This week for a change I travelled to Solhampton for their Sunday open held this week on the Kingfisher and Jackdaw pools. 

I’ve fished the Kingfisher pool a couple of times before and hoped to draw on there but Jackdaw a new pool on the complex was my home for the day, drawing peg 6. 

On arrival a found a feature less pool with no bank side vegetation and no obvious place to fish! When I got to my peg it was covered on goose poo and there was plenty of mud as the grass banks were still establishing. So I had know idea but guessed there would be plenty of small fish to be caught.

I set up two margin rigs as the margins were very shallow with just a gentle slope. One rig was for fishing the mud line close to the bank and the other a little further out down the slope with Corn and Expanders. While the other two rigs were to fish hard pellet on top2+2 at 10 o’ clock and corn at 2 o’clock in 4 foot of water. Fishing long was ruled out due to the wind but I also set up a shallow line if needed. So an easy set up. Rod’s are not allowed at Solhampton in the summer months. 

I opted to fish 11h hollo on both the top2+2 lines and 13H hollo on the margin rigs so I could fish relatively light on 0.13mm hook lengths as I didn’t know what size of fish to expect. I would have half a change of getting out a big fish but as I said before I expected a lot of small fish as it was a new pool. Bait choice for the day was fishery 4mm feed pellets, corn and some 6 & 8mm Sonu Pro Expanders.  

At the “All in” I’d already seem a few carp in the margins very close to the bank in the shallow water and I opted to start here fishing corn on the hook and feeding corn and pellets on just my top kit either side of my keepnets. The first hour hour was brilliant catching around 40lb just off my top kit left and right. I was thinking my 3 fishery supplied keep nets wouldn’t be enough!! (You use their keep nets and landing nets at Solhampton) An hour later the fishing was slowing down. The fish weren’t now coming into the margins just I began to start feeding my top2+2 hard pellet line. I began catching again here but these fish were small carp with a few small Tench and Ide mixed in, but at least I was still catching!

I felt a change was needed and cad potted in some 4mm pellets and Corn onto the other top2+2 line. This produced some more carp but again they were on the small side. I’d carried on feeding the margins left and right and waited for some swirls before going back to the margins and for the next hour alternating between my four pole lines, The fish I caught from the margins were a little bigger (2-3lb) but you had to wait longer for bites and I returned to the margins for the rest of the match thinking as time went on the margins would come good. They didn’t but the fish I caught in the margins were bigger so a stayed fishing the here off my top kit, left and right for the rest of the match. 

With an hour to go I changed to a 6mm Sonu Pro Expander as hook bait which seemed to be better and then I later changed to an 8mm and the fishing improved s bit. 

At the “all out” I knew I’d done well on the pool and I weighed in 96lb 10oz which took 3rd on the pool with 105lb and 103lb in 1st and 2nd so a close match. 

Over on the Kingfisher pool they fished an extra hour as the two pools were a separate match which I found a little strange and I would have loved an extra hour. However well done to my Jubilee Nomad mate Rob Butcher who was top weight off the Kingfisher pool. Winning with 121lb. Overall I enjoyed the day. I would have preferred drawing on the Kingfisher as Jackdaw was an unknown quantity but it was a nice days fishing and Solhampton is a really nice venue. I think I’ll be coming more often. The other pools there look lovely.  

Margin Rig – 12 inches deep,  0.2g Nick Gilbert XT Edger pole float, 0.19mm N-Gauge mainline with a small bulk of no.10 stotz’s above a 6 inch 0.13mm size 16 GPM Preston Ready Rig set up on 13H hollo

Top2+2 Rig  4 foot deep, 0.4g Nick Gilbert XT Finesse Power pole float, 0.17mm N-Gauge mainline with a spread out bulk of no.10 stotz’s above a 6 inch 0.13mm size 18 Guru SLWG banded Ready Rig set up on 11H hollo

Result   

Jackdaw pool

1st. Steve Shakespeare 105-08 2nd. Rob Pemberton 103-02 3rd. Phil Seedhouse 96-10

Kingfisher pool

1st. Mark Butcher 121-06 2nd. Geoff Darlow 120-02 3rd. Mark Betteridge 107-08