Friday 8th September 2006 - Match fishing Subscriber Classic - Woodland View, Droitwich

Match fishing magazine ran a competition in order to win a ticket to fish the inaugural Match fishing Subscriber Classic, which was being held at Woodland View Druidic.And through a cancellation or another, and a few e-mails here and there, I managed to get a ticket, courtesy of the Rochdale Raver putting my name forward to Mr Harrell. In response to one of my e-mails Mr Harrell replied something along the lines of ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH, although I may have missed a few A’s and R’s off the reply.

I gleaned all the information that I could from Jon Arthur (Dudley Moore). I had to e-mail him once or twice (he he) to get the info as he was less than forthcoming with his tips, he even tried to charge me a pound a tip (well at least it wouldn’t have cost me a lot). The general consensus was a corn approach with meat over the top, although things were on the change and it could be a maggot day or a worm day or even a pellet day. I wished that I’d never asked.

I even e-mailed my mate Coxy, who had just returned from his jollies in Turkey. He basically backed up what Dudley had said.

What a palaver?

I was up early in order to have a nice relaxing steady drive down there. I set off at 2 minutes past 6 and was hoping to be there by 8:00 – 8:15. I was making good progress down the M1 and by 7:10, I was already at junction 13 of the M42/A42(?). This is where my day started to go wrong. By 7:45, I was at Junction 12 of the M42 – as Mr Harrell would say ‘AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!. Whilst I was stuck in traffic due to the M42 being closed between junctions 11 and 10, I got out my trusty atlas (who needs satnav?) and started to travel cross country, past Twycross Zoo and round the lanes and all over. I managed to get back on the M42 at Junction 10, just below the accident and was then met by traffic calming speed restrictions between junctions 9 and about 4. Traffic Calming, what the flip do they know about TRAFFIC CALMING. Here I am in a rush to get somewhere, I am on a motorway and I can only do 50mph maximum speed. Calm, was I calm? Is Dave Harrell really The Hoff in disguise? Answers on a postcard please.

I finally managed to arrive at 8:50 for a 9:00 draw. That gave me 10 minutes to get something to eat and to get into the draw queue.

I ordered a brekkie and then joined a table with O’Dear Driscoll, Sconeeee, Andy T and God’s Dad, Steve May. Dad was quizzing me about my in depth knowledge of the place, but I knew even less than him. Whilst I was torturing Dad for all the info, apparently someone shouted my number for me to go and get my brekkie. In view of being somewhat slightly deaf, I couldn’t hear them. After some 5 minutes of wasting away, I went in search of my brekkie. Due to the stress that I had endured getting here, taking into consideration the Traffic Calming, I got a wee bit of indigestion whilst eating my brekkie. 2 Sausage, eggs, bacon, beans, tomatoes, toast and what ever else was on my plate in less than 3 minutes then into the draw queue.

In view of taking a quid off O’Dear a couple of weeks ago, the return side bet was back on; let’s see if I can keep up my good record of one from one.

Dad told me to come and see him when I had drawn as he was going to speak to God and get all the info on his lake and his peg. I put my hand into the magic box and pulled out……….. High 33?????

From all the info that I had received, this was probably the only lake that I didn’t want to be on. It is the deepest lake on the venue and it is teeming with silvers.

When I found Dad, he was speaking to God. I managed to prise the phone out of his grip and spoke to God myself. God told me that High pool is a good up in the water pool with caster as loose feed and worm on the hook, the best way to score.

I didn’t have any casters, but I did have some worm, about ½ a kilo. God said to keep feeding the casters, fish with worm on the hook and stick at it. I would get bitted out to start then the carp, predominantly F1’s will come in, and you can build up a good weight. He also said ‘do not forget to feed the inside line’.

I quickly went into the onsite shop and stole 3 pints of casters and another ¼ kilo of worm. One of us was stealing as it cost me £12.00. In addition, I also had some 3 tins of corn, 6mm cubed meat and some rough meat that I had pulled to bits.

I arrived at my peg to find that I had Dad at the back on me on Arles pool. I quickly struck up a quid with him, hoping that youth and enthusiasm would earn me a quid against age and experience.

In view of my newly acquired information, I set up the following rigs:

Down the side rig:

I set up a .2g Colmic float with a rugby ball body and a fat plastic bristle. This was attached to .16 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 12 Colmic WN501 hook. I plumbed up down the side to my right about 5m along the bank and about 2ft from the bank and found that I had about 18” of depth. I used the same rig to plumb up down to my left and side and plumbed around until I found the same depth.

Shallow rig:

I set up a Preston Bazzerla PB2 taking 4 x 10 shot. This was attached to .13 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 14 Kamasan B911 hook. I had a maximum of 2ft of line between pole float and pole tip with the bulk of shot about 6 – 8” from the hook, this would allow me to alter my depth by about 12 – 18”. I planned to fish at about 9 – 10m out.

My deep rig:

I set up a middy 4 x 16 float which caught my eye whilst in my tackle shop the other day. It is a rugby ball shape, with a long carbon stem (which I trimmed down) and a long plastic bristle. The line also passes through the side of the body. I set this up on .16 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 14 Colmic WN501 hook.

For both the side and deep rig’s I was using black hydro through the power top twos and for the shallow rig, I was using grey hydro through a match 2 & 3.

Dad’s peg looked a little better than mine, he had an island that was within reach (14m) and this was his main target area.

On your marks!!!

We were off. At the all in, I cupped in some corn down both margin swims and also at 5m. I then proceeded to fire casters out to my chosen shallow length. I baited up with worm on the hook, shipped out, fired some casters over the top and caught a roach. God did tell me that I would get pestered by the bits for the first hour or so, then the carp (F1’s) should move in, then I should start bagging.

Whilst I was continuing to fish up in the water, I was all the while keeping an eye on my margin swims and I was also baiting up down both sides and at 5m. After about an hour, I had about 5lb or so of silver fish, and a couple of small crucian carp. I had just caught a small roach, I re-baited with worm again, shipped out, dropped in and the elastic streamed out.

Carp No 1 was soon in my keepnet and added about 1lb to my weight. I repeated the process and it was about another hour before I got my next carp, again, about 1lb in weight.

I was constantly keeping an eye on all those around me and apart from the bloke on Peg 2 or 3 (I think his name was Les Thompson?) no one seemed to be breaking any records. Les was catching by feeding a few pellets in a pole cup, and adding something else, then putting a squirt of red liquid in the pot, presumably Predator Plus which had been doing some damage on the venue. When he tipped his bait in, there would be a big red slick in his peg, then he would eventually catch a fish, mainly carp. The only downside was that this slick was also going through about 4 or 5 pegs to his left.

2 ½ hours into the match, I threw a good handful of casters down to my right hand side swim. Some 20 minutes later I saw some tails and the water was clouding up down the side. I quickly shipped back in and swapped over to my margin rig.

I baited up with a grain of corn on the hook, dropped in the middle of the now cloudy water and waited. I waited and I waited. I came back, swapped over to meat on the hook, threw some more casters down over the cloudy water and dropped in. My float went this way, it went that way, but it wouldn’t put its head under the water.

I thought ‘Right, they want caster’. I came back, put on 3 casters, fed some more, then dropped in. The float had been in the water about 3 minutes, the float shot under and a roach about 3 oz was soon in the net.

The water was still clouding. I put a worm on the hook, dropped in and waited. After a couple of minutes, the float buried and a perch was found to be the culprit. I had only put on half a worm and the worm was still bigger than the perch.

With about 1 hour to go, I made the decision to leave my margin swim and concentrate on my 5m line, which had been lovingly pre-baited all match and the fish should be queuing up to get to my bait.

I baited up with corn on the hook, dropped in and fed a handful of casters over the top. After about 5 minutes, I caught a trench of about 8oz. Next drop in and a carp of about 5lb was soon on it’s way. There was about 30 minutes of the match left. The bloke to my right (Dave from Nottingham/Derby?) was steadily starting to put a few fish together by fishing in the deep water. He later told me that he started to fill it in with maggots at 8m, and fished corn over the top. He ended up with 7 carp.

Dad must have seen me catch my big carp as he was worried and he was asking me ‘Mick, what weight have you got?’ ‘5lb’ I replied.

By the time of the all out, I had managed to snare another smaller carp of about 2lb. I was admitting to 14/15lb and Dad was admitting to 19/20lb. I gave him my quid, even before the scales had arrived. Being the gent that Dad is, he wanted to get off. He gave me my quid back and tipped back. I told him that he owed me a quid now as he was a DNW and I was going to weigh. After all of the crying and sobbing, I relented and tipped back also.

O’Dear had caught a few and weighed in 37lb odd. So I was a quid down after all and the series is now 1 all.

I thanked all around me and made for my journey home. It took me 3 hours and 4 minutes and I averaged 47 mph. A 300 mile round trip and 6 hours on the road. That is motorway driving for you.

Any way’s I still enjoyed the match as it was somewhere new and the fishing was different to what I had been doing in terms of fishing into open water and fishing against an island. I was also told to expect some big fish which also leads to the anticipation.

Roll on next year.