I’d just returned home from a weeks holiday in Spain and with a few more days holiday left before I’m due to return to work next week, I was able to jump on the Thursday Affordable Open at Manor Farm Leisure. I’d not been to Manor for over a year and the regulars there are always hard to beat. But for me it was just a days fishing whilst still on holiday, with the chance of a small pick up.

The match this week was held on the island pool where accurate casting tight to the central island at long range with a method feeder is the best tactic there. But having not been there for a year my casting wasn’t the best and it took several minutes to get my eye in with the casting to get the feeder landing in the desired place.

I started on the method feeder throwing tight to the island and during the first hour it wasn’t good. I had only caught a Skimmer and pulled out of a large Carp and that was it. Everybody else around me also seemed to be struggling so it wasn’t just down to my poor casting! So I shipped out the pole to 13 metres next where I’d been catapulting 6mm pellets and tried my luck there next fishing a banded 6mm on the hook. This produced the odd small F1 but I did catch a small Carp around 5lb and this tempted me on to staying on this line for a little to long, hoping they would come on the feed. I spend a couple of hours here with limited results. So it was time to throw out that method feeder to the island again.

Another 30 minutes waiting but no pulls on the rod so I was going know where in the match so time for an early look on the short pole line with meat and the margins also with meat. These two short lines produced nothing. I’d been cad potting in the meat in which wasn’t working so I opted to change the feeding and cupped in a big pot of meat and micro’s next into the left margin and left it for 10 minutes.

Into the Margin

The left margin had been covered in surface scum for the duration of the match but lucky for me the wind had changed direction and it had blown this scum away from the bank and now I could actually get my pole float in tight to the bank, up against some reeds just before the next peg. I hoped some Carp would now come in as we went into the last hour of the match.

Out I shipped into this left hand margin topping up the feed I’d left 10 minutes ago with a small cad pot of meat and 30 seconds later the pole float dipped and bingo I had a large Carp on! It was a beast around 10lb which when I netted it pretty much doubled my total weight. At least I now had something to weigh in I thought. I shipped out again and cad potted in some more meat and hoped for another Carp. I waited for 5 minutes and I was just considering re feeding when the float dipped again and a was into another Margin Munter! This one was even bigger around 12-13lb and only just went in the landing net and now I thought maybe if these Carp keep coming I could actually frame in the match!

But it wasn’t to be however I did add a couple more F1’s and a couple of Carp around the 4-5lb stamp when the all out came during this last golden hour. No where good enough to win the match but I’d come from know where in the match to a possible framing place. I weighed in 58lb 0oz which was enough for the section win. (and 5th overall) Those two Margin Munters had got me out of jail ! It was only a small pay out as it was the Affordable Open but this still covered my pools for the day and so I free days fishing. Not to bad considering I’d not fished Manor for a year and I went home happy!

As I said those Margin Munters got me out of jail today!!

Best rig of the day

Obviously this was the margin rig. I’d set up for big fish here, fishing 0.19mm mainline with a tough inline 4×14 Preston Edge pole float with a small bulk of no.9 stotz’s above a 4 inch cut down size 12 (0.17mm) Preston XSH Ready rig. Set up on 19 Orange Preston Dura Slip. This set up will tame those big Margin Munters that live in the island pool at Manor. The 19 Preston Dura Slip elastic is fantastic for this style of fishing. It lets them bolt away before powering up and I landed both of them big Margin Munters with in 5 minutes of hooking them.