Nicks Forum Match - Hartleylands Farm

Bramley Lake

Well today I'd planned an out and out Pellet waggler attack on my visit to Hartleylands to fish Nick Gilberts forum match. Luckily I drew peg 18 on Bramley, a fairly decent peg with the wind off my back so things looked good. Chucking the pellet wag out before the match to find the range to clip up I hooked a carp with a bare hook so there were obviously fish in the swim.

At the "All In" I fired 6mm pellets out to the island and followed with my wag baited with a 6mm banded pellet and immediately was in to Carp no.1. As this was my first really serious go at fishing the Pellet Wag in amatch I'd set myself a target of 75 Carp, 15 an hour, which I thought may just be enough for around a 100lbs so this was a good start. The first hour continued with a fish coming almost every cast and by the end of it I'd hit my tagert of 15 fish. The only problem was most of them were around 12ozs and not the 1lb - 1lb 8ozs fish I'd hoped for.

I changed hookbait to a banded 8mm pellet and this improved thing slightly with a few slightly larger specimens but there were still too many small ones. By the end of hour 3 I was still on target with 47 carp now in the net.

Hour 4 was a little better with 24 Carp gracing my net and in this were a few better fish, I still felt frustrated that I was catching so many smaller samples though.

Into Hour 5 and I was hoping to pick up a few bigger fish from the margin line I'd been feeding all day. By now there were tail patterns everywhere so there were obviously some decent carp rooting around tight to the reeds on my right. After 15 minutes more on the Pellet Waggler I put it to one side and shipped out my margin rig, a Malman Thicko with a size 12 B911 tied direct to 5lb maxima, bait was a large lump of paste. Straight away the pole was almost ripped from my hand and I was attached to a rather angry Common carp of around 5lbs. Eventually the elastic did it's work and the fish was safely netted. Next put in and the same happened, this time a Carp of around 3lb being the culprit. Then the margin line died. All I could connect with was a few roach and a skimmer of about 12ozs. Another pot of pellets went in and it was back on the Wag for 15 minutes.
4 carp later and I went back on the margin line, now it was really solid and Carp after Carp came to the net right up until the "All Out". I was still frustrated though as they were still only smaller Carp. My final fish count was 92 so I'd beaten my target but would I beat the 'Ton', I was doubtful, those 12oz Carp might just not be big enough.


Word going round was that, surprise surprise, Nick had caught well and so it turned out with him winning Peartree with 117lbs 1oz. Matt Love was 2nd on Peartree with 88lb 10ozs. Rusty Groves was 1st to weigh on Bramley and he had a superb 137 fish going 125lb 1oz almost all caught shallow. Next it was my turn, 3 weighs later and the final total was......................... ................... .............................................................................. 80lb 10zs. Oh well, not the 'Ton' I'd hoped for but still a decent return from my first match fishing the Pellet Wag.

I'd enjoyed the day and got seriously sunburnt in the bargain , I just didn't realise how hot the sun was, the breeze off my back was keeping me quite cool all match.I was pleased to see I'd beaten a few decent anglers on the day including Derek Gladwin and Andy Silver.


Congratulatons Rusty on the match win, even though you were pegged next to me I didn't have chance to watch your display of shallow pole fishing, never mind there's always another day.

Can I do it again? who knows, but I'm certainly looking forward to the next time I get the chance to fish the Pellet Wag.