Milder weather greeted us for the 3rd round of the Tirley Court, Orchard pool individual winter league. After missing the 1st round all matches for me now count and I was hopeful of improving on my 3 place finish last time out.

I drew on the far bank this time which is the side you want to be on at this time of the year. It’s only carp in this pool with no silvers or F1’s to fish for. So as it was mild I planned a corn and pellet attack. I set up just 3 rigs, long and short pole lines and for the margin to my left.

I started the match fishing a banded 6mm hard pellet at 2+3 and feeding 4mm’s which was a bit of a gamble for this time of the year but only a handful of bites were expected today for all. So there was plenty of time to gamble with hard pellets and to my surprise I was the first one to catch a carp after only 20 minutes. This was around 6lb so a great start to my target weight of around 35lb. I thought I may catch a few more but the next 45 minutes proved biteless and a change was needed.

I opted to fish to my left side at around 10 o’clock at 2+3 just in front of some overhanging branches but far enough out in the water to avoid losing fish if I went in tighter to the bank. I fed few gains of corn and pellets and waited for a response. I caught another carp here, only after a few minutes trying. I thought great I’ve found them and I added a couple more carp during the next hour. I was doing OK now having four Carp and the talk around the pool was only 1 or 2 carp had been caught by the other anglers. Things were going good but I spent the next hour biteless. This was expected though as we were fishing a pool containing just carp and it was first week in February.

I played around trying different lines now and even the margin but no bites came and I thought as this is just a waiting game for the odd bite I would return to the line where I caught a few carp and sit it out to see what came my way and I stayed there until the end of the match. I played around with the feeding but it was really just a waiting game. I did add a couple more carp and my total of 8 carp was enough to claim 2nd place in the match with 50lb 5oz.

A short write up this week folks. I was sitting and waiting for most of the match !!

The rig

I fished strong gear, wanting to land every hooked fish. I was only fishing for carp. So the set up was an 4×14 Preston inline Diamond in 4 foot of water on 0.19mm mainline with a bulk and one drop above a size 16 Preston XSH 0.15mm Ready rig. All set up with 17 Preston yellow Dura Slip.