Hi and welcome to my attempt at blogging. My name is Lee Varley, i am fortunate to be sponsored by Carp Vader aged 30+ and hail from the footballing capital of the world...Leeds,LOL. I predominately fish commercials, prefering snake lakes or canal type lakes around the Yorkshire region.
Over the last couple of months i have been fishing at Birkwood Farm with reasonable success. The open matches are run on the 2 snake lakes, Emily's and Oscar's. Both lakes are around 13-14.5mts wide with depths to 6-7ft. Dick and Chris really look after us and thanks must go to them for letting us fish a quality fishey.
My usual approach to these lakes is the pole (if the wind allows) My farbank lines usually invlove fishing over to any cover, sedges or reeds. With a rig for "dragging" around on the slope and a rig for down the track.
Open match 27th April.
You can't start without a good cholesterol boost on a morning so it's of to the cafe for a brekky. There we usually have a chat with some of the lads who are fishing the match to find out how the match fished on the saturday and the general feeling was that it was very windy and very difficult to present the bait over on the long pole line. The saturday match was won from peg23 with 38lb 10oz, 2nd peg 18 28lb 3oz and finall 3rd peg 20 with 27lb 8oz. All the weights had come from the far bank toward the top end of the lake.The wind had dropped for sunday, but it was raining. Would the fish be still up the top end?
Time for the draw, i hear a few good pegs have been drawn so i stick my hand in the bag and glance at the peg number it was blank, don't you just hate that. Any way after flipping it over and seeing peg 20 (see main pic for my peg) i thought that will do nicely!
After speeking to Roger Movely in the cafe in new the lad in peg 20 had caught on pellet to the sedges, he had framed from the peg as well, so the pressure was on!
So after loading the gear up and walking round i find i have Daz "have you got
asthma" Harrison to my left, so we should be in for some funnies stories. Daz is pictured right.
I set my 3 rigs up as follows...
Rig 1 for the sedges and reeds. I use a MW slim pattern in 0.1 gram 0.12 stroft line straight thru to a tubertini 808 in size 18. This is usually fished 12-18" deep shotted with four number 11 stotz bulked 5-6inch from the hook, the float tip is usually "greased" up as i like to over shot the float the use grease to keep the float visible.
Rig 2 same set up just the float is heavier and the rig is 4ft deep.
Rig 3 Is for down the track a Gaz malman stable 4x14 fished in about 6ft of water.
All rigs are on Preston latex size 10.
At the start of the match i cup a few micro's flavoured with Carp Vader Pineapple 360, (this has won me a few quid over the winter and still working into the spring) to each of the sedges in my swim, then fish the 4ft line for the first hour to give the fish time to settle over my feed, i still feed the sedges while fishing the 4ft line. On goes a 4mm expander flavoured with the Carp Vader pineapple. After dragging the rig around getting it to fish right on the slope the float eventually dips and my first carp about 2lb is netted. Sport is very slow during the first hour and the pegs to my right 22 and 23 are catching well and i was falling behind.
First put in and the floats burries and another 2lber goes in the net, this carries on for a couple of hours alternating my swims feeding one and fishing the other taking fish off each swim then resting it.
Then it stops dead! Tried the four foot line, nothing. Tried the down the track rig, nothing. This cost me the match this period, but i learnt something from it, i stuck on an extra section and went further down my swim to the next sedge 16mts away! Managed to get a few more fish, but the pegs to my right were catching well during my "quiet" period.
Allout was called and wondered if i had done enough for a placing.
As the scales went round they were a few 20's and 30's then they got to my uncle (John Chapman) who plonked 49lb on and led for all of 2mins, when Jaspa stuck 50lb 2oz on the scales to lead the match, it got to me eventually and new i was weighing in for 3rd as those to my right had caught well. The digital scales started reading 52lb then dropped and settled on 50lb 9oz, i did Jasper by 7oz, happy days, next peg weighed 54lb 9 and the end peg weighed 61lb 5. I wasn't that far off but the quiet period cost me, lesson learnt. Results can be viewed here Talk Angling
I am on the BoBco teams of four challenge next week at Sam Hostiks, i won the individual last year, and our team was 3rd, if i remember rightly, so tune in next week and get in touch with any feedback on my attempt at blogging.
Thanks for your time.
Bingo!
Over the last couple of months i have been fishing at Birkwood Farm with reasonable success. The open matches are run on the 2 snake lakes, Emily's and Oscar's. Both lakes are around 13-14.5mts wide with depths to 6-7ft. Dick and Chris really look after us and thanks must go to them for letting us fish a quality fishey.
My usual approach to these lakes is the pole (if the wind allows) My farbank lines usually invlove fishing over to any cover, sedges or reeds. With a rig for "dragging" around on the slope and a rig for down the track.
Open match 27th April.
You can't start without a good cholesterol boost on a morning so it's of to the cafe for a brekky. There we usually have a chat with some of the lads who are fishing the match to find out how the match fished on the saturday and the general feeling was that it was very windy and very difficult to present the bait over on the long pole line. The saturday match was won from peg23 with 38lb 10oz, 2nd peg 18 28lb 3oz and finall 3rd peg 20 with 27lb 8oz. All the weights had come from the far bank toward the top end of the lake.The wind had dropped for sunday, but it was raining. Would the fish be still up the top end?
Time for the draw, i hear a few good pegs have been drawn so i stick my hand in the bag and glance at the peg number it was blank, don't you just hate that. Any way after flipping it over and seeing peg 20 (see main pic for my peg) i thought that will do nicely!
After speeking to Roger Movely in the cafe in new the lad in peg 20 had caught on pellet to the sedges, he had framed from the peg as well, so the pressure was on!
So after loading the gear up and walking round i find i have Daz "have you got
asthma" Harrison to my left, so we should be in for some funnies stories. Daz is pictured right.I set my 3 rigs up as follows...
Rig 1 for the sedges and reeds. I use a MW slim pattern in 0.1 gram 0.12 stroft line straight thru to a tubertini 808 in size 18. This is usually fished 12-18" deep shotted with four number 11 stotz bulked 5-6inch from the hook, the float tip is usually "greased" up as i like to over shot the float the use grease to keep the float visible.
Rig 2 same set up just the float is heavier and the rig is 4ft deep.
Rig 3 Is for down the track a Gaz malman stable 4x14 fished in about 6ft of water.
All rigs are on Preston latex size 10.
At the start of the match i cup a few micro's flavoured with Carp Vader Pineapple 360, (this has won me a few quid over the winter and still working into the spring) to each of the sedges in my swim, then fish the 4ft line for the first hour to give the fish time to settle over my feed, i still feed the sedges while fishing the 4ft line. On goes a 4mm expander flavoured with the Carp Vader pineapple. After dragging the rig around getting it to fish right on the slope the float eventually dips and my first carp about 2lb is netted. Sport is very slow during the first hour and the pegs to my right 22 and 23 are catching well and i was falling behind.
First put in and the floats burries and another 2lber goes in the net, this carries on for a couple of hours alternating my swims feeding one and fishing the other taking fish off each swim then resting it.
Then it stops dead! Tried the four foot line, nothing. Tried the down the track rig, nothing. This cost me the match this period, but i learnt something from it, i stuck on an extra section and went further down my swim to the next sedge 16mts away! Managed to get a few more fish, but the pegs to my right were catching well during my "quiet" period.
Allout was called and wondered if i had done enough for a placing.
As the scales went round they were a few 20's and 30's then they got to my uncle (John Chapman) who plonked 49lb on and led for all of 2mins, when Jaspa stuck 50lb 2oz on the scales to lead the match, it got to me eventually and new i was weighing in for 3rd as those to my right had caught well. The digital scales started reading 52lb then dropped and settled on 50lb 9oz, i did Jasper by 7oz, happy days, next peg weighed 54lb 9 and the end peg weighed 61lb 5. I wasn't that far off but the quiet period cost me, lesson learnt. Results can be viewed here Talk Angling
I am on the BoBco teams of four challenge next week at Sam Hostiks, i won the individual last year, and our team was 3rd, if i remember rightly, so tune in next week and get in touch with any feedback on my attempt at blogging.
Thanks for your time.
Bingo!
