Lake 1 at Greenridge.Greenridge Farm's lakes 1&2 was the venue for the first of Andover's MCC matches, the weather was warm and I was hoping for a better day than I had at Greenridge a couple of weeks earlier. At the draw I didn't really fancy the middle of lake 1, as it is not a noted "flier" area, unfortunately I pulled peg 5 ! Smack bang in the middle of lake 1 ! When I got to my peg I had an empty peg either side of me, which hopefully would aid me . The water in the lake seemed to be down a bit, which would make fishing the margins tricky as they would be very shallow.
Peg 5.I set up two rigs tight across at 14.5m, one on the deck but as the lake was down a bit, I only managed to find about 18 inches of water, both rigs were KC carpa cubes on 0.16 to 911-16, one set at depth and one at half depth, both were attached to green hollow Garbolino elastic. The next line was at 5-6 meters, at the bottom of the near slope, I decided to plumb here as the margins were shallow and I felt that the fish wouldn't come in to the inside. This was a 0.3 gram DC6 0.16 911-14 to Orange garbolino. I did set up a rig for the margins either side of me, this was a 0.2 gram durafloat on 0.18 to 911-14 to orange Garbolino, it was a similar depth to that across, although I am happy to fish in that across I felt it would be to shallow for the margins to work well, if they did move in I would see them as they would certainly stir the bottom up. On the bait table I had three pints of caster, two of maggots and corn, the caster was mainly for across and in the margins, the maggot would also be loose fed in the margins and the corn was for the 5m swim. At the all in I fed half a pot of corn on the 5m line, and half a pot of caster and maggot on the two margin swims. I went across on the depth rig with caster on the hook and a toss pot full of caster, it took about 15minutes and a few tosspots later before I had my first fish, it wasn't that big but it did give me a scrap. A few minutes past before I had another bite, this time I lost it at the net, not a brilliant start but Greenridge is notorious for starting slow, although Paul in peg 3 was catching the odd one or two, I could see fish milling about against the far bank in his swim and not in mine, which was a bit ominous. I could see most of the lake and no one else was doing allot so I wasn't to perturbed. About an hour had past and no more bites so I picked up the catapult and stated to ping in the caster at the far bank, a couple of foul hooked fish later was enough to convince me to use the shallow rig, this resulted in a couple of good size carp. In the mean time I was loose feeding the 5m with corn every few minutes, and the margins with caster and maggots. One more fish on the far side on the shallow rig and that was it for the far swim it died completely. Half way through the match and as far as I could tell I second behind Paul who was beginning to empty his peg, and not content with catching fish he catches a terrapin as well! After having a look in the margins, which resulted in no bites I switched to the 5m line. Slipping a couple of grains of corn on to the hook and dropping the rig in resulted in an instant bite, which I missed. Out again this time a foul hooker which I pulled out of. I knew there were a few fish on the 5m line and I couldn't work out the best way to feed for a proper bite. After a couple of missed bites I finally hooked one in the mouth, a good sized fish of 5lb. I decided to feed the peg with just 6 grains of corn in the toss pot, and not feed again until I hooked one properly. I was still missing good bites and foul hooking a few but I was beginning to hook a few more properly, which was building the weight slowly. Into the last hour and I could see fish being caught further up the lake. I carried on catching, missing bites and foul hooking fish until the all out. It was clear that Paul had easily won the lake, but I wasn't sure how I had done against the rest of the field. In the end I weighed in 36lb 10oz. good enough for 3rd on the lake, not to bad but to many missed bites and foul hooked fish had cost me, but that's fishing!
My 36lb 10oz. catch.
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