It’s that time of year again when we spend some lovely summer evenings on the Stock Pond at Revels.
For those unfamiliar with our Knockout series, it is a series of four matches, three qualifiers and a final, fished over four Friday evening throughout the summer. The winner of each round will go through to the final round in September and the junior who, over the three qualifiers, has the heaviest SECOND PLACE weight will also progress to the final. Juniors can fish as many qualifiers as they want even if you have already qualified. But priority booking will be given to those that have yet to qualify.
Rule changes for this year are very simple. No feeders. No Bombs. No Cones. No float legering/feeder fishing. Nothing that anchors the bait to the bottom in anyway, including dropper shots. Suspended baits from a float only. (Waggler, Whip or Pole).
You will only need one (dry) Keep net.
The results from the Knockout do not count towards the either championship.
I may do the draw in advance of the match to save a little time when we/you get there. The draw will be done, as last year, by Miss Trudie Howard. So, you can blame the missus if you don’t like your peg!
If you are unfamiliar with the Stock Pond, it is a small shallow pond that is stuffed with small fish from small Carp, Tench, Skimmers, Roach, Rudd, Crucian Carp, Gudgeon, Goldfish, and Golden Orfe. Maggots with a whip will get you a bite within seconds of the bait hitting the water and, if you feed it right, they will not stop for the two hours of the match. Pellets may get you some better sized fish, but you may have to wait a little longer for the bites. Do you sit and wait for a slightly better fish, or do you fill your nets with hundreds of small fish?
Only you will know on the night…
Fees for this event are the usual £5.00…
I recommend that you keep your equipment light. Pole floats of around 0.2g to 0.3g are fine. The fish you are most likely to catch will only be small, with the odd chance of catching a larger 2lb fish. If you are going to use baits that could attract a Carp (Sweetcorn, Meat, or Pellets) then I would suggest using an elasticated pole. If you are going to use maggots, then a normal whip will be faster. Hook sizes of 18 or 20 will be best and will land most fish you will encounter. Long shanked Maggot/Silverfish style will make unhooking the fish much easier.
You will find that most of your bites come ‘on the drop’ as the bait falls through the water. Do sit and stare at a motionless float for too long because the chances are that it has stopped fishing. Re-cast regularly and keep a trickle of loose fed maggots going in. 6 to 10 maggots will be plenty. Too many and you may feed the larger fish off and end up only catching tiny Rudd or Gudgeon. The fish you are after are the Goldfish, decent Roach and the Tenchlets. They all weigh more than the ‘Pairs of eyes’ that will end up with if you feed too many maggots/Pellets.
I wouldn’t bother with groundbait because you won’t have to attract any fish into you swim, they will already be there! Use the noise of the rig and maggots as an attractor.
I love these evening matches and they were very popular last year. I hope they will be this year too…
Juniors Sec…
Comments