Fields Farm Fishery - Big Beam
Saturday 20th June 2015
Once again, and for the 3rd weekend in a row, Saturday was match day and this week, Pemberton Central visited a new fishery for the club. Fields Farm Fishery in Sandbach, roughly 5 mins from Junction 17 of the M6 came recommended through magazine features and friends that had visited previously. Our lake for the day was Big Beam, another canal style water with widths between 13 and 16 metres with a 'wide end' where it went beyond standard pole range. Despite being a canal style water, it was very different to the current trend of canals that seem to offer the usual mud line as a main feature. This canal was very mature with far bank vegetation and trees, and margin reeds and overhanging trees, giving the feel like you were on an old traditional canal. There are 3 'lengths' to this canal lake, all 3 joining at one end, and for two of the lengths, the pegs are either side of a peninsular. This was spot on for us and with only 13 anglers attending this time, we were able to space ourselves out along this peninsular.
We used our own peg numbers for todays match. I drew peg 5 which equated to permanent peg 7 (if I remember correctly). The peg looked inviting enough with rushes on the far bank and margins giving obvious features to fish to. Plumbing up revealed a very shallow far bank, so I decided to set a line up about half a metre from the bank where I had about 10 inches of depth, I would feed this with pellets by catapult throughout the match and go on it if I saw signs of fish. I set up 2 margin swims, 1 to my left and 1 to my right; I had the same depth on these so could get away with the same rig, On the margin lines I would fish corn and pellet. My final rig was on a 2 + 2 line in front of me - this was going to my starting attack on maggot to see what was about.
We used our own peg numbers for todays match. I drew peg 5 which equated to permanent peg 7 (if I remember correctly). The peg looked inviting enough with rushes on the far bank and margins giving obvious features to fish to. Plumbing up revealed a very shallow far bank, so I decided to set a line up about half a metre from the bank where I had about 10 inches of depth, I would feed this with pellets by catapult throughout the match and go on it if I saw signs of fish. I set up 2 margin swims, 1 to my left and 1 to my right; I had the same depth on these so could get away with the same rig, On the margin lines I would fish corn and pellet. My final rig was on a 2 + 2 line in front of me - this was going to my starting attack on maggot to see what was about.
As I called the all in, I picked up my 2 + 2 rig, slipped on a maggot and went straight in on this line, feeding small pinches of maggots by hand. I also catapulted in a pouch of dampened 4mm pellets onto the long line and repeated this periodically as the day went on. On the 2 + 2 line, I was instantly catching small Perch, Roach and Rudd and despite the small size of these fish I was quite enjoying myself but there was nothing of any size coming out so after 20 mins or so, I had a look on the long line but there were no signs of feeding fish. I went back onto the short line and resumed catching the bits but hoping something bigger would come along. Word on the bank though, was suggesting that everyone was struggling with many not having fish or even bites after the first half hour so I made a decision at this point to plug away properly for the bits and try to put a weight of these together whilst priming my margin swims for later in the day. I had set this rig up on a top kit with Nick Gilbert 10-12 Twin Core elastic, so I quickly changed my top kit to one rigged with Nick Gilbert 4 -8 Micro Bore elastic and switched my size 18 hook to a size 20. Now better set up to plug away on the bits, I started to get into rhythm of catching, mainly Perch with odd Roach and Rudd. These fish were on average, as big as the one in the photo below but a nice bonus Perch of around 12oz and a couple of Skimmers around 6oz were welcome additions. I really was enjoying the day now and had pretty much lost any care for winning the match, I was just happy catching. I was even wishing I had brough a whip with me as I think I would have been able to increase the catch rate with one.
I continued on this for most of the match, only breaking to feed the margin lines, until about an hour to go in the match when I had a look on the margin lines, this was mainly due to the fact that I was running out of maggots. Despite spending a bit of time on both margin lines, it was obvious that there was little in the way of activity so I gave them up and finished the match on the bits. As I was running out of maggots, I had to feed less bait and less often to make them last the rest of the match - this made my catch rate noticeably slow down but I continued dropping fish in the net right up to the all-out. The last moments of the match were a bit dramatic though, as Mark Jordan, a few pegs up had decided that the tough day was too much to bear and thought he would liven things up by falling off his seat box and going for a swim.........despite his protestation, he wasn't allowed to weigh in his mobile phone that found its way into his keep net.
As we were packing up and chatting away, it was clear today had been a tough one with only a few catching any numbers of fish. Felling justified for sticking to the bits, I was guessign to myself that my weight would be around the 7-8lb mark. As the scales went round, it was definitily a mixed result - first to weigh in was Dave Benson and he put on a reasonable 28lb on the scales, whilst behind him on the opposite side, George Derbyshire had only 8oz. When the scales reached my peg I was surprised to hear that my bag of bits went to 10lb 8oz. Weights following weren't great and with only 4 people left to weigh, I was still in second place with that weight. At the top end of the peninsular, where the lake widened, the weights improved somewhat. Wayne Fairhurst jumped well into the lead when he placed 43lb 8oz on the scale - a very impressive weight considering the way most others had struggled on the day. Dave Leonard went toe-to-toe with Dave Benson putting a matching 28lb on the scale and completing the weigh-in, Dennis Darby put 18lb 12oz. So those last few put me out of the runnings but I did manage a section win with my 10lb 8oz. I know a lot of the lads didn't seem too impressed on the day but I put it down to the time of year, with the bigger fish having other things on their mind and actually, I quite enjoyed myself on the day so for me - I will say it was a good day.
Results are on the Pemberton Central Results section of my blog - for those that can't find it - check out this link
Next weekend we have a break in the club matches but there will be no rest for me as I will be looking to hit the beach and make a start on my Lancashire Sea Fishing facebook group, Summer Species Hunt that I belatedly entered last week.
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