This was a Brookfields AC match at Lower Broadheath fisheries aka as the Jam Factory spread over Sycamore and Willow pools.   

The Jam Factory is a big weight venue and can be a really good bagging venue during the summer months. On this match we all had plenty of room over the two pools. So I anticipated doing well. I drew on Willow pool peg 8 which can be OK and I hoped to clock up another tonne plus weight. 

This pool is around 10 foot deep at 13 metres but it has a inner shelf around 5 foot deep and the plan was to fish up on the shelf where the water would be warmer at top 2+3 and then move into the margins later on in the match. I kicked off fishing an 8mm hard pellets on the pole, cad potting in 6mm’s after an initial large cup feed. I began to get bites straight away but these were finicky and I wasn’t hooking then right. Maybe I shouldn’t have cupped in at the start.  I lost my 7 carp in the first hour. It just didn’t feel right. I change was needed so I opened up a new line cupping in corn and I fished double corn over the feed. No bites came, it was clear the fish were there but they were not wanting the corn or I had given them to much.  

Over the years fishing meat has always gone well in the margins here at the Jam Factory late on, so with the match already into it’s 2nd hour it was meat I turned to. It was to early for the margins so I began cad potting 8mm cubes of meat a little shorter to where I’d been fishing at top 2+2. I’d learnt not to put to much in now!

I rate Morrison Luncheon meat better than the popular Plumrose brand used by many anglers, it sinks straight away, just where you want it to go. 

After feeding two cad pots of meat here for 10 minutes I went over it with the same hook bait and I began to catch straight away and more importantly I was hooking them properly. I began to catch carp around the 2-3lb bracket. These fish weren’t really big fish but at least I was catching well now.  I played around feeding light and also heavy with the feed meat but to honest this didn’t affect the catch rate. I was feeding the meat after every fish.  

With 3 hours now gone I was doing OK but I hadn’t caught any big fish. I was loose feeding the left hand margin now with meat hoping to bring some bigger edge dwellers in for the last hour, while still fishing out on top 2+2. 

After another 30 minutes I tried the margin for ten minutes. Nothing had arrived. So I needed to go back out where I’d been catching.  I’d catch a few more here and then try the margin again. I did this for the next 40 odd minutes but with nothing coming into the margin I decided to stay out on the top 2+2 line where I’d caught all my fish, hoping to catch some bigger carp as the match drew to a close. I continued to catch here but they were really just the same stamp of fish. The big lumps never arrived. 

Come the weigh in the and watching the Sycamore pool weigh in first there were several tonne plus weights with the top weight being 129lb and 124lb was lying in second. I had clicked up to 114lb so I was hoping I was a little out. As the scales came down to the Willow pool the top weight on the pool was 123lb. I’d caught a lot of fish probably more than anyone else so I was hoping for a framing place at least. But my fish were a smaller stamp and the scales went around to 115lb. (Good clicking as I had clicked to 114lb) 

This gave me 2nd on the Willow pool and 4th in the match so some coins came my way.   

Meat rig – 0.4g Nick Gilbert XT Decker pole float set up on 0.17mm Guru N-Gauge mainline with a bulk of no.8 stotz’s above a 6 inch size 14 Guru LWG Ready rig with Purple Hydro (14-18) elastic.   

Guru ready rigs have made tying your own hook lengths redundant. I can’t tie hooks better and when you are at work all week, prep time it very limited.