I don’t often fish matches anymore, and have in fact only fished one “Carp Match” in my life. But, for some reason, when I saw it advertised that there was to be a charity Carp Match at Churchgate Fisheries this month, it tickled my fancy. A quick chat with fishing companion and fellow A.M. Baits tester Matt, and we’d confirmed our participation.
Like I said, I don’t often fish matches, so I suggested to Matt that we go for a practise day before the match and get an idea of how to attack this particular water. This was agreed and arranged, bait assembled and we were on our way.
I had opted to weigh up the best tactic between fishing solid PVA bags and the method feeder. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and every water will respond differently.
We arrived and after a short walk I quickly discovered a large group of fish cruising on the surface. I flicked out a handful of crushed up ‘Bounty Hunter’ boilies, and watched as a good majority of the fish seemed to go tails up and instantly dropped on to the bait.
I got myself set up, whilst constantly trickling bait in, and eventually got the rods out. One on a large ESP ‘Mega Method Feeder’ fished tight to an island, with A.M. Baits ‘Method Mix’, GLM and Bloodworm pellets making up the mix. And on the other rod, fished under an overhanging tree, a small PVA bag with crushed ‘Bounty Hunter’ boilies, and a small, white, ‘Bounty’, dumbell pop-up.
It was the method feeder that was picked up first, but then as I was playing that fish, the PVA bag rod tore off too. Both fish landed, both small, one a common and one a mirror, I was still no more wiser than when I first arrived. As the day wore on though, that all changed
There was plenty of fish present in my swim, but they didn’t really seem to be feeding hard. Matt, in the swim next door, couldn’t buy a bite. And even when he eventually did, he unfortunately lost it at the net.
The action was a bit more steady for me, and I kept the bites coming fairly regularly. I topped up with a final tally of 8 fish, all small, but in a match if you can consistently keep catching these small fish, you can very quickly accrue a large bag weight. Out of the 8 fish I had, 7 came to the method feeder, so that pretty much decided how I was going to start the match. But, obviously every day is different, and I’m not counting out other tactics and methods.
Matt did eventually nick a fish, when he went for a walk and found a group of fish in the margins. Lowering his bait amongst them, he managed to tempt one very quickly, so blank avoided.
I knew this lake was fairly prolific, so I was actually quite disappointed with only landing 8 fish. But when we learned there was 7 anglers on, and apart from me and Matt only one other carp was landed, I wasn’t so upset. It just goes to show, results are very much relative to conditions on the day, and on what seemed to be a difficult day I managed to winkle some fish out where others struggled.
Having a slightly better understanding of the lake, I’m now looking forward to the match and what the day may hold! Report and results will be posted here, so check back some time after the 26th!
The Illustrated Angler 