This week John Wolstencroft blogged his day
15 AUG 21
HLS SEDGES - TILE
I was asked to write a blog on my day today to give Shawn a break from writing it every week.
I was really looking forward to this match as The Sedges venue has always been kind to me and is full of quality fish. It’s a lake which is able to produce to any angler who fishes to their strengths.
On arrival at the car park at about 07.40 it was apparent that most fishing today were already there, all in good spirits and the banter in full flow. George was finally able to update us all with a diagnosis on his wrist which has been giving him grief over the last few weeks. Now he has found out what the issue is, all our lives, and his, can return to some degree of normality and hopefully he will mend soon.
At the draw, personally I wasn’t particularly fussed as to where I drew, but quietly hoped for the centre bank between Tile lake and Brick, as the breeze was blowing into that bank. So on dipping into the draw bag, and pulling P38 I was well happy, even though I had never fished between pegs P40 and P34. Trundling my gear to the peg, I had Tony Newell on P39 and Danny on P37.
As I started to set up, it was very apparent there were a lot of fish right up in the water, so decided to target those fish rather than trying to force them down on the deck. I had heard a few rumours during the week the complex had been fishing very hard, but put those thoughts out of my mind when I saw the amount of fish with their backs, heads and tails out of the water as they wallowed past. I set up a 2 SSG 3.2g Guru pellet waggler and was able to cast it out comfortably most of the way to the island, right at the limit of my catty firing out 8mm pellets. I have found the pellet waggler method can blow hot and cold this year on Tile, and was hoping for a `hot` day. I also went for a more unorthodox tactic in mixing up some groundbait and clipping up a small Matrix Baggin Wag on my other pellet waggler rod, and trying that as I felt it unlikely the fish had seen this much before.
As the fish were up in the water, I set up a deep shallow rig to fish meat at top 2 plus 3 as able to flick out meat by hand at that range rather than use a catty. Set up was completed by a pellet rig at top 2 plus 3 as well as a paste rig to go, over the top of it. Finally a meat rig down the right hand margin.
Whistle went and I fed a small amount of pellet at 2 plus 3 at about 10 O`clock position. 40 minutes in and not a bite or indication of any sort, despite trickling a few pellets regularly. I could not see anything caught and was beginning to feel it was going to be a tough one. Baggin wag came off the roost and boshed that out for the next 40 minutes or so, every couple of minutes with the groundbait moulded round it as loose as possible to help it cloud the water within 30 seconds of impact. Expecting to see some interest by the carp to move in to investigate, it was obvious they were not interested, and carried on mincing around on the surfacedespite pinging in 3 or 4, 8mm pellets every 30 seconds or so to make some noise. Chucked the baggin wag back on the roost to try the pellet waggler, and still no interest, even with shallowing up to 8 inches deep. So over 2 hours in and still no bites. By now I was itching to try meat shallow in front of me, and in with 5 minutes of trying it hooked my first one, got it most of the way to the net before very sportingly I let it go again. 5 minutes later hooked another which almost reached the island before finally netting a nice double. One more followed after that. I was still feeding the paste line quite heavily to force them down. Another spell on the pellet waggler and had my only bite of the day on it resulting in another nice double. I spent the last couple of hours alternating between the paste and meat shallow. One more fell to meat shallow and only one fish on the paste, but did lose 4 foulers on the bounce after that. I have always caught well down the margins here,but despite regular feeding failed to have a single bite.
In summary my paltry 5 carp went to 40lbs, but not through lack of trying. They seemed just to not want to feed. It seemed that most had the same problem.
I suppose I could have set up a feeder or lead clipped up tight to the island and sat on that all day. Who knows it might have worked, but it would have just complicated things more.
Well done to Steve King for his 106lb and winning on the day. I never really had the chance to chat to him, but suspect most were caught clipped up to the island. Danny next to me had a nice net of silvers at about 20lbs which must have put him there or thereabouts in the silvers pool.
At least none of us got wet, despite the BBC weather saying we were likely to. I did also have the pleasure of seeing the Somerset countryside in great detail during my 90 minute `drive` back up the M5 carpark to Portishead. Nice
