Oak Tree Leisure. Huby. North Yorkshire.

Daz Harrison and Jasper booked me and my uncle John on for the open on lake 4 and said it was fishing well so was looking forward to fishing it. Started off with my usual brekkie and a chat with the lads in the cafe and we set off for the lakes.

We got there in plenty of time, the match was an 11 o'clock start, so we had a walk round the lake and there spawning fish everywhere literally climbing the bank in some pegs and there were some big fish in amongst them. The pond was a snake type lake 14.5mts wide (ish) with the usual reed and sedge cover to the far side.

The draw was made Daz drew 29 which was stuffed with spawning fish, Jasper drew 25 and was told he was on a flyer and to take 2 nets, my ucle John drew 44 and i drew 23 with a spare peg between me and Jasper.

Bait for the match was .......
Carp Vader 4mm breamax feed pellets.
4 and 6mm expanders
6mm cubes of meat.

On getting to my peg it looked the part especially the margins with a few big tails wagging at me as i set up. I also noticed fish swimming into open water off the point off the island and this looked ideal for pellet up in the water at 14.5mts.

For the margins i set up to fish meat and it was very shallow arond a foot deep.
Line was 0.18 stroft
Hook Tubertini 175 size 14.
Float Gaz Malman Thicko 4x12.
Elastic Vespe Hollow Orange.

My up in the water rig was ......
Line 0.16 stroft
Hook G - point pellet eyed size 16
Float MW Cookie.
Elastic black hydro.

I started on meat down the margins and struggled with liners in the first half hour, but eventually got my first fish and it a near double figure carp, nice start. I was constantly feeding pellets onto my far line while i was fishing the margins and after a few fish the margins died and was forced onto my shallow line. For this line my hookbait was what i was feeding a Carp Vader 4mm breamax feed pellet banded. I began to catch well on this line and the highlight was a big grass carp that i thought was near 12lb and i struugled to get this into my landing net, i was a very long fish. All the time i was feeding my margins at 4mts and 14.5mts and kept nicking fish off each line when my other lines went quiet.

I could see another angler down the lake catching well and had no idea how much i had but new i had over the "ton" when time was called but you can never be sure can you?

The scales got to me and was told someone up my end of the lake had done the ton, i think they meant me but i got very worried for a minute. I asked what was wining so far and was told 88lb was the leading weight so far, i would have to beat my personal best in a match of 82lb to beat him. I was bricking it!!!!!
Anyway after two weighs i had 85lb with a net still to weigh. I lifted the last net and new there was a lot more than 3lb in there. It turned out there was 55lb in it. I had finally done it, finally got a 100lb bag in a match with a bit to spare! What a week to forget your camera.
I weighed in 140lb and won the open, i was well happy. 88lb was 2nd.
A big thanks to Nick and Vicky at Carp Vader for your support in helping me achieve one of my goals in match fishing.
Start my Friday night matches this week at a local pond in Leeds, some real munters in the place.
Thanks for your time in reading this.
Cheers
Lee.