30th July - Old Bury Hill
When I were a nipper, pushing me baker's bike upt' cobbled Northern streets and scratching 2lb of perch and ruffe from the Ouse of a weekend, we'd read about this fish filled utopia south of Watford, where the sun always shone and people ate exotic food. Like fried onion rings and french bread. Any road, it were called Old Bury Hill, and I always wanted to fish there, so needless to say, once I got back into fishing I headed there straight away and I still have a soft spot for it. Besides, an attractive natural lake full of bream makes a nice contrast from a hole in the ground containing carp soup.
The fishing press regularly features a report of someone nobbling 100lb bream nets, and it certainly fished it's cock off for the Leatherhead match last year - 140lb won it, all on the pole, there was another ton plus 80s, 70 etc. I rolled in 10th with 45lb. That day I fished a feeder, catching mainly on worm over chopped worm, the bites drying up when i ran out of worm, but all the main weights were on the pole or waggler with banded pellet, which is the main method down there.
So with all that in mind, this time I went down totally focussed on the waggler, pole if they would come in close enough, aiming to fish a 6 or 8mm banded pellet over regular pingings of 4mm pellets at about 20 mtrs out. As I'd set up nice & early and I had a feeder rod ready made up, I put it up just in case the wind got up and I needed to toss a bomb overthe waggler line, where the fish would undoubtedly be hanging themselves because fellow blogger Pikey had been and practised on exactly the peg I'd drawn, got "bored of catching" on the waggler, before catching 4 big tench and 10x 5lb bream from the lillies under his feet. Bring it on.
Wrong.
Despite a few early fish around me, it became evident very quickly that this could be a hard match. I remained biteless for an hour when the float finally dipped and after an hour and a 3lb bream graced the pan. By the halfway weigh in stage, nothing else had happened for me. A couple of people had managed 20lb, just taking the odd waggler fish. I wasnt competing on the waggler with no signs of it switching on, so I retrieved the made up groundbait from the car, and decided to fish a feeder for the last 2hr 40 or so. Unfortunately the wind had picked up, and I soon realised that the feeder rod I had might just be a bit too light to fling it as far as I wanted to go -the fish obviously weren't within 25 yds of the bank.... Regardless, I managed to get it about 30 yds out, fishing a 10mm drilled pellet on the hook, just groundbait and no particles through the feeder - if they are having a nibble then theres only one lovely pellet for them to worry about... 2nd throw the tip yanks round and Fish No2 joins his lonely pal.
Next cast - ditto
Next cast - nearly ditto, hook pulls out at the net.
No more bites for 30 mins.
Tip yanks round again, by the time I've picked the rod up, its done a double free willy (ie jumped clear of the water not once but twice) and smashed me. Grrr. Big mistake fishing braid at a short distance - would've made sense on a big cast but not this close. Anyway, onwards.
A succession of liners finally leads to 2 more fish, but not before I've picked the rod up with no sign of a bite and a big thump results in another smashed hook link.
Final weigh in, 6 bream for 17lb or so, not good at all, but with 8 fish hooked in the last 2 hours and 38lb winning, its obvious to say that fishing a feeder all match would have put me right up there. Strangely, it's the method I'd normally always fish there, but I was determined to nail it on the float as its THE method to do a proper weight with; typically its switched off with a lake full of anglers which is a shame, and the feeder would have killed it on the day
When I were a nipper, pushing me baker's bike upt' cobbled Northern streets and scratching 2lb of perch and ruffe from the Ouse of a weekend, we'd read about this fish filled utopia south of Watford, where the sun always shone and people ate exotic food. Like fried onion rings and french bread. Any road, it were called Old Bury Hill, and I always wanted to fish there, so needless to say, once I got back into fishing I headed there straight away and I still have a soft spot for it. Besides, an attractive natural lake full of bream makes a nice contrast from a hole in the ground containing carp soup.
The fishing press regularly features a report of someone nobbling 100lb bream nets, and it certainly fished it's cock off for the Leatherhead match last year - 140lb won it, all on the pole, there was another ton plus 80s, 70 etc. I rolled in 10th with 45lb. That day I fished a feeder, catching mainly on worm over chopped worm, the bites drying up when i ran out of worm, but all the main weights were on the pole or waggler with banded pellet, which is the main method down there.
So with all that in mind, this time I went down totally focussed on the waggler, pole if they would come in close enough, aiming to fish a 6 or 8mm banded pellet over regular pingings of 4mm pellets at about 20 mtrs out. As I'd set up nice & early and I had a feeder rod ready made up, I put it up just in case the wind got up and I needed to toss a bomb overthe waggler line, where the fish would undoubtedly be hanging themselves because fellow blogger Pikey had been and practised on exactly the peg I'd drawn, got "bored of catching" on the waggler, before catching 4 big tench and 10x 5lb bream from the lillies under his feet. Bring it on.
Wrong.
Despite a few early fish around me, it became evident very quickly that this could be a hard match. I remained biteless for an hour when the float finally dipped and after an hour and a 3lb bream graced the pan. By the halfway weigh in stage, nothing else had happened for me. A couple of people had managed 20lb, just taking the odd waggler fish. I wasnt competing on the waggler with no signs of it switching on, so I retrieved the made up groundbait from the car, and decided to fish a feeder for the last 2hr 40 or so. Unfortunately the wind had picked up, and I soon realised that the feeder rod I had might just be a bit too light to fling it as far as I wanted to go -the fish obviously weren't within 25 yds of the bank.... Regardless, I managed to get it about 30 yds out, fishing a 10mm drilled pellet on the hook, just groundbait and no particles through the feeder - if they are having a nibble then theres only one lovely pellet for them to worry about... 2nd throw the tip yanks round and Fish No2 joins his lonely pal.
Next cast - ditto
Next cast - nearly ditto, hook pulls out at the net.
No more bites for 30 mins.
Tip yanks round again, by the time I've picked the rod up, its done a double free willy (ie jumped clear of the water not once but twice) and smashed me. Grrr. Big mistake fishing braid at a short distance - would've made sense on a big cast but not this close. Anyway, onwards.
A succession of liners finally leads to 2 more fish, but not before I've picked the rod up with no sign of a bite and a big thump results in another smashed hook link.
Final weigh in, 6 bream for 17lb or so, not good at all, but with 8 fish hooked in the last 2 hours and 38lb winning, its obvious to say that fishing a feeder all match would have put me right up there. Strangely, it's the method I'd normally always fish there, but I was determined to nail it on the float as its THE method to do a proper weight with; typically its switched off with a lake full of anglers which is a shame, and the feeder would have killed it on the day
posted by The Northerner at
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home