This match was another outing with my new club, Staunton AC. This week saw us on the Old pool at Lower Broadheath fishery AKA The Jam Factory. I’d not fished this pool for several years and looked forward it. The weather forecast was fine and sunny all day and a day of carp hauling beckoned I hoped.

I drew on the middle of the far bank which I was pleased with as this side of the pool is fairly shaded and it was going to be a hot day. I expected plenty of cruisers swimming around and a day of shallow fishing/mugging was on the cards. So I set up for shallow fishing, a couple of short pole lines and a margin to my right. Old pool is deep around 10-12 foot out in the middle but there is a gentle sloping marginal shelf and at this time of the year that’s the target area.

With no cruising carp to be seen I started the match with hard pellets fishing on the bottom of the marginal shelf in 5 foot of water with an 8mm on the hook and feeding 6mms. I also big potted pellet and corn in on my top kit +1 line at the start hoping to come over this line fairly quickly but I wanted the fish time to settle over it. It was about 4 foot deep here.

So I fished a banded hard pellet first at 2+3 which produced a few small Carp within the first 45 minutes but this was always going to be starter line before coming short for the big fish. Derek the angler on the next to me two pegs to my right had began the match shallow/mugging and he’s caught from start and to be fair he is good at it. He’s fishes The Jam Factory regularly with other clubs and I’d seen from facebook reports that this method had won him several matches here lately. He was opening up a lead and clearly the man to beat. These retired anglers who fish several times a week really have an advantage over us working blokes who only fish once a week. They can really home in on a method/venue when they fish it a lot. So I considered also going shallow but listening to Derek talking to the other angler next to him he seemed to be catching a lot small fish. So as I was well behind I decided to target the short top line next hoping for some bigger fish.

The Top kit line where I’d cupped in the corn and pellet wasn’t working so I cupped in another big pot, this time micro pellet and corn hoping that would be better and after a while I caught fish but I wasn’t catching well. A re-think was required. The margins on this pool can be fantastic fishing. They are about 2 foot deep and there is plenty of vegetation to give the fish cover and this is the line to do a big weight in the summer months. I always the planned to drop onto this for the later part of the match. While I persevered on the top kit+1 line I began to loose feed a few cubes of 6mm meat into the right hand margin. I couldn’t get right into the bankside because of the over hanging vegetation so these 6mm cubes of meat went in about 2 foot from the bank. The bottom was a nice flat spot anyway. As the big potting on the top kit +1 line hadn’t really worked I’d chosen to loose feed a few cubes every couple of minutes just 10 cubes each time for 20 minutes before trying it.

Meat in the margin

Fishing meat in the margin was the always main plan of attack, changing the loose feeding to cad potting in 10 cubes over the float now and I soon began to hook Carp but I went through a frustrating 30 minutes hooking Carp and pulling out of them, even a couple at the keepnet. These Carp in the Old pool at the Jammer are powerful fish. I was geared up for them fishing 19 Orange Preston Dura Slip elastic but I lost several in this 30 minutes spell. I was fishing a size 14 hook with a 6mm cube but needed a bigger hook. So I changed to a size 12 hook next. I wasn’t sure if one 6mm cube of meat would mask the size 12 hook well but at least there was plenty of hook point showing now. This change didn’t seem to bother the fish I was now hooking and landing Carp. I was now building a weight and 3 hours were left in the 5 hour match. I continued feeding 10 cubes of meat every put in and I hooked a carp after several minutes each time. Only on a couple of occasions did I need to re-feed after a biteless 5 minutes. These Carp were mostly all a good stamp of fish in the 4-5lb bracket and I caught a couple around 8lb. Meat in the margins really does attract the bigger Carp but today I had nothing over 10lb in weight and there are some big Carp in this Old pool, but they were all worth fishing for and I remained on this line for the rest of the match.

Weighing in

We all packed our gear away before returning for the weigh in. The Road side bank weighed in first with 107lb being the top weight with several 70-80lb bags of fish. I knew I’d got a tonne plus weight but Derek, two pegs down from me who’d had that great start shallow had also caught in his margins late on. His weight was 184lb which won him the match. I ended up 2nd with 124lb 2oz which I was happy with but a little frustrating as I’d had that 30 minute spell loosing fish with the size 14 hook, loosing fish that would have threatened Derek’s weight! Once I put on that size 12 I never lost one. I guess you live and learn. Fishing a 6mm cube of meat on a size 12 looked odd and not a big enough bait but I would now have complete confidence fishing it.

Best rig of the day

The margin rig was a 4×16 Preston Edge pole float, fished in 2 foot of water. These inline floats are very strong and perfect for fishing for big carp in the margin . Mainline was 0.19mm with a bulk of no.8 stotz’s above a cut down 4 inch Preston size 12 (0.17mm) XSH Ready rig set up on Preston Orange 19 Dura slip elastic.

The meat was a bit of an experiment for me today. I used Mainline Baits Strawberry Red Luncheon meat. The first time I’ve used it. I normally use the cheap supermarket stuff but I have to say this meat cubes up well through the meat cutter, stays on the hook well and sinks like a stone. I don’t know if the added flavors and attractors make any real difference but time will tell me going forward because I plan to use it again. Using it for the first time today really brought the fish into my margin very quickly. Something the cheap meat doesn’t normally do. I will be using this again.