This was the latest Staunton AC club match at the awesome Pete’s pool at Tirley Court. With Storm Anthony forecast for the day (very unusual for August!) with gusts up to 65 miles an hour forecasted and rain all day, this put a downer on the members turning up. Only 5 brave souls turned up for the match. But the weather turned out to be much better, just a wet one all day and the fishing as always on Pete’s pool was fantastic and the reason I braved the weather forecast. So the five of us were all pegged along the grass bank.

Starting out on the method feeder.

Today as there was only 5 anglers fishing and so only really a very small knock up now and I wasn’t really bothered about the result. It was just and days fishing now. So I decided to start the match on the method feeder, something I don’t really fish much, throwing a large 30g Preston Banjo feeder to the back of island, baited up with micro and a 6mm Chocolate Orange Wafter. The first hour was OK, I caught 8 carp for around 30lb and I enjoyed the sport playing these fish on a rod. But I was itching to get on my short line lines early as Pete’s pool is a fantastic bagging venue. The sport on the method feeder was slowing down and I just can’t sit and watch a tip not going around. I’d feed two short pole lines at the start with corn/micro at a top kit plus one and 6mm pellets further out at 2+3 sections and I tried these next. I caught a couple of Carp off these two lines during the next 30 minutes but the sport was very slow considering how good Pete’s pool can be. I was getting plagued with small Rudd bites. I needed to feed them off and I re fed these lines again and picked up the method rod again spending the next 30 minutes fishing the rod whilst feeding my short pole lines by hand to create a bit of noise to hopefully attract carp into the peg. The method rod proved fruitless despite the angler on the next peg catching well on the method. He’s was way ahead of me now and I needed to put a stop to this poor 2nd hour.

Onto my short pole lines.

So I was now playing catch up but I still felt confident if I could get these pole lines working. I dropped on my Top Kit +one line where I’d fed corn and micro and I began to catch few carp but still not prolific yet. But it least I was putting fish in the keepnets! At this point I stopped feeding my longer 2+3 line and concentrated on the shorter top kit line and began to loose feed 4mm’s and micro pellet as well as the corn and still fishing corn on the hook. Sport was patchy now, I was catching but still waiting for the bites.

So at this point now 3 hours into the match I decided on a hook bait change. Opting for a 6mm Sonubaits Pro Expander as the hook bait, binning off the loose fed corn and just feeding the 4mm and micro pellet from hand. This proved to be much better and after a while I was bagging with pellets. The corn didn’t really seem to be the bait today, pellets were much better. I was catching up the method angler next to me now and catching really well. As we went into the final last hour of the 5 hour match. I did play around with a corn hook bait but I was getting to many foul hookers on the corn. The 6mm Expander pellet stopped the foul hookers and the bites were much cleaner with the pellets. It can be a real eye opener trying different hook baits and if I’d stuck it out with corn I would have still caught fish but pellets were much better today. Its always worth playing around with different hook baits even if your catching.

Weighing in

The last hour was fantastic but that poor 2nd hour was my down fall this time. I weighted in 179lb 9oz but the method angler who fished this all day had caught 222lb. He’d been able to catch all day on it. He’s renowned for fishing the method and he’s got really good at it. I just don’t do enough feeder fishing. Maybe I should do it more but my strength is my pole fishing. However the match was actually won further down the grass bank we were fishing with 226lb. So I was 3rd overall but with just us 5 anglers fishing due to the weather only the top two were being paid out today. I didn’t really care much I’d had a great days fishing as Tirley always produces and that’s why I’d gone despite the weather. If you get a chance to fish Pete’s pool at Tirley your always in for a great days fishing.

Best rig of the day.

This was my short 2+1 line in 2 foot of water. I set up a 0.2g Preston online Diamond pole float on 0.19mm mainline with a bulk of no. 9 stotz’s above a 6inch (o.17mm) Preston XSH size 14 Ready rig set up with a 17 Preston yellow Dura Slip elastic.