This was the last ever Staunton AC match as the club has now folded due to the lack of numbers fishing on a Saturday. So I was keen to go despite a terrible weather forecast. But I’m glad I did as the venue fished its head off today.

A sad day for Staunton AC

As I said this was the last ever Staunton match. I’d not been a member for long, only this season. I joined because they fish on some great venue’s around my local area and I already knew a few of the members. But over this last few years numbers fishing on a weekend has been declining meaning it wasn’t viable to book pools at fisheries for matches. I think weekend club fishing is dying out. This club like many others in the Country had a large number of retired or semi-retired members who fish matches several times a week. Preferring the weekend at home with the family to the traditional Sunday club fishing. Many fishing clubs were born from factory workers working all week and then going fishing together at the weekend but now these days many of these people have reached retirement age and now fish more than ever in the week. This is good for the angling trade and fisheries with more people fishing but I think Sunday club fishing will suffer going forward. The new generation of young anglers now go straight into fishing open matches at the many Commercial fisheries we now have. Something that wasn’t around when many of these fishing clubs were formed in days gone by. So for a working bloke like me who only fishes at the weekend finding a good fishing club is getting difficult and another reason why I have also moved into fishing more commercial opens over the last few years. This was a great match though and a great way for the club to go out on a high fishing this final match. RIP Staunton AC.

The final match

The weather forecast wasn’t good, a stormy day with strong winds and rain. Most of this rain had fallen during the night with roads flooded everywhere but there was a small window until the next weather front came though and we didn’t get much rain but the strong wind was still a problem to fish in. Luckily for me I drew a peg with the wind off my back, so I was able to fish a short pole without to much difficulty. I’d only fished one match at Court Farm before and that was on the main pool where the match weighs can be phenomenal but due to the lack of members fishing with the club we were able to fish on the New pool just paying for the pegs that we used. This pool isn’t as good as the main pool at the venue but still very good reading recent facebook posts so I hoped to catch around 30-40lb of small carp around 3lb in size. Which for December is still good.

Plumbing around the peg the depth was pretty much the same about 5 foot. So it was one rig for out in the lake and a margin rig plus I’d also set up a feeder rod with an Preston ICM system for fishing either a small method, Bomb or maggot feeder if the wind got to strong. I opted to fish a 4×14 pole float despite the strong wind as there wasn’t any tow on the water and I started the match fishing out at 2+3 into the open water fishing a soft 4mm Preston Pro Expander on the hook and cad potting in small balls of micro pellet over the top. I began to catch straight from the off and I felt a good day was on the cards. I was catching plenty of small carp. It was apparent the fish wanted to feed and it wasn’t long before I changed my hook length from a small size 18 (0.11mm) Preston SFL hook to a larger Preston size 16 (013mm) GPM hook length and changed the hook bait to a 6mm Pro Expander and feeding 4mm feed pellets via the cad pot again. I was having bites every put in doing this and returning back with carp between 2-4lb every time. I thought this line would slow down at some point but it didn’t and I actually stayed on this line for the whole 5 hour match. There was no need to do anything else (apart from watching my kit didn’t get blown into the water)

So that’s the story for this match so a short write up today! I didn’t need to do anything else. I was on the right method and bait for the day where I went on to weigh in 161lb 14oz of carp all around the 2-4lb stamp, so a lot of fish for 2nd in the match (172lb won it) which is fantastic considering it’s only 2 weeks until Christmas day!!! Court farm is an awesome venue!

Best rig of the day

This was a 4×14 Preston F1 maggot set up on 0.17mm mainline with a bulk of no.9 shot 18 inches from the hook with two no.10 dropper shot above a 6 inch Preston size 16 (0.13mm) GPM Ready rig. set up with Preston green 11 Dura slip elastic.