DOUBLE ‘TON’ DOMINATES AS THE GLEBE TURNS IT ON FOR OLD GHOST UK CHAMPS

Reading the swim pays off for Maver Midlands man

HEN you draw a peg only to be told it’s rubbish, you tend to set off to it with all the conviction of a man going to the gallows. faced with lots of tickets in there. With only one draw left I can’t ever say it’s a bad one, I guess!

“Peg 76 meant not much to me so I spoke to Andy Kinder, who fishes The Glebe a lot. He said it was okay but nothing special. When I got to the peg I found out that it was in a corner with an empty peg next to me.

“When I asked why this had happened I was told it was because the swim was rubbish – ‘here we go’, I thought, ‘another stinker!’

“Even so, it looked bang on as the wind was blowing into it. The margin looked brilliant, as did the far-bank boards to cast a feeder to. My plan was to begin on the feeder and work my way along those boards and then on to the mud bank next to it while feeding a short pole line and the margins.

“The edge, though, was 3ft deep – in my mind too deep to catch well from, but time would tell. I’d fish the feeder and keep an eye on those around me, changing to the pole at 5m when I saw others catching on it.”

Method feeders are banned at The Glebe, so Dave fished a cage feeder packed with micro pellets and a 20ins hooklength baited with a hard banded 6mm pellet. Going tight to the boards in really shallow water gave him too many problems with line bites, so he dropped short and kept varying the casts to the left and right of his original spot to keep the carp coming.

The first two hours brought 16 carp for around 80lb to give him a good start.

“I saw other anglers having a look on the pole but catching not a lot, so I kept plugging away on the feeder. But when the chaps next to me started to catch on the pole, I had to follow suit,” Dave revealed. “I’d fed micro pellets at 5m, around the bottom of the near shelf, and threw 6mm pellets over the top by hand. The first three drops with an expander pellet gave me three carp and then nothing. I thought that was it.”

Changing to feeding corn did the trick, however, and with the same bait on the hook Dave’s swim got better and better with a string of carp to double figures. With an hour left on the clock it was time to fish the edge, but things didn’t quite go to plan.

“I caught five fish from the margins but foul-hooked three, and it just wasn’t right – too deep I think, and I was guilty of trying too hard to make things happen here,” said Dave.

“When I went back to the 5m swim I was catching quickly again, so in hindsight I shouldn’t have spent so much time fishing the edge. I could have had even more at the scales!”

With 49 carp averaging around 5lb, but including a 14lb lump, Dave admitted to 170lb, although some were suggesting this might be closer to 200lb.

“I was a bit off the mark as it happens, but it’s always good to under-estimate!” he said.

“I did fear the worst after the draw, but you never know what will happen.

“Now it’s on to Boddington Reservoir for round three. It’s a place I know nothing about, other than you need to draw in the middle of the bank – hopefully there will be one left in the bag at the end!”

1 Dave Brown, Maver Midlands, 208-2-0; 2 Pemb Wrighting, Guru/Bag ‘Em Baits, 179-5-0; 3 Andy Kinder, Maver/Marukyu, 172-8-0.

Jt1 Dale Shepherd and Chris Barley, both 3pts; jt3 Dave Brown, Kian Wardle and Jon Arthur, all 4; 6 Phil Canning, 5.