Match Fishing Magazine

Well it has been another tough weekend in the angling world and my Match Fishing Drawbags team only just kept in touch with the leading pack on the Tunnel Barn Farm winter league. Last weekend we had our first victory after finally having four decent draws after a procession of dross draws in the previous rounds.

This weekend however saw the end of the mild weather and an appearance of minus temperatures that was sure to slow the angling down! This week we had an ok draw with Steve Ringer on New 17, Lee Kerry on Extension 17 and Jon Arthur on Club 5 which was a bit iffy. I was to be on House 12, last week this area of the lake produced but I knew deep down that now it had gone cold again it could be a long day in more ways than one.

House 12 is just off the dam wall and is about two pegs away from the good ones with pegs 14 and 16 reliable pegs with 6 and 7 absolute fliers. My peg has a lot of open water and is in a bit of a corner, there is a point of an island about 19metres away which looked very inviting but it would be hard work to fish there.

I started off with pellets in open water and it soon became apparent that there wasn’t a stack of F1s in my peg! Everybody was struggling but luckily I could catch the odd small F1 and skimmer to keep putting something in my net. After two hours and about 8lb in the net I decided a change was needed.

The point of the island looked very inviting and it was now time to have a little look over there. I simply set my rig three feet deep in the 4ft deep swim and put a piece of 8mm punch on the hook. I instantly caught an F1 followed by three mirrors and another F1 and thought I was away. The problem is, the fish tend to move off and because they don’t live on my peg they were always going to back off. So after 10 fish I was really struggling for a sign.

I was hoping for a good last hour in open water but it just wasn’t to be so I spent the last 30 minutes fishing an arm aching 20 metres in search of a couple more fish. Sadly only one more fish was obliging before the end of the match.

At the weigh in I tipped 29-8-0 onto the scales which was enough for fifth on the lake, this section of 21 however is split with Club pool which is a bit of a Mecca and every angler on there beat me leaving my tenth in the section.

Steve and Lee had done well in their sections but sadly Jon’s peg was as bad as we feared and his 19lb didn’t beat many.

So the Match Fishing team didn’t make up much ground this week but we are only seven points behind third and with two rounds to go we just need a bit of luck at the drawbag to make up those points… wish us luck!

Joe Carass