Open Match at Manor

Manor Farm 9th Jan 2011

Peg 27 on Windmill, my kit neat as ever

• Weighed 3lb 10oz of all little roach
• I was lucky and won the 5 peg section.

Peg 27 which is in bowl, which is around 7 foot deep which is good depth, but the pegs to my left are 10 foot which are the hotspots.  Steve Ford had 128lb midweek match on peg 16, which was a superb weight for this time of year.  However, after speaking to Steve on the morning he reassured that is a good peg, but I wasn’t  so sure to be honest and was disappointed to be here. 

I thought it would be rock hard, and the match did turn out to be a real shocker.  I started by feeding two lines at 14.5 meters as I felt that wouldn’t catch any closer, so feed 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock.  The 10’clock line I fed around 50 4mm pellets and at the12 o’clock line I fed 15 pellets.  This would enable me to judge the response between the two.   The depths were the same, and therefore maybe life easy, as I could quickly rotate between the lines without changing rigs.  I fished 4mm skretting pellet on the hook, the same ones that I am feeding.

 I didn’t feed anywhere else but these two lines, and fished between the two for 1 hour and thirty minutes, and had one bite which I missed.  So I decided to fish 16 meters at 12 o’clock for half hour and again failed to get any bites.  Now I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to catch a carp, also no else had caught a carp in the bowl at this stage.  The guy to my left was catching silver fish, roach, so I got off my box and quickly made up a roach rig.  My roach rig was a Malman winter wire 4x14, 0.125 main line to a 0.75 hooklength and a 22 green gama.

I potted in 30 pinkies, 10 maggots along with 10 pellets at 14 meters at 12 o’clock.  Shipped out to 14 meters and caught a ½ oz roach straight away, and shipped out again and another quickly followed, so I decided to loose feed over the top, but this had a negative effect, as bites dried up quickly.  Therefore, I decided to put 30 pinkies with 10 maggots and 10 pellets every five fish and have a very quick look for a carp, just to left the roach settle on that line and give me a chance of catching a carp on both lines.  Also loose feeding didn’t work as the fish didn’t what to complete for food, as the water was so cold, I think this made them very lethargic and were getting spooked by lose feeding.  Inflection I think groundbait and pinkie would of been best for roach, but hey I went to a carp water to win!!

I caught around 40 roach and 4 small skimmers to give me 3lb 10oz.

See link for full match details

http://www.manorfarmleisure.co.uk/latest-news/