the Railway Bank. Not brilliant on day 1, 11 Lbs, with the best weight in the area being 20 Lbs. And on the day, even worse. No response short at 24m, so had to go long at about 40m, where I eventually managed to catch the princely weight of 4-3-0. Paul to my right again had 11 Lbs but not chip-shopped this time because, err, I was the end peg!!

So, 15-11-0 for absolutely nowhere, and the more I fished the venue the more I realised I needed to learn. The positives were that the gear and rigs were OK (not the rod’s fault that I can’t cast 70m). I thought I had a handle on the feeding but definitely didn’t, lots of work needed in this area. But I could well have a go again next year.

Overall winner was Des Shipp, 88 Lbs made up of 27 Lbs off Pontsticill on day 1 and 61 Lbs off Dolygaer on day 2. Then 70 Lbs to make up the frame. Dolygaer fished well both days as did some parts of Pontsticill (in fact the Pines fished better on day 2), so the sequence of the draw was less critical than it had been last year.

POSTSCRIPT

The more perceptive of you will have realised that I was a bit short of framing overall in the Festival (about 60 Lbs short TBH), and similarly also missed out on top daily weight, top daily weight for a lake, and 1st or 2nd in any of the 4 sections each day. Which has, obviously, triggered some fairly critical self-analysis.

Technically it was quite difficult to get it too wrong. It’s all about tip fishing for Skimmers and small Bream. Line selection seemed to be fairly standard. Short was 20-25m/turns, long was 40-45 m/turns. Only in some exceptional circumstances was there any need to go to 70-75m. so with very clearly defined technical and tactical options the obvious differentiator was in the feeding and in the hookbait. Groundbait was all fishmeal and I was comfortable with my choice for Dolygaer and I’m fairly confident it could have worked on Pontsticill although it is possible that a different fishmeal blend might be required there. The bit I didn’t get right was what to feed with the groundbait. After my Perch disaster on my first visit I’d picked up on Mark Jones’ approach which involved lots of corn but no other particles. And this worked reasonably well on my next visit. But after Saturday I started to pick up on other options, including live maggot feed and even chopped worm feed. I’d assumed either of those options would be suicide but perhaps it is possible to get the Skimmers so well lined up that they force the Perch out. And the other debate after the weekend was hookbait. I’d basically gone with bunches of dead reds with double dendra as an option. But there were wider options employed than that.

So all in all I thought the real learning point was that you had to fish on the basis that you were going to get lots of bites off Skimmers and if that wasn’t the case be more active in trying different feeding options and/or changing line or even, as some reported, starting a new line, until you were happy that you were getting the most out of the swim in terms of numbers and quality of fish. Which is no different to what is normally the case in matchfishing except that the options to tweak the tackle are far more limited than would be the case when float or pole fishing, where you would change depth/shotting etc. as well as probably tweak feeding patterns. So in effect I’d fallen into the trap of thinking that feeder fishing is in some way a lazy man’s method, which it clearly isn’t as events demonstrated.

Evesham Vets

Still one of those’ match events, because of the social aspects and because Diane usually adds a bit to the prize fund (and this year Ray South left £500 to add to the fund. Fabulous gesture from a lovely man. RIP). So everything to play for. At the draw both of my recent choices, i.e. C7 and A7, had been taken, and there were no more 7s left. So I went with C1. Remind me to never go with C1 again. Diane turned over the peg and it was 72……game over………My initial take on 72 was that it had done nothing this season. In truth it has managed a couple of section pick-ups in low weight sections. But it isn’t a winning peg in those conditions or most conditions.

Rather bizarrly there were 6 Nomads in the draw and Jan, Martin C and I managed to find ourselves in the same crap section. 69, 71 and 72. Clive R was on 9 (crap), Richey on 17 (OK) and Ivan C. on 36 (definitely OK as long as they’re having it). I drove down to 72 and decided that I would set up to do 3 things – maggot rig inside, small maggot feeder across tight to the tree, and a hemp line at 11m with a punched bread pre-amble.

I kicked off by putting a dropperful of maggots in close then rolling in a ball of liccie mixed with punch crumb at 11m. Back inside on a 1g rig and I took a quick Roach followed by a very small Pommie then a second Roach. But then nothing after that flurry of action. So I re-fed and dropped in long with the punch. I was absolutely convinced that I would pick up more small Roach and perhaps Pommies on this, so I was a bit taken aback when I didn’t have a bite. I was so shocked that I dropped back short to allow me time to think and promptly caught two small Perch. But that was that again so I re-fed and switched to the feeder across. Nothing!! Tried the hemp at 11m. Nothing! Had another look short. Nothing! Went all around the houses again. Nothing!!

Martin was very quiet on peg 71 but I was aware of him shipping his pole on a regular basis, so I decided to take a tactical toilet break and find out what he was doing. He was fishing shallow at about 9m and breaking down to his topkit to ship Bleak. Fabulous, living the dream! But at least he was getting bites. I did briefly contemplate adapting a similar approach but I knew that he was 50 Bleak up on me before I started and TBH I just didn’t want to spend the next few hours wearing my pole joints out shipping Bleak. So I went back and gave the hemp a serious go, but without a single indication. I did nail a few Bleak by using maggot on my shallow hemp rig, but it was hard work without setting up properly. So I switched back to the feeder and eventually caught a small Roach but I only had three bites in total and I never saw the other two.

So, 3 Roach, 2 Perch, 1 (v.small) Pommie, a haandful of Bleak. 0-12-0. Martin’s Bleak dried up but he managed 2-0-0 for the section and some serious bragging rights. Before the match I’d discovered that I’d rather sloppily allowed my maggots to stretch so I had 2.5 pints of newly dead reds and bronzes. Oops!! But Martin had been kind enough to give me a pint +_ of his. So at least I didn’t have the embarrassment of beating him using his bait. That’s my excuse. Whatever!! Definitely must try harder at the moment.

Woodstock

Sunday’s efforts had knocked the stuffing out of me as usual and then I spent Tuesday morning setting up my braid rods and running off a few casters etc. But it was far too warm for me and sitting around the house wasn’t an option, so I decided on a late session on Woodstock. I wanted to try out a groundbait, wet my new braid and bed it in, and tie a few hooks.

Set up on peg 32 and fished across at 20 turns with small cage feeder with groundbait and corn, corn on the hook. And I managed to try out some groundbait (jury’s out TBH), wet my braid and tie quite a few hooks. But I didn’t catch any fish, only F1s, probably about 8 or so but I wasn’t counting.

Pontsticill & Dol-y-gaer

Back up for another go! Peg 20 on Dol-y-gaer so decent draw, one to the left from where Mickey Williams won last week. I set up two light and one heavy feeder rod, targetting 36m and 55m respectively.

Kicked off with a 5 hole Drennan grip mesh on my 11’8″ PI Dutchmaster, bunch of dead reds on a size 12 hook. I was into small Skimmers pretty much from the off, but wasn’t happy that I was hitting the clip properly so I switched to a 30g bullet cage and that was spot on. The swim built slowly over the hour then I had a decent run of fish including a few bigger fish. There were a few events along the way, hooked my joggers (twice), hooked my keepnet, hooked my rod rest. Even more skillful was managing to hook my bucket! And later on I managed to hook my feeder bag. Snapping off when I hooked my bucket resulted in the shock leader being too short and I was a bit uncomfortable casting on the braid which is, if truth be told, well past its sell-by date. So I switched to the 10’8″ Dutchmaster which was just about able to cope with the range.

Annoyingly, tthe line sterted to fade with about 2 hours to go, and I made the mistake of persevering with it because I was still getting bites (Perch I think). Then the sun came out and the wind dropped and I struggled for most off the next 90 minutes, only starting to catch again during the last half hour.

But an enjoyable day, 26-4-0 for absolutely nowhere with a near 98Lbs weight off the end peg two to my right and some decent weights opposite as well. But good progress from last Sunday and the various tweaks in the interim have made a big difference. But still some more fine tuning to do in the week if at all possible.