The third and final round of this years regional CIPS league was held at Woodlands View in Droitwich.
My team Sensas Cardiff Nomads were middle of the road in the league due to a poor round at Gold Valley when we suffered a few blanks (I didnt fish that one!!). The matches I have fished though were really enjoyable and very well organised by Darren Cox and Paul.
They are all fished to CIPS rules, so it was 13m pole limit, no pellets on the hook, no Carp to be weighed in and strict bait limits.
We had a pretty good team draw so our hopes were quite high of a fair days sport for all of us. I drew peg 8 on Arles which I was pretty happy with as last week peg 6 on Arles had thrown up a good silvers weight in the open.
My plan of attack was 3 rigs, a bloodworm and joker line at 13m feeding swims at 11 o clock, 1 o clock and straight in front. Whilst plumbing up I found a slight drop off of a few inches to my right on the 1 oclock swim.
The rig itself was a wire stem pencil float with a bulk shot of 5 stotz just above the hook length to hopefully give positive bites. Lines were 0.10 main line to 0.08 hook length with a size 20 barbless Colmic black hook on the business end. Elastic was a nice soft number 4 latex on a side puller SLK of my Z12.
My other lines I had planned were a caster line at 5m, and a maggot swim down the edge in the hope it may snare a big perch or two as a bonus. The thought behind the 5m line was to hopefully bring the Roach in to that line and catch them quickly to build a weight if the Skimmers didnt turn up.
When the hooter sounded for the 10 mins pre baiting I cupped in 3 balls of the double leam and joker mix to my right then one straight in front and one to the left. I decided to put a bit in as there was good anglers all around in my section and knowing that there was a good few skimmers living in the area I went for a positive approach. I put one ball of joker on the 5m line and mixed with casters as a back up line. There was no ground bait allowed in this match so to carry the joker we used a double leam mix which was grey and damp riddled and mixed then joker added to form the balls.
the match kicked off and I went straight out on the 13m line with a double bloodworm on the hook. It wasn't too long before the float dipped and the first fish a small roach was in the net. I had about 5 small roach on the trot before I had the first skimmer which again was quite small. I started to cup in a small nugget of leam and joker every fish then to make sure that the Skimmers would stay there and not drift off in to a neighbouring peg. Through rotating the swims I kept the bites coming all day but despite feeding nuggets of joker every put in and some caster the bigger skimmers just didnt turn up. I did have one bonus F1 on the this line which was very welcome, but despite regular feeding on the 5m line and maggot close in the other lines did not give any rewards.
I ended up with just under 9lb which was behind Darrren Bickerton who weighed in a superb 18lb for the lake win and 2nd in the match and Hady Whittle on 10lb but it was a nice day despite really struggling to hold the pole at times due to the wind.
As a team we finished 6th on the day as Clive Roberts and Lee Pesticio had 2nds, Richie Candy a 3rd and Shaun I believe a 4th but it was a respectable result given the quality of the teams fishing.
Well done to Starlets for winning the day and to Dorking for very convincing preformances throughout the series. Callum Dicks was top individual over the three matches recording 3 out of 3 section wins, which given the field he was up against really took some doing.
This was then end of a great series of matches and one i'll be marking in the diary for next year for sure.
Apologies for the lack of photo's trying to be as focussed as I could for the match I forgot to take some!!
My team Sensas Cardiff Nomads were middle of the road in the league due to a poor round at Gold Valley when we suffered a few blanks (I didnt fish that one!!). The matches I have fished though were really enjoyable and very well organised by Darren Cox and Paul.
They are all fished to CIPS rules, so it was 13m pole limit, no pellets on the hook, no Carp to be weighed in and strict bait limits.
We had a pretty good team draw so our hopes were quite high of a fair days sport for all of us. I drew peg 8 on Arles which I was pretty happy with as last week peg 6 on Arles had thrown up a good silvers weight in the open.
My plan of attack was 3 rigs, a bloodworm and joker line at 13m feeding swims at 11 o clock, 1 o clock and straight in front. Whilst plumbing up I found a slight drop off of a few inches to my right on the 1 oclock swim.
The rig itself was a wire stem pencil float with a bulk shot of 5 stotz just above the hook length to hopefully give positive bites. Lines were 0.10 main line to 0.08 hook length with a size 20 barbless Colmic black hook on the business end. Elastic was a nice soft number 4 latex on a side puller SLK of my Z12.
My other lines I had planned were a caster line at 5m, and a maggot swim down the edge in the hope it may snare a big perch or two as a bonus. The thought behind the 5m line was to hopefully bring the Roach in to that line and catch them quickly to build a weight if the Skimmers didnt turn up.
When the hooter sounded for the 10 mins pre baiting I cupped in 3 balls of the double leam and joker mix to my right then one straight in front and one to the left. I decided to put a bit in as there was good anglers all around in my section and knowing that there was a good few skimmers living in the area I went for a positive approach. I put one ball of joker on the 5m line and mixed with casters as a back up line. There was no ground bait allowed in this match so to carry the joker we used a double leam mix which was grey and damp riddled and mixed then joker added to form the balls.
the match kicked off and I went straight out on the 13m line with a double bloodworm on the hook. It wasn't too long before the float dipped and the first fish a small roach was in the net. I had about 5 small roach on the trot before I had the first skimmer which again was quite small. I started to cup in a small nugget of leam and joker every fish then to make sure that the Skimmers would stay there and not drift off in to a neighbouring peg. Through rotating the swims I kept the bites coming all day but despite feeding nuggets of joker every put in and some caster the bigger skimmers just didnt turn up. I did have one bonus F1 on the this line which was very welcome, but despite regular feeding on the 5m line and maggot close in the other lines did not give any rewards.
I ended up with just under 9lb which was behind Darrren Bickerton who weighed in a superb 18lb for the lake win and 2nd in the match and Hady Whittle on 10lb but it was a nice day despite really struggling to hold the pole at times due to the wind.
As a team we finished 6th on the day as Clive Roberts and Lee Pesticio had 2nds, Richie Candy a 3rd and Shaun I believe a 4th but it was a respectable result given the quality of the teams fishing.
Well done to Starlets for winning the day and to Dorking for very convincing preformances throughout the series. Callum Dicks was top individual over the three matches recording 3 out of 3 section wins, which given the field he was up against really took some doing.
This was then end of a great series of matches and one i'll be marking in the diary for next year for sure.
Apologies for the lack of photo's trying to be as focussed as I could for the match I forgot to take some!!