CUDMORE FISHERIES National Angling Centre

OPEN MATCH REPORT BY STEVE EDWARDS

Match Angler  April 12

Sunday 15^th April
Following a cold night and with a cold northerly wind forecast during the day, I fancied a sheltered peg at the wood end of the new pools, the venue for the days match. Having drawn peg 25 on pool 5, I would have a sheltered peg for the day, unfortunately peg 25 is not at the wood end, so fish wise I was in for a grueller, even worse was that with only 12 pegs on the pool, section wise I was also in with no chance.

Still, with a match to be fished, I decided to start of with maggot at 13m in the deeper water for the first hour and then depending on how things went, move in to the 7m line and finally end up in the margins for the last part of the match. The fact that I was ready to fish the margins at 12.30, tells you how the match went for me.

My first 15mins was ok, a couple of carp and a skimmer, then after another couple of small skimmers the peg dried up and I was left with only a few Gudgeon and micro perch to show for my efforts. The 7m line was even worse, 2 swims, 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, only produced one skimmer and a few small roach and perch, hence the need for me to try the margins early

Again, the switch produced a couple of quick carp and then nothing, it seemed that there was a distinct lack of fish  in the peg meaning that I needed to be patient and wait for another fish after catching one. By switching from side to side I managed to keep a few fish going into the net until 2.30, when they just dried up leaving me with only half a dozen fish in the last 2 hours.

My final tally of 24lb was not enough on the day and I ended up miles behind the winner who had an amazing 90lb from the end peg on my bank, all the fish where shoaled up at the wood end! Pool 1 produced a 60lb weight from peg 2, at the wood end!!

Saturday 28^th April
The venue for this weeks match was Suez and Brewsters canal. Talk before the match was that you needed to draw on Suez to be in with a chance of framing as the fish are so much bigger in that canal. It goes without saying that I then preceded to draw a peg on Brewsters! To be fair my peg, 17, is one of the best pegs on Brewsters so I was not too disappointed.

The first thing that I noticed when I got to my peg was that it has been considerably improved by the creation of a nice comfortable platform, which means that anyone can now fish Brewsters with a 14m pole, as all the adjoining pegs have now also got platforms.

Tactics wise I decided on 2 rigs for the far bank, one 3 feet deep and the other 2 feet deep for fishing tight against the far bank vegetation. 1 rig for the track, in case there where any skimmers in my peg and a margin rig for either side of my peg against the reeds

I kicked off the match by fishing the far bank deep line and immediately had a signs that that there where fish present, the trouble was that I could not convert any of the bites into fish and despite trying both rigs in several spots all I had for my troubles was 2 small fish, one of which had been foul hooked.

With 90 mins gone I was now in trouble as although no one was setting the world on fire, the other anglers within sight had all caught more than me. Eventually I managed to hook another fish from across and although it was not particularly big, it managed to snag me behind a small clump of reeds and on trying to free the rig all I managed to do was break my elastic and leave the rig on the far side, disaster!. I managed to retrieve the rig, courtesy of my cupping kit and then it was time for a rethink.

As the far bank was proving to be hopeless, I tried the track for skimmers and promptly caught a small carp!, this proved to be a bit of a false dawn and no more bites signalled a return to the far bank and still no proper bites. It was now 12.30 and I was even further behind , so needed to do something different and fast!, time to try the margins.

First put in and  a small carp straight away left me wishing I had tried this tactic earlier. I then caught well for the remainder of the match. The one thing that surprised me was how much the small carp and Barbel fought once hooked. Instead of swimming  out of the margin, most of the fish tried to dive straight into the weed cover. I could now see how I managed to loose the earlier fish from the far side. The very last fish that I hooked in the match managed to snag me in the reeds, resulting in a broken rig, a poor end to the match, after a good run of fish.

All told I lost half a dozen in the match and trashed a couple rigs, that and a terrible start, meant that that I had no chance of realising the potential of the peg, even so, I managed to have the top weight on the day from Brewsters of 52lb. Overall I did not manage to trouble the top 3, led by a weight of 73lb from peg 1 on Suez. 3^rd place, however, was well within my reach as only 54lb was needed for the final place on the frame leaving me with just a section win. Must try harder next time!
 

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