Maver Classic Qualifier.

After the White Acres Festivals, I have decided to concentrate on qualifying for the Maver Classic at the fantastic Larford Lakes complex near Stourport in the Midlands. I was fortunate enough to qualify for this year’s final, and it was a great couple of days so I am keen to be in the mix for next May’s final. After the long drive up there, which takes around 2 and half hours, we were met with a fairly hard overnight frost and a very stiff cold breeze which would make fishing the long pole very difficult, far from ideal conditions but you’re there to get the job done so there isn’t any time to worry about the weather although it can alter how you have to approach your match.

At the draw I drew peg 18, just past the aerator on the shallow bank, a reasonable draw, but pegs 22 to 28 have been doing the damage of late so I’d have to hope there were a few fish in front of me to hopefully challenge those pegs. As I mentioned the wind was going to make fishing long on the pole difficult, but I decided on still setting a rig up to fish at 13 metres, I could ping some 6mm pellets here and fish either a 6mm xpand on the hook or a hard banded 6mm, over the top. My rig for this was quite simple, a 4x14 MAP WD1 on 0.15 to an 0.12mm hook length. I also set up a short line at 6m this was a 4x12 WD1 on the same line as the longer rig, and I’d start my match here, to hopefully grab a quick run of fish. My main attack of the day though was going to be a simple bomb and pellet approach, this set up was as easy as It can get, a 10ft Parabolix bomb rod, teamed with an ACS 4000 FD reel loaded up with 6lb line, the rig itself was a standard running rig with a half ounce lead and a 12 inch hook length of 0.17mm, on this I’d look to ping 2-3 8mms all the time looking to build the swim throughout the match.

Starting the match, I potted 10 6mms at 6m and went straight over it with a banded 6mm, you can often get a quick run of bites doing this, and if you’re on a really good peg it can carry on all day! Today however with a mega overnight frost no bites were forthcoming in the 10 minutes I spent on this line, I’d keep throwing a few 6mms on it throughout the day and maybe I could find a few better fish late on. Putting that rig down I picked up the 13m rig for a quick look to gauge the response, but to keep it short and sweet I never had a bite, which I couldn’t believe but I wasn’t too disheartened as no one had caught yet so I’d not lost any ground on the match itself. After failing on the two pole lines I was left with the bomb rod, where I had been pinging a few pellets regularly, banding on an 8mm pellet I chucked out and waited, and waited. Not a liner or anything with an hour and half gone and only 3 fish caught on the lake, I began to wonder what was going to happen, if anything but by keeping the pellets going in and casting around the fed area eventually the tip slammed round and my first fish of the day came to the net, an F1 of around a pound and half, the next chuck I had another and I was right back in the race it would seem. After these couple of fish though the swim went quiet and the odd fish started coming out around the lake, after another 15 minutes the tip went round again and a carp of 3lb joined the other fish in the net, my next 3 fish were all carp and it was fairly obvious that there weren’t many feeding f1s in front of me so I decided on gambling and feeding my peg differently in an attempt to target carp exclusively, and I’d do this by feeding more bait, but less frequently and waiting longer for a bite over a larger amount of bait. This started to work quite well and several decent fish came to the tactic, by the end of the match I’d caught 16 fish, when you consider the first hour and half showed no signs of life at all, it wasn’t a bad amount of fish with the biggest going around the 6lb mark.  At the scales, my 50lb was good enough for 3^rd in the match, but unfortunately  with the winner having already qualified 2^nd place took the final place, so although I felt I’d sorted my peg out, another 15lb in the early part of the match which usually isn’t a problem has cost me big time. Never mind though, it’s all in the memory bank for the next one!

Tight Lines

Tony Curd