Summer evening series round 2

Milemead fisheries.
This was the first match of the series for me as I missed the first one.16 of Devon & Cornwall’s finest pitched up for this one (its amazing what a bit of sunshine will do!!).It is a series of 15 matches fished every Thursday evening from 6-9pm through out the summer with a trophy for whoever gets the best 7 results at the end, You get 1 point for a win, 2 for second & so on.At the draw I pulled out peg 7& with Andy Seery on peg 9 & John Hetherington on peg 5, I had my work cut out.Peg 7 is a bit of a bogey peg to be honest, straight out in front at 11m there is a big bed of Lilly pads, which restrict you somewhat and limit your options. Obviously however, it is next to peg six, a noted shallow pole peg. So it was with this in mind that I set up just the one rig.I am still using my shallow dibber rig (picture somewhere below) but have modified it slightly. With summer approaching & a possibility of big weights on the cards I am now using 8lb daiwa sensor main line to a .20 ultima power plus hook length (with a load of spares in my box), the hook remains the same but I am going to experiment with the float a little. Two reasons for this really, firstly a bigger float with a bigger capacity for long lining & hence heavier for swinging out & secondly a much smaller float for fishing directly under the pole tip. The whole point is to help stop spooking iffy carp as you inevitably get.So with the rig set up I angled my box slightly so I could fish at 13m about 8 foot to the right of those lilies & about half way towards peg 6, fortunately peg 6 hadn’t been put in, otherwise I would have been stumped. At the whistle I shipped out with a hair rigged 8mm coarse pellet & immediately without even feeding a thing had a 6oz golden Rudd, what a beautiful fish the golden Rudd is. Next put in same thing, then again & again. I then upped the feed a bit to try & get things going & after about 20mins had my first carp, a proper one at about 3.5lb.Now the fact that you only have 3 hours means that making the right decisions is vital as there is very little time to chop & change. So it was with that in mind that I began to concentrate heavily on my feeding pattern. You see the Rudd is a great weight builder & now they are ravenous a good weight of them is due to somebody who sets their stall out for them. But you are better off targeting them at a much shorter distance.Now in most fisheries the bigger carp will come very shallow if you get the feeding right, so I quickly switched to a 4 inch hook length & flicked 3 or 4 pellets at the float, instantly there was a change as carp no2 went in the net.What I did next was to change my feeding pattern in order to keep bites coming. Occasionally I needed to fire a pouch full of pellets, then lift & drop the rig 5 times before getting a bite. Sometimes it was better not to feed anything & keep lifting & dropping. Then sometimes is was better to leave the rig dead still & just flick a 2 or 3 pellets over the top & wait for the carp to hook themselves as they slammed into the motionless pellet.Anyway, by chopping & changing my feeding pattern I managed to keep the fish interested & more importantly got them to compete.After the 3 hours was up I had managed to catch 10 carp, a dozen or so of those better Rudd & even 3 proper bream that had decided to come as shallow as the 4 inches. I had a very enjoyable evenings fishing & I put 37lb 1oz on the scales & I was pleased with that.Steve foreshaw had 55lb off peg 21 (the flyer, as always) & I was second with my effort.More importantly though, I battered Andy & John either side (revenge is sweet).So with 2 points after round 2, I am leading, although obviously it is very early days get.