Orcheton

The next match on Pems calendar saw me returning to an old favourite in the shape of Orcheton fishery near Heskin. It's a venue I quite like but through one thing or another I hadn't visited it in probably 18 months or so. So prior to the match I managed a sneaky practice on a Wednesday evening. Arriving after the open match had finished, I settled on peg 1. The match had been won with 80-odd pound from peg 11, with pegs 33 and peg 1 placing behind. I was told that all these 3 had caught up in the water on the pole. With that in mind I opted to fish the pellet waggler for the evening. I was quite happy with pole up in the water so thought I would try the pellet waggler to get back in the swing of this method as I hadn't fished it a great deal recently. The evening started slowly and my casting left a lot to be desired but I eventually got into the swing of it and ended up catching about 30 - 40lb of carp. Not a bad evenings work. Made a couple of new friends that night too, or at least I thought they were my friends until they chased me off the peg 

MATCH DAY

Orcheton was looking lovely on the day of the match 

I drew peg 12 which was just out of the pegs that I'd have preferred but it wasn't the worse peg available. Based on the feedback from the open match and my own pleasure session I decided to set up my pole at 14 metres to fish up in the water and set my pellet waggler up to fish just beyond pole range. In addition I set up a couple of margin lines and my feeder rod which I set up with a method feeder to fish to my left in a corner bay. 

At the all in I went straight out on the pole, initially fishing about 18 inches deep, and was getting bites straightaway. Using a 6mm banded pellet and occasionally pinging a few over the top, I was putting a few fish in the net but they were a bit on the small side. Others around me had started on bomb and pellet waggler and they were slow to start but soon were putting a few in the net but they were a much bigger stamp. Having seen a few bigger fish topping behind my pole line, I decided to switch to pellet waggler to try and keep up with those around me. This seemed like a good idea and I put a few bigger carp in the net and a couple of decent bream. One of the carp was a nice double figure ghost carp that initially thought I'd foul hooked by the way it took off as soon as the float hit the water, but it was fairly hooked and provided a good boost to my weight. At this point I was doing quite well and felt I could place in the match if I continued at the pace...........oooops. At around the 2 hour mark the fishing really slowed down for me and I found myself trying all sorts to keep the fish coming. The shallow lines in front of me seemed to dry up, and my margin pole lines produced only roach. I tried my feeder line and whilst this's gave me 2 fish, they were only small and inbetween I seemed to be bringing in big bunches of debris. After a couple of hours of messing about trying to keep fish coming, I fished my final hour on the pellet waggler and put a couple of fish in the net but not enough to catch up. At the all out I would the rods in feeling very frustrated and a little bit miffed with myself for wasting time searching for bites during that quiet spell, I think if I'd have stuck it out on the shallow line it would have really come good later on. At the weigh in, there were a few low weights recorded before me so when my 30lb was recorded it out me momentarily in front. Considering that I had a double figure carp in that 30lb, the day was even worse than I thought and I knew I was miles off the front runners. At the end of the weigh in it proved to be very close at the top with Alex Yates on peg 1 recording 67-10 and Dennis Derby narrowly missing out with 67-4 off peg 10. 3rd place went to Mark Anglessey with 45lb, I think from peg 28. My 30lb faired better than I thought and was actually enough for 5th overall. Given the top 2 weights, I didn't feel like my peg could have troubled them in the day but I feel that 3rd was well within my grasp. The angler in 4th place was a guest so when taken out of the points, I've only had 4 added to my tally so not a disaster.  Old hough next in a couple of weeks time, unless I can sneak out for a pleasure session in between.