This was a fantastic match to be involved with. Tudor Environmental Ltd. Who are one of my customers with work, ran this match in aid of the Help for Hero’s Charity and many of Tudor’s (a ground maintenance Supply Company based in Coventry) Supplier’s Sponsored the match. There was an excellent turn out of 75 anglers fishing the match who all enjoyed Breakfast, the match and an after match BBQ before the presentation of the prices and a raffle.

My home for the day was New pool peg 10. I knew this was a half decent peg and fancied it for a few and Andy ‘Bagger’ Bennett was in attendance for the day (not fishing) so after a quick chat on how he would approach the peg I headed off to set up. I’m not a regular at Tunnel but I have fished this peg before and after Baggers info I couldn’t wait the for start.

The plan was to start on maggots on the bottom before trying shallow with casters and the left margin up against a tree stump (where Bagger had suggested) I caught a few F1’s early on with maggots at a Topkit+2 during the first hour while I primed shallow lines to the far bank cover and 6 metres down to my left towards the corner with Casters. As this was a big match I had treated myself to two pints of Casters. I just hate anglers buying several pints of caster in the summer months just to blast their shallows lines on club and small opens matches at £5.00 a pint to win £30.00. I just don’t think it fair on anglers on limited budgets trying to complete with cash rich anglers. But that’s another subject. Anyway this was a big match on a F1 venue and so to complete I needed Casters.

After an hour I spotted a few F1’s topping toward the left corner where I’d fed casters. So it was time for an early look and I shipped out a Jigger float baiting up with single caster on a band. It wasn’t long before I got into a good run of F1’s shallow jigging and this is pretty much where I stayed for the rest of the match. I did rest the shallow line a couple or three times, catching fish in left margin up against the tree stump as Bagger had suggested but it was never as good as the shallow line.

Best Rig of the day

This was the rig that I caught 90% of my fish. I used a Preston 4-6mm Jigger float set between 15 inch to 30 inch deep. I could adjust the depth range and this rig is that simple and effective really gives a positive bite. You miss very few bites as there is no resistance to the fish and the elastic just pulls out with the fish on. This has a small bulk of no.10’s just above a 4 inch banded hook length. You all you need to do is to jigger the hook up and down.

I ended the match with 86lb 8oz which I hoped would be enough for lake or section win as I headed back down to the fishery cafe for the BBQ, raffle and presentations. Lady luck wasn’t on my side for raffle win but the burgers were very nice and I was delighted to hear I’d mainframed in the match finishing 3rd overall picked up a nice Trophy and an Angling Direct gift card to the tune of £350.00