This Sunday saw me travel over to Woodland View for the Sunday Open. This week spread over Back Deans and High pools.

Back Deans hadn’t fished well the previous day with only 40lb winning the pool then so I hoped to draw on High pool, which I did and home for the day was peg 8. This is a deep peg at around 6 foot at 2×2 and even deeper further out. Weather conditions were warm around 20 degrees and the sun was out. So I set out my stall to fish my 2+2 line with hard pellets, 2+1 soft pellets over fishery micro and corn over micro into the right margin. As it was warm and sunny I also set up 4 shallows rigs for F1’s should the carp not feeding.

At the all in I big potted in fishery micro in the short 2+1 line and the right margin and started on the 2+2 line, cad potting in 6mm pellets with a 6mm hard pellet on the hook. This produced a couple of carp in the first hour but it was clear the carp weren’t there yet. So I began priming my long shallow pole line with 4mm pellets after 30 minutes and I went out to 14.5 metres 30 minutes later. I had 4 shallow rigs set up and the 12 inch depth proved to be best. Hook pellet was a 4mm Dynamite Baits Red Robin. This was much better now and I was catching mainly small F1’s and a few roach.

Shallow set up

Back to trying to catch Carp

3 hours in and although fishing this long shallow line for F1’s was fun I’d noted that a few carp were now beginning to be caught by anglers fishing short. These F1’s weren’t going to win me anything. I needed some carp. I had been feeding the short 2+1 line with fishery micro’s and also the margins since the start of the match, re-feeding these lines very 30 minutes to give them some confidence. Bigger fish where expected here so both rigs were tied up on 0.19mm to 0.15mm hook lengths and size 14 hooks. Bait wise I’d dyed some 6mm and 8mm Sonu baits soft expanders blue to match the blue fishery pellets and these lines produced a few carp around 3lb – 4lb but it was a waiting game for them and I probably sat here for to long before giving up these lines. I returned to the short 2+2 where I’d started the match and I couldn’t catch here either. However during striking on a couple of float dips I foul hooked a couple of carp up in the water before loosing them.

Shallow Pellet line

So with 45 minutes left in the match and with those short bottom lines not producing and thinking about those two foul hooked fish up in the water decided to fish short for them. I had those 4 shallow kits set up and I just needed to find what depth the fish were sat it. I started throwing 4mm’s by hand and fished at 3+2 with my deepest shallow rig set at 2 foot deep. The rig was the same as earlier but with a bristled float. A Preston F1 Shallow. I began to catch some F1’s and some small Carp now but as the last 20 minutes progressed with the regular feeding of 4mm’s I began to miss a lot of bites. I was now fishing to deep. A quick switch to the 12 inch dibber rig put me back in contact with the fish.

Good fishing but to late!

So I had a good last 45 minutes catching Carp and F1’s short shallow again with a Dynamite Baits Red Robin hook bait.. This gave me 51lb at the weigh in only for me to find the section was won with 51lb 8oz. I wasted to much time trying to catch some bigger carp. Where if I’d have returned shallow earlier I’d have taken the section. But that’s match fishing, you need to make the right decisions at the right time. This last 45 minutes was a real bagging session but sadly to short. But still a good days fishing though and home in time to watch England v Italy in the Euro final. but the less said about that the better! It went Rome!