This week was a total change for scenery for me. Earlier in the week a got a call to stand in for a team on an Exel AC teams of 3 charity match a Makins fishery on Lake 2. A venue I’d never fished before.

So I was going into this match totally blind regarding tactics and baits. So I planned a pellet match and set up rigs for hard pellets long on the bottom and shallow, a short soft pellet line and corn in the margins with micros plus a method rod for throwing over to the island.

I started at 13 metres with hard pellets with a view to going shallow when I was missing bites. This happen straight away so the bottom rig was binned off and I went shallow, pinging pellets over the top with the catapult but I got little return. So out went the method feeder to the island but again I had no pulls and after 30 minutes this too was binned off. By this time now it was clear the fishing was going to be poor. Nobody was really catching fish and now I was feeding and trying different lines close in and the margin, but again nothing and we were 2 hours in now. I only hoped my team mates were catching! It was a warm bright sunny day and the fish were cruising around up in the water not interested in feeding.

I felt the only way I was going to catch anything was shallow. So I went back out to 13 metres shallow pinging just the odd pellet. This worked I hooked 5 carp shallow but pulled out of two of them, so at least I had 3 carp in the keepnets and something to weigh in. But in general things weren’t good. I did try my other lines in between the shallow line. These produced nothing apart from two small Roach. It was a tough day at the office.

Come the weigh in, it was clear most of the other anglers had also struggled. My weight of 21lb 6oz was good enough for 4th in my section but luckily my team members faired better. Steve Kingston actually won the match overall with 102lb and Pete Bullock caught 28lb finishing 3rd in his section giving us a total of 8 points. This was enough to claim 1st place on the team match by just one point.

I don’t really do team fishing these days as I just like to fish where and when I fish but I really enjoyed the day and the Exel AC lads made me very welcome. I liked fishing Makins and think I’ll go back there at some point but today it fished really bad but that’s why its called fishing and not catching!!