As my week off work drew to a close I fished my 7th match on the trott and visited Tunnel Barn Farm for their Friday Flyer held on Jenny’s pool.

On arrival at peg 6 I saw F1’s and carp up on the far self against the island at 13 metres so I planned to start there but to prime up my short topkit+1 line with pellets. Shallow and Margin rigs were also set up if the topkit line didn’t produce, but my plan was to catch short all day if I could, so not wasting time shipping out to 13 metres, As this was going to be a fish race!

So I started over to the island and had a great start catching some good sized F1’s and small carp on 6mm hard pellets, while feeding 4mm’s but I knew I needed to catch short. So after 45 minutes fishing long I came in short were I’d also been feeding 4mm pellets.

After a slow start short I began to catch some nice F1’s and a few Skimmers and I began building a good weight. Looking around at the other anglers, they were fishing shallow but I felt I was catching better on my short line so I stayed on this line for the next few hours. I was feeding 4mm hard pellets with a 6mm on the hook but I found that feeding a few 6mm’s also helped to draw in some bigger F1’s. 

Going to the 4th hour my catch rate was slowing down and I had to move around the peg on the topkit line to keep the fish coming. I decided to look shallow next and caught a good sized F1 but dispite slapped away for 20 minutes no more F1’s wanted a shallow pellet. So it was a quick look in the margins next but I could only catch small F1’s here. So I returned to the Topkit+1 line and starting catching some better sized F1’s 

At the end of the match I weighed in 97lb 10oz which was enough for 3rd place in the match and the best weight from my side of the pool. The match was actually won on the other bank with 248lb with 2nd weighing 174lb So I was a long way off the pace. I’d fished hard pellets all match but these two big weights had fished with maggots. I’m guessing they had fed several pints of maggots to catch those weights. There wasn’t really enough people fishing the match to justify feeding several pints of maggots due to the cost. But if you want to win at all cost that’s up you.

Top kit F1 Rig – 0.4g Nick Gilbert NG XT Jordan pole float set on 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge mainline with strung out no. 9 and no. 10 shot above a 6 inch 0.13mm hook length with a size 18 SLWG banded hook. Set up on black Hydro.