Sion Farm 18/07/2009

15 Pegs

After a dreadful result on the fish o mania qualifier at Moorlands I was back to the places I like to fish, today was Sion Farm. I was hoping for a nice draw as the good pegs mean you can fish positive on the pellet waggler and straight lead. I drew peg 8, it wasn’t the peg I wanted but it was one of the good pegs on side.

I set up 2 rods, 1 13ft Preston Innovations Carbonactive rod with a Shimano Stradic 4000 reel loaded with 5lb Maxima. I was using a Middy Pellet Popper pellet waggler using a cralusso attachment with no shot on the line. Hooklength was 0.20 Silstar and then a hair rigged band and a size 14 PR36. The other rod I set up was Trabucco sygnum 12ft version medium action again with 5lb Maxima with just a free running lead and a quick change link and an 0.18 hooklength and a size 14 PR36. My bait for the day was 4 pints of 8mm pellets and a handful of 10mm pellets for change bait.

At the all in I fed 5 pellets at 10 second intervals to get some bait in and hopefully attract some fish quickly. It was looking grim as no fish were showing on the top, after an hour of fishing I had only foul hooked 1 carp and lost it. I finally hooked my first fish on the waggler about 7lb and safely deposited in the net. It then slowed yet again with no bites for half an hour, I changed the feed to more regular but cut back to 2 or 3 pellets. It just wasn’t happening. I banded a 10mm pellet on my lead rod and chucked it over the same line. I pinged some more pellets and sat on my hands..

The rod tip rattled and then gradually went round slow as you like, I thought I had hooked a big skimmer how slow it was just plodding in. As I joked with Gary that it was a bream and as I said that a big 8 pounder popped up and was in the net. I fed again and chucked out as fast I could, I literally bagged for an hour until it slowed again in the last hour when the sun came out, I went back on the waggler and had a nightmare losing 7 fish in the last hour, I was fuming. I thought I had done enough to win but all would be revealed.
50lb odd was winning, Gary weighed 61lb 12oz I then weighed in 72lb 15oz which did win. As pleased as I was I was still annoyed at the amount of fish I lost in the last hour and should have