MFS - Witherington Farm, 3rd May 2015

Withy 2015, day 2.  The hangers for some of us weren't too bad, although I did over sleep, but luckily there was only one minibus that had to ferry us back and forth to the fishery.  Something to do with a hippy festival at Stonehenge.

Last nights theme was "Syrup Night" and there was a wide variety of new hair styles many of which suited the lads wearing them, especially Andy G!

Pool night at Nickie's brother in laws pub.  I was holding the whip which lasted all night, unlike the previous night at YOYO's where we were constantly topping it up!

The Draw
Another well behaved rabble of lads all called to order by Andy T and Sconey.  Peg 78 on the Inner Snake came out the hat.

The Set-Up
Plumbing up on the far bank which seemed a great target for the large carp that live in the snake lake I found a very deep constant depth at 14 metres.  My other lines were:
  • Margin line to the left and right
  • 5 metre line straight ahead
Bait the same as the previous day.  Today I'd be having a pound with my neighbour for the day, Bonfire Face Bez (sorry mate).

All-In
The far bank was just too tempting, so straight over with some corn on the hook, micro pellets is a kinder pot.  No mug fish this time, in fact after 30 minutes of the float dipping around the place and me dobbing the far bank a small roach was the only thing I had to show for my efforts.

I would spent a couple of hours trying to get a large carp from that area.  I even changed the rig to a shallow one and was pinging 4mm pellets across, only for a large rat to benefit and also to see the carp slurping the pellets from the bank.  It was very frustrating.

Meanwhile Bez was catching some silvers on his short line and I was behind, so onto my 5 metre line too which put some skimmers into the net.  Andy T popped round as they were get blown all over the place on the other side snake lake.  As he left the float dinked and a large carp was on, it took me all over the place and I followed it trying not to put too much strain on the 0.14 hook length.

Finally it went over to my right and even with 14 metres of pole the fish took off down the lake and snagged me up... gone!

I needed to get into the bigger fish to stand any chance so my only other option was the margin lines. I had been preparing the right hand margin by throwing some corn at regular intervals, the only bite and fish that came was a decent skimmer.

With the last hour of the match looming I quickly re-plumbed the left hand margin line and dumped some groundbait and hemp.  Going straight over the line with triple corn, the flat buried and finally a large carp was in the net.  That put me ahead of Bez.

Rebating the line, I wasn't getting any bites on the corn.  I then remembered that Sconey normally fishes a 10mm JPZ pellet which I had in my bag.  The result was instant and a lovely koi carp came to the net.

Straight back on the line, float buried straight away with the JPZ pellet, another large koi in the net and that was the end of my match as Sconey called the all out.

Result
19lb from 3 very pretty carp and the rest skimmers.  At least I got a golden nugget from Bez!

Conclusion
I tried everything on the far bank with no result, my 5 metre line didn't produce, so maybe I should have gone down the margins a lot earlier.

A great weekend with the lads.  Well done to Gareth for winning overall and Pete Bailey as his bridesmaid.  Thanks lads, is it Withy yet?

Fishing Pictures



"Syrup" Night










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