This match was an Exel AC Pairs match at a new venue to me. Shearsby Valley Lakes, fishing over two pools, Tornado and Hurricane. What a lovely venue it was 4 lakes, a well stocked tackle shop and also a Bar. No one knew the venue so it was a nice level playing field with no one really knowing anything.

I drew on peg 31 on the Hurricane pool. I was happy with that as it was an end peg but with the wind blowing down to the other end of the pool and I feared the worst but as I was nearest to the tackle shop, they gave me some tips and said the peg can be good.

So after the advice given to me in the tackle shop I planned a short pole match. Keepnets have to go in the pool on the all-in and not 10 minutes before here so I planned to start fishing hard pellets at 2+3 to start with and then work my way close to the bank once the keepnet disturbance in the water had passed. The first hour on the 2+3 line with hard pellet was good. I had clicked to 18lb during this hour but it was now starting to fade and it was time to come closer in now. I’d been told in the tackle shop that meat short just off your keep nets was the way to go and I tried this next but nothing was really happening and I guessed it was a little early so I tried the left margin next with soft pellets and ground bait. This was better and I caught the odd fish here, just catching the odd one every now and again. I played around with different baits, dead maggots, corn and meat but it seemed today you had to keep moving around the peg, catching a couple of fish and then moving and I rotated lines for the rest of the day on different baits.

Finally the meat line came good around my keep nets but only for the last 45 minutes and I caught some nice carp and F1’s here but fish here really pull hard and my 11 dura slip was stretching all over the place and I got snapped off a couple of times. If that meat line had worked earlier I really could have done a big weight but I only had a short period here for 45 minutes. However I’d caught enough to come 2nd overall in the match with a dead 64lb with 72lb winning the match.

However this was a pairs match and my partner hadn’t done any good. The pay out was just the lake winners individually and then the pairs. Even though I came 2nd overall the winner was on my pool so there was no brown envelope for me this week! But that’s club fishing and why I enjoy it. The money is always spread around.

I really enjoyed Shearsby Valley Lakes, as I said a new venue to me and I can’t wait to go back even though it’s an hour and half drive for me to get there.

Best Rig of the day

This was the keepnet line with meat in 2 foot of water where I used a small 4 x 10 Preston F1 maggot and a light strung out shot on 017mm mainline with a Preston size 16 (0.13mm) GPM ready rig feeding just a few 6mm cubes of meat every couple of minutes. elastic was Preston green 11 Dura Slip through a short stop kit.