7th May 2007

Bank holiday weekend Milemead open.
Only nine of us pitched up for this one which was slightly disappointing, but at least we would be well spread out with plenty of room either side of us.At the draw I pulled out peg 5 & was fairly pleased. Some seasons ago this peg was considered to be the out & out flyer, simply because it is opposite an Island that is reachable with thirteen meters of pole.The island shelves down very steeply & coming only six inches back towards you it is 1.5" deep. It then drops of very steeply with about six foot down the track, shallowing back up again in the margins.As you look straight in front of you there is a nice piece of bare bank to fish to, snags come in the way of bulrushes’ either side & tree roots to watch out for as well.My plan for the day was to concentrate on just the one line. Fishing pellet up & down tight over in the shallower water as close to the island as was possible, feeding with a kinder cup so not to put to much bait in, causing liners & foul hookers. Past experience told me that this was an area the carp live & patrol.My rig consisted of a big dibber float, with 5lb line straight thought o a size 16 fox series 2 eyed barbless hook, coupled to orange Drennan Bungee elastic, through my Trabucco GM Carp 1 pole. An animal rig, or so I thought.First put in with a 6mm Ringers expander & the float buried. A quick lift resulted in a 4 oz roach. Second put in & the same thing. A switch to corn bought me my first carp at about 2lb.Next put in & back to the expander & the float buried again, only this time I did not need to strike as the fish had hooked itself & bolted into the bulrushes‘. A brief tussle & the fish had slipped the hook leaving me snagged up. I shipped the pole back to the top 2 & pulled for a break, but the orange Drennan bungee elastic just carried on stretching.Eventually with about 30' of elastic loose, the hook pulled & he whole thing shot back in a massive tangle.Cursing my stupidity I quickly tied on a spare rig, of which I had 4 made up.Now most decent anglers, who when faced with a problem situation like this change things, However me being a total numpty decided to persevere with my original set up & guess what, half an hour, loads of swearing & four trashed rigs later I had managed to land not diddly squat,nadda.Now at this point in the match I had had enough & with an hour gone, I really was going nowhere fast. With a couple of other lads catching well I had to make some changes, quickly. So after digging through my tackle box, I pulled out a spool of 8lb daiwa Sensor, that I use for feeder fishing snag pits. I rigged up again only this time I fished the sensor straight through to a size 12 fox eyed series 2 barbless hook, which I tied with a knotless knot leaving a hair. I decided to hair rig hard pellets instead as these were more resilient to the silvers & saved me time shipping in & out having to re bait. I also chopped a foot & a half of elastic off, so it was nice & tight. The whole rig was a bit severe, but it was the only way I could see myself stopping the carp continuously snagging me, causing unnecessary damage all around. It worked a treat & I was now able to get the carp away from the island quite quickly, by shipping back very fast as soon as I hit the bite, the fish came back quite easily. Surprisingly there once in front of me they pulled a fair bit of elastic out & with the fish averaging only 2lb it got me thinking just how little pressure that there must be at the business end of the elastic. A lot less I think than we imagine.Anyway that set the tone for the next five hours, which became very enjoyable, I managed to snare 35+ carp for just shy of 70lb, changing depths every know & then to keep the fish coming.Unfortunately there were no lumps, which you need a few of really, with the average being slightly smaller than I expected, but still rewarding none the less.At the weigh in my total was good enough for third, behind an 80lb weight off of flyer peg 21 & 108lb of, you guessed it…peg 19 (the peg I have been dreaming about for weeks), with all of the fish coming to the shallow wag & pellet.It just goes tho show that sometimes when you know you are to far behind, if you persevere, you might not come away with any coin, but you can come away with that all important knowledge for the next time.