This match was spread over the Moorhen and Heron pools plus the 3rd Canal. The plan was to fish maggots long and short and soft pellet in the margin over micro’s. I was also thinking the Bread and Bomb could be a good tactic after a frost the day before. The weather had turned a lot colder with a high of 5 degrees forecast after heavy cold rain the day before. The forecast for today was OK with no more rain forecast.   

I drew on Heron 39, an average peg but it had a good depth of water at 4-5 foot compared with the rest of the pool. I started the 1st hour of the match on the Bread and Bomb. The business end of this rig was three 10mm bread discs on a size 18 15 inch Preston KKM-B Rapid stop, Ready rig with a 20g ICS match cube on 6lb main line.  This produced a carp around 7lb in the first 20 minutes and then another smaller one 10 minutes later. So a good start but I added nothing for the next 30 minutes and it was time to try the pole. 

I’d been catapulting a few maggots out to 13 metres during the 1st hour on the bomb. So I shipped out here for a look next. It wasn’t long before I started to catch some carp. I was catching a carp about every 15 minutes and they were a good stamp of fish. I was just feeding about 15 maggots every 5 minutes. I didn’t want to over feed these fish. I wasn’t catching any silvers here so with no silvers in the peg I kept the feeding low. I had a good 2nd and 3rd hours of the match catching these carp but then things slowed down on the 13 metre line. 

It was time to come in close on my top2+2 line. I’d also been feeding maggots here since to start of the match. I cupped some mirco’s into the margin at this point for later in the match and started on the short pole line. I caught two more carp here after a while but my catch rate had really slowed down now and I was beginning to get caught up by the other anglers. I only had an hour and a half left in the match. It was time for a look in the margins but nothing happened here either with soft pellets or maggots. I’d still been feeding maggots on the 13 metres line so I when back here next hoping the rest and feeding would have brought the carp back, but no they weren’t there. The carp had clearly moved away so I opted to go back to the short pole line with 45 minutes left in the match. I had a good weight in my keep nets and I just needed to add a bit more. I was getting bites but I wasn’t hooking them now. I guessed these were silvers so I upped the feed hoping to bring in some carp. This didn’t work this time but I did catch a few chub and at least something was going into the keep nets!

Coming the weigh in I had 70lb on my clicker and I was claiming 65lb when the asked ha ha!! These carp were I bit bigger than I thought and I weighed in at 81lb which was enough to pick up the section win.   

Maggot rig – 0.4g Nick Gilbert XT Gimp Wire pole float in 4-5 foot of water set up on 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge mainline with No.8 stotz’s strung out at 3 inch gaps followed by 3 no. 10 stotz’s again at 3 inch gaps above the 6 inch hook length which was a size 18 – 0.11mm Preston GPM-B Ready Rig.  Set up on Preston 11H Hollo