It was back to the Jam Factory for this latest Staunton AC match. Last time only a few weeks ago on this pool I had a great days fishing putting a tonne+ weight on the scales. I hoped to draw in the same area again and I was delighted to find the same peg as last time home for the day.

The only snag was the weather which was terrible with heavy rain and probably a 10 degree dip in temperature from the last time. It was a wet one today, the rain didn’t stop all day.

So drawing on from the last match on this peg I set out my stall to fish short all day, Corn and pellets on a top kit+1 and meat in the margins. I also set up a method feeder for fishing out into the middle of the pool which I was looking forward to as I don’t fish this much at my regular venue Hillview as it’s banned there.

I started on my top kit + 1 line in about 4.5 foot of water cupping in corn and 6mm pellet. This pool is predominantly Carp, no F1’s so I fed heavily for them rather than drip feeding small bits of bait for F1’s. The last time I fished this peg I started with a banded 6mm pellet but this seemed to attract small stockie Carp. There are some big Carp in this pool and the fish I needed to target. I caught a couple in the first hour but it was clear today was going to be different, most anglers were struggling. So I was soon on that Method feeder that I was so keen to fish. One angler to my left had started on this and he had caught to few and I recalled him doing well with it on the last match on this pool. So I cast in and waited. The next hour produced two more Carp but it wasn’t prolific by any stretch of imagination but I enjoyed winding into them and listening to the clutch slip as I played them. It’s funny I can look at a pole float all day without it dipping down but I just get bored watching a rod tip! So after my hours ‘tip fix’ I was back on the pole. The rain was still coming down making things difficult holding the pole but as I was just fishing a top kit and one section I only needed to rub a little candle wax on the male section of my no.3 to stop the joint sticking. I also rubbed a little candle wax on my no.4 and no.5 sections just in case I needed to add sections on from a bolting foul hooker but to be fair modern hollo elastic’ s let the fish bolt off anyway before powering up and its rare to have to add sections these days before the elastic bottoms out. So I was back on the short pole and I added another couple of Carp in the next hour. Not good but still OK compared to what everybody else was catching. It was time for a look into the margins.

I bagged up last time here on 6mm meat from the righthand margin but the banksides had been strimmed back since then and I was able to get in tight in on the left hand margin this time so I opted to try here first, Priming it for 10 minutes before I tried it. After 10 minutes I foul hooked a Carp with the my 19 Dura Slip elastic ripping out and before I could add the other sections. The hook pulled out and I had my hook straightened out. This was a Preston XSH size 12. A big strong hook designed to tame big margin dwellers and the first time I’ve ever had one straightened out. However this did give me some confidence with the margin swim, so I continued fishing the meat there. Today with the rain and temperature drop it was going to keep the weights down and if I could catch a few big Carp it would help boost my total weight. The only anglers really catching were a bloke fishing shallow at 13 metres which I wasn’t going to do because of the rain making pole shipping difficult and the guy fishing the method feeder. I thought about picking up the feeder rod again but decided not to. His fish were small and going to the final last couple of hours I felt some big Carp out of the margin would hopefully catch him up and pass him.

But the left hand margin wasn’t producing yet and so I turned to the right hand side where I’d bagged up last time. I tried it for 30 minutes with no signs where I’d fed corn and micro. Maybe I should have fished meat there like last time but today they weren’t coming right into the margins and I hadn’t caught well with meat and so I returned to the top kit plus one line fishing corn, adding a couple more Carp.

So into the last hour now and with not a lot been caught around the pool and I opted to go back into that left hand margin hopefully for some big Carp and it was 15 minutes before the end of the match before I started to catch some, adding 3 in 3 put in’s. But it was to late to do a weight, They’d come in to late today!

So it was a difficult day, the rain and the drop on temperatures affected the weights and I only caught a 3rd of the weight I’d caught a few weeks before off the same peg. But luckily for me most of the other anglers also struggled and my 40lb was enough to claim the 3rd and last brown envelope on offer. In hindsight maybe I should have just thrown that feeder a little more. It was a difficult day for all that fished compared to the last match on the Old pool.

The match was won by the chap fishing shallow with 77lb and the method feeder guy was 2nd with 65lb and then me with 40lb. So a totally different day from the match here a few weeks ago