I drew Withies pool peg 7 (new peg 4) which is a peg that has been kind to me in the past and one that you can build a good weight.The Jubilee fishery is a club water and not a commercial fishery so you really have to think and find your fish to produce a good weight. I’ll explain how I did this and point out the key reasons why I succeeded in setting a new record.

I set up only two lines to attack this peg, one swim over to the far bank and a margin line to my left next to a line of reeds at 5 sections. Past knowledge had taught me that the margin can produce fish as I’d had 74lb in a match there several weeks ago. At this time of the year there is a flat spot on the bottom in 18 inches of water right next to some reeds which is the perfect depth for margin fishing. Some people prefer the right hand margin on this peg but I feel it’s is to weedy and you’ll lose fish and spook the others.

I began the match fishing over to the far bank under some tree branches and caught a few stockies on corn and pellet but this was only while I was primming the margin. I’d potted in a full pot of 8mm cubes of meat into the margin and left it for an hour to settle and bring in the fish.

After an hour noticed the angler to my right on the next peg catch a nice carp in his margin so I tried my margin and after 10 minutes I caught my first Carp. This gave me the confidence to stay on this line a little longer even though I thought it was to early and I began loose feeding cubes of meat every five minutes. I began catching well after 30 mnutes so I knew I was on for a good weight.

Now i’ll explain why I think I kept the Carp coming. Firstly you need to be tooled up for the job. The rig was an 0.3g Nick Gilbert NG XT mini Diamond MKII pole float, set up on 0.18mm Silstar matchteam main line with a bulk of no.8 stotz’s just above a 6 inch 0.16mm hook length, with a size 14 B911 spade end hook, (a 8mm cube of meat sits perfect on this size hook it’s if rolled onto the hook with the hook point showing) all set up on a red Hydro.

The Withies is a snake lake and there is no room to let carp run off otherwise the carp will swim into a snag on the far bank or further along the margin. The other very important part of the kit was a 4 metre long landing net handle. This was important because when I hooked a carp I was able to play and land it in the open water, away from where I was fishing and also away from the weedy margin to my right. Plus there was no risk of a hooked Carp going back into the left margin and spooking the other feeding fish. I believe this was the key to the match and why I was able to build the big weight. 

So with regular feeding of a few cubes of meat every five minutes over the next few hours I was able to keep the carp feeding in the margin. In fact the longest period I waited for a bite was about 2 minutes for the rest of the match and I only used 1 and a half tins of meat. I went on the weigh in 163lb 1oz for a new venue record on a wet overcast day which again was ideal.