Horwich’s next match was at a venue completely new to me, Gingham Fishery. I had neither seen it nor even heard of it before joining the club. At the previous club meeting, in amongst the usual chit chat, there was a mention that if the venue fishes well, it could be throw up our biggest weights of the year….so expectations were high.
On arrival at the venue I was greeted by a rather unpleasant uphill push to get to the water, this wouldn’t normally pose much of a problem except that the owner had put in a narrow set of steps going up the hill and unfortunately the wheel span of my barrow was not wide enough to go either side so it proved to be a rather difficult climb. – Point to self, if I ever fish this place again I need to bring my trolley and not my barrow. The fishery itself could best be described as a bowl, with steep steps going down to some rather dodgy looking platforms. Some of the horwich old boys told us that at one time the water came right to the top, which was a good 12-15ft above where it currently was.
The draw saw me on peg 2 for the day, which I was quite pleased with initially as I didn’t have to venture around the edge to the further pegs however the pleasure was short lived when I saw the state of the steps leading down to the pegs. The owner has put some wooden steps going down to each peg and while they are usable I would advise caution to anyone fishing the venue as they were quite springy and slippery when wet. After some careful negotiating I managed to get all my tackle and I safely down to the platform to assess my peg for the day.
Based on advice from club member Tony, who is a regular on the fishery, my main approach today was to be long pole fished on a top 5 in front of me. The fishery is quite deep so I rigged up on a top 4 and just had one section to add which is handy as the steep banks would be almost impossible to ship a longer pole back. My rig for this swim was a 1.5g Drennan Quad float on 0.13mm main line, this was weighted with an olivette and 3 number 10 droppers. Hooklength was a size 18 Drennan Silverfish match to 0.11mm. The plan for this swim was to put in a bed of groundbait, which was the same Bait Tech Omen that I used at Rivington the week before. Due to the large numbers of ‘nuisance’ (Tony’s words) fish, I also used a bait dropper so I could get some loose feed down to the bottom, two loads, 1 of casters and 1 of dead maggot, were to be deposited along with the groundbait. To supplement this I decided to set up a feeder rod and a pellet waggler rod as I had seen plenty fish topping whilst I was setting up. The feeder was my trusty Puddle Chucker feeder set at 9’6” and a Daiwa TDM 3012 reel with 6lb main line. At the business end I decided to use a Guru Pellet Feeder fished with a short 4” hooklength of 0.15mm line to a size 16 PR36 rigged with a pellet band. The pellet waggler was set up on an 11ft Drennan Red Range Carp Waggler rod with a Daiwa 3000x Procaster reel and 4lb mainline, I used my preferred method of rubber float stops and a loaded float, opting initially for a 4g Drennan Loaded Crystal Pellet waggler and a 12” hooklength of 0.15mm line to a size 16 PR36 rigged with a pellet band.
At the all-in I baited up on my pole line and then fished the feeder as my opening gambit for the first half hour or so. After 30 mins with not even a line bite to show for it, I came off the feeder and went onto the pole line. I was also catapulting 6mm pellets towards a central buoy to prime the pellet waggler swim for later in the day. Unfortunately the pole line also seemed completely devoid of life and after a considerable time I was still bite-less while Tony on the next peg had been putting together a nice run of roach with the odd skimmer. Seemingly out of the blue, I managed to get a bite on the pole line which resulted in a nice Roach of about 8oz – was this a sign of things coming to life? Well the answer to that is simply ‘no’, as quickly as my pole line came to life it went dead again. Finally giving up on the pole line I decided to give my pellet waggler line a try, starting at around 2 feet deep I was working hard, constantly casting and altering my depth to find where the fish where however despite a few missed bites the pellet waggler line produced nothing so I went back on the feeder and pondered my options. Keeping an eye around the lake I knew I was in no way in the lead but there wasn’t many fish being caught and one or two of the resident carp could see me in the frame – this made my mind up to stick to the feeder and pellet waggler in the hope of mugging them. So continuing with the feeder I persevered in feeding the pellet waggler line. What seemed out of no-where my feeder rod wrapped round and I was into a very spirited fight with one of the resident Carp but steady playing of the fish soon saw it gracing my landing net and at about 3 – 3.5lb it was a welcome addition. I had started to see some signs where I had been feeding the pellet line so once the Carp was in the net I put the feeder rod away and went back on the pellet waggler. Despite the obvious signs of fish I could not get a ‘proper’ bite on this set up so I decided to try things a little different and stop feeding, as soon as I did this the bite rate upped and it wasn’t long before I hit into another Carp, this one was a bit bigger and put up a good scrap but I managed to land it and at about 4.5 – 5lb it was also very welcome. Sadly though, that saw the end of the day’s action for me as the remaining 20 mins or so went biteless.
I have to say at the All-Out I was a little relieved as this was a tough days fishing that promised so much but failed to deliver. I was to be the last to weigh in today and as I followed the scales round it was apparent that it had been a struggle for everyone on the day. At my peg a weight of 10lb-odd (TBC) was winning the match so those last 2 Carp had certainly helped me get up in the places although I was pretty certain I hadn’t enough to challenge the win. I put 8lb 10oz on the scales which was enough to see me into 4th place on the day. I was quite pleased to be up there considering how hard the day was and I certainly think that dropping the pole line was the right thing to do, in hindsight; I only wish that I had dropped it sooner as one more carp could have seen me sneak the win. Never mind.
Got a busy weekend coming up next week as it sees me fishing as a guest with my old club Pemberton Central ( http://pemcentralac.blogspot.com/ )at Heronbrook on Saturday, which will be a 6 hour match on Meadow Pool, then on Sunday it is Horwich’s coach trip down to Cudmore, where we will be fishing on Adelaide followed by a pub visit for some food and a few beers and a late return home. I’m glad I booked the Monday off
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