13 September 2008

Milemead Open. Milemead Open. A beautifully bright sunny September morning greeted the twenty-four of us that pitched up for this one.I drew peg eight & was reasonably pleased. Options are limited on this peg as you have a large bed of lilies at nine to eleven meters that cover just about the majority of the swim. In a way, it is not such a bad thing because at least you are committed to keeping it simple. Saying that, my plan was to rotate four lines, picking fish off from each one.I had about four feet of water at nine meters straight out tight against the lilies. The rig for this line was a HITL consisting of a size 4x14 Drennan carp five float attached to .16 Ultima power plus mainline. Attached to this was a twelve-inch hooklengh of .14 silstar match team finished with an eyed B911 in a two inch loop. Shotted with two no nines on the hook length knot & two no nines on the HITL knot. Bait would be six-millimetre hard pellet both banded on the hook & loose fed through one of my homemade pole pots.Rig no two & three were identical, but they were to be fished to the far left & far right of the lilies, slightly further out at 11m in roughly five feet of water. Bait would be the same.Rig four would be for paste later on over my mainline straight out in front & featured a Preston innovations Dura float five attached to the same mainline , but with a size twelve spade end B911. All of the rigs were fished with 1.4 mm Latex through two sections.At the all in, I shipped out to my mainline in front & began to put a steady stream of small skimmers, tench & just a couple of pasties in the net.After the first hour, it became obvious that bites were going to be at a premium so I decided to try the left hand line. First put in, the float shot under & a two & a half pound carp was safely in the net. Bites were very few & far between though & I only managed another two more carp in the second hour.The third hour was even harder & it was simply a case of rotating each line as planned, picking off a few better skimmers before moving on.After three hours, I only had approximately fifteen pound in the net, so decided to try the paste.Third & fourth hours were much more productive on the paste, with a steady succession of decent carp coming to the net.With an hour & quarter to go I rested the paste line & had another look on the left hand pellet line for just one more small carp. After fifteen minutes, I decided to go for broke on the main paste line, but I cut back on the pellets & potted in a small piece of paste along with the hook bait. The transformation was instant as eight more carp came in he last hour & typically, at the all out I was bagging.At the weigh in, I put 18 carp for thirty-four pound, plus a bag of skimmers & tench for eleven pound on the scales for a combined weight of forty-five pounds plus & second in the match. I have fed about half a pint of 6mm pellets. Fifty pounds plus won it & with the benefit of hindsight I spent far too long on the pellet. If I had switched over the paste much earlier I would have walked it, but that is match fishing.