Poolbridge Farm 01/12/2007

Today was the first of the open matches run by a setup near to york called Poolbridge Farm. also known as fletchers to many of the old school anglers out there.

This called for a early start for me, which many of you know i dislike with a passion, I always look knackered in the morning, 6am the alarm went off, sod that I'm going back to sleep for 10 mins, well that didn't work I woke up at 6:50am, oooooooops were meeting at the cafe on the A19 at 8:30am, its an hours travel, I need to pack the car and I need to go to the tackle shop!!! Its going to be tight.

God knows how i managed it, but i arrived early at the cafe at 8:20!!, Chris(Notone bite)or (NOB)LOL as he is now known was already there sat in the corner with a brew on the go. I headed straight for the counter to order my food where chris joins me.

Ahhh I get to sit down at the table with a brew, this is where the days tactics start to unravel, listening to other peoples thoughts and tactics always intreages me. Breakfast arrives and boy did I need it, I was wasting away LOL (not much chance of that)

15 minutes later Adecam, Chegers and Howardy arrived, Chegers said he was feeling rough which I think was just a early excuse for losing, Adecam and cheggers had a conversation about baby puke and shite which was enough to put me off having kids for life.After this pleasent chat(NOT) we head off in convoy to the venue which was less than 5 minutes away.

We all arrived at the venue to see only another 4-5 cars in the car park, cool I thought nice steady relaxing match which is just what I needed. Welcomed by Mike and the other owners of poolbridge it was soon to be found that these lads are very welcoming and banter was flowing freely!

Next came the draw which was a new concept to me, a roving draw which basically means you still get to draw a number but you get to pick your peg which you want to fish as long as know one picks it before you do. I drew number 4 which meant i was 4th in line to pick a peg, 1st up was chegers, he picked the favoured peg on the tip of the point, Howardy picked just round the corner on another decent peg, a few locals picked oppersite chegers, I picked peg 4, I didn't have a clue about the peg it just looked comfortable to get the keepnet in position etc!! Adecam picked oppersite me also on the point, I was pleased about this as I could keep my eye on him, I didn't want him beating me!!

Anyway, the whistle came about 15 minutes before I was ready, I looked across and Ade was still plumbing up, at least I wasn't on my own on the late starting!

I planned to fish a line at 11Metre straight out in front of me, with another line at 11metre at a 2 o clock angle, Caster only being fed straight out and maggot only to the one to the right. Same depth on both lines so I only setup one rig, a 4x14 drennan roach float, 5 number 9 stotz at 2ft from the hook and 3 number 11 stotz spread evenly from the bulk to the hook, hook was a 22 B510 barbless, tied to a 0.08 hooklength and 0.10 mainline, I also found it was the same depth on the top 3. I have a habit of when picking out a hookbait from the baitub I will pick out 10 baits and pick the best one out the lot and chucking them into the margin rather than returning the unused bait back into the tub, So I had a third line on the top 3.

When I eventually started, It wasn't long before I got a indication that the fish were out there within 2 mins i had missed 2 bites on the caster line, Next bite I hit! cool I havent blanked was my first thoughts! The no4 elastic was out a couple of foot, and slowly i guided the first roach to the net, 6oz roach was dropped into the net,The next minute i look over and see howardy is playing a large fish which i thought he had caught but it turned out he had lost it. About 40 minutes later I saw chris walking about on the far bank with a carp in the landing net, he must of thought it was close to 10lb as he was off to the weighing station behind his peg, fisherie rules state that any fish over 10lb to be weighed and returned, I knew that was 1st place gone straight away as it was unlikely for many carp to be caught on the day, So I continued to catch roach steady for the next 2 hours until the bites dried up.

Whilst I was fishing the caster line I was feeding 5 casters per bite, and at the same time i was feeding 5 maggots at the 2 o clock line, So a swap to the maggot line was in order, First drop in resulted in a micro perch! next drop in resulted in a stripey of about 2lb (new pb). Caught a few skimmers from that line and several decent roach before returning to the caster line which was now dead???

Watching the lad next to me, he was getting a lot of bites fishing about 3ft deep, so I quickly stuck a rig on my waiting spare top 3 which i'd made incase the fish came shallow as i know they do there in the summer and adusted the depth to about 3ft. Stuck a caster on and shipped out.

Thats where the roach had gone! straight back into the roach again and caught steady all the way to the end of the match.

I guessed that I had about 11lb with the guy to my right had roughly the same as he had caught a few larger ide, skimmers etc. I also thought it was closer than it was between me and Ade. I weighed in 12lb 4oz, lad on my right weighed in 10lb odd, Chris weighed in 30lb 8oz for a easy victory to continue his winning streak! Ade did 7lb summat. phew!!! thought it was closer! 12lb 4oz was enough for 2nd and £25 in the pocket!

After the match I had a walk around the lakes with Chris,Mike and Trevor. Mike and Trev were telling us the plans for the match lakes and specimen lakes that were due to be started, they also showed us the Nature trail that is being built to allow youngster and aldults alike to walk along and feed the fish without hassling anglers and without the obsticals such as expensive polesrods and tackle. It was very interesting to find out the history of the lakes and to find out what the owners have in store for the future. I will be back in the summer to have a crack for some of the old carp that live in there that we are led to be believed to be over 35lb. Can't wait!

All in all a very relaxing days fishing I learnt a lot about the fishery and got £25 in the pocket, Can't beat that for a day out! Good stuff lads, keep it up, I will be back! Pictures are rubbish on this one as it was getting dark and forgot my camera so had to use my phone!

Matt

River Rother 07/11/2007

Right.... I fancied a days river fishing as i couldn't see what the fuss was about after the poor results during YMA's river series where the most that weighed in was 4 people, After all I am a commercial angler through and through, So off i plodded to the nearest river i could think of which happened to be the River Rother at Catcliffe near Sheffield.

I had no idea what to expect when i got there as I had never seen the river before, roumours from people i know said that it was a very clean nice little river but still had the bad name that it used to have back in the 70's, I was very pleasently suprised when i got there, neat trimmed grass almost bowling green quality like banks. The pegs were wooden safe platforms almost commercial like.

Next job was to walk the stretch and pick a peg which was hard as they all looked decent!! Anyway I plonked myself on peg 19 which had a nice steady pace to it and a nice glide for the stick to trot through (I do own a few sticks!!! honest)


Tactics for the day was to learn how to use the stick float, A conversation with Mick the troll the night before told me how to shot the float using the shirt button style, So i picked a nice wire stemmed tommy pickering 6 x no4 stick out the old box and proceeded to tackle up, On went the float rubbers then the float attached, 0.16 mainline on the reel, attached to a 12" of0.08 hooklength shotted with 4 x no1 spread equally down the line with 2 no11 on the hooklength, this was soon to become a nighmare with tangles!!!

First chuck in and the float was sent on its way with a nice underarm swing to the centre of the river about 8 metres out, the rig flew through the air and landed in a heap, so i retreived and found a big birds nest, marvelous i thought, great start, after trying to untangle this for 5 minutes or so, i decided to re tackle up, 5 minutes later i was back in action, This time the rig landed in a straight line and it trotted down the river perfectly to be met my the float going under at the end of the run, Strike, the rod bent round to find something large and heavy on the end, Oh i was right it was a massive snag and i lost a hooklength to it. Oh well don't trott that far next time lad.

New hooklength on and cast back in which again resulted in a birds nest, So this made me think why was i getting in so many tangles, maybe it was my shotting,as when the rig was in mid air it was jerking all over the place where the shot were batting between each other, each wanting to go in different directions, So i altered all the shotting and reshotted with 10 x 6 all stringed out evenly down the rig, Instantly i could tell that this was going to be better and the rig flew out a dream and landed in the straightest line possibe, Result!!

Right time for some fish, First trot down on the new rig, it performed flawlessly, no bite though, so reeled back in and flicked back out again followed by 10 or so bronze maggots, second trot down and the float went under, I struck and fish on, excelent a small roach of about 2oz went into the waiting keepnet.

This was the only bite i had for the next 2 hours, I kept going at it as i know that a swim can suddenly turn itself on like a switch, but unfortunatly it didn't!


I decided to go for a walk to relieve the boredem and explore the stretch a little more, On my walk i didcovered a few other anglers who were also in the same boat and were struggling to catch, I also met one of the baliffs who was very helpful, he told me about the stretch, species etc, he did however happen to mention that pole was worth a shot!

On my way back i noticed a nice peg for the pole with some overhanging trees on the far bank, so i deceded to move pegs onto peg 17 two pegs down from my original peg, Pole out and a rig i used the previous day on a stillwater! 4 x 14 drennan roach shotted with 4 x no9 stotz together at half depth and then 3 no 11 droppers spaced out below the bulkshot to allow a slow drop and to allow the bait to rise up in the water if i held back against the flow.

It was a lot shallower across the far side at about 3 foot deep and the water clearish so i wasn't holding up much hope for this method, first trot though and the float disapeared, to which i struck at and missed, I thought it could of been the bottom so i ran through again and the float didn't budge so it must of been a bite, From then on every run through produced either a bite or a small roach or chub, I had about a hour left before it got dark, I was catching quite well be this point and kept putting a few fish in the net, 2nd to last chuck and i was struggling to see the float due to the dark drawing in and i connected with something a little better, this ended up being a perch of about 12oz, new pb perch, Didn't last for long though as the next chuck produced a perch of 1lb 6oz which finished my day off well, by the time i had finished weighing the net of fish and weighing the perch it was dark. So I packed up and headed back to the car after having a enjoyable few hours on a river.





Net of fish 5lb 3oz + 1lb 6oz perch, not bad for round about 2 hours fishing!

I will definatly be back, £2 a day.

Tight lines
Matt