Heronbrook Spring League Round 1. 13 March 2016.

Hi all.

Update from the start of the spring league at Heronbrook.

Team POHAS really looking forward to this again. This year the league is bigger with 30 teams entered so should be a great competition. Also the league has started a little later this year and the matches will be 6 hours, so with the weather hopefully warming all the time there is the chance of some big weights in these matches.

Team for the first round was myself, Alan Lamb, Jon Green and Neil Pritchard and this year we kept to the same lakes as previous. Me on Meadow, Alan on Match, Jon on Canal and Neil on Bridge/Island. Once again I had to do the draw which again was a bit mixed. I got 26 on Meadow, Alan on 46, Jon on peg 4 and Neil was on peg 1 on Island.

My peg is on one of the noted points giving you a wide corner to fish into. These pegs can throw up some big weights in the right conditions, only snag is that in some cases you need to fish a pole up to 18-20 metres long. Not something I can do and nor will I buy the extensions needed, especially as they would hardly get used anyway. Apart from the widest parts of the peg I could reach the far bank and some clump of reeds and grasses with the full 16 metres of pole.

The fishing follows a similar theme to Partridge in that you can catch down the middle and by fishing across to the far bank. The big difference is that Heronbrook is also stocked with plenty of big carp as well as F1's so you need to step up your tackle compared to Partridge. For this match I set up a rig for 6 sections to fish with maggots, one rig for fishing across with pellet and corn and a dobbing rig set 6 inches off deck. Due to the peg width I also set up a 9ft 6ins bomb rod to fish either a small hybrid feeder or bomb with bread.

I started the match on the hybrid feeder with micro's and a Ringers wafter on the hook cast into the widest part of the peg. After a couple of knocks I got a small carp around 4lb, a nice start but the angler on peg 24 was already catching well. No more bites on the wafter so swapped to fish 2 10
mm discs of bread on the bomb. Caught 2 F1's on this and then went on to the pole again trying bread. I caught a couple of roach and a decent carp on this fishing to the far bank at a 90 degree angle from my peg to the left back towards peg 25. Again after these couple of fish, I could not get anymore on bread despite trying different parts of the peg.

After this I moved to fishing at 16 metres against the clump of rushes and grasses I could reach along the far bank with pellet and corn. I caught a few F1's and carp including another good fish which led me a merry dance as it swam back down the arm towards peg 24. In general the wind was not too bad but it was not the easiest fishing using 16 metres for a long periods of time. The fish I caught were good but there were long periods without any bites so I was never really getting ahead. The maggot line down the middle was poor with just a few roach. The angler on peg 24 had caught regularly all day and was on for a good weight, and the angler next to me on 27 had caught steadily but had smaller fish than me so it would be close between us.

At the end of the match I weighed 55lb 7oz which is a nice weight to get. The angler on 24 weighed just short of 140lb and peg 27 weighed 50lb, so managed to beat next peg. My weight gave me 7 section points which is a bit of a disappointing start. Team wise we scored a total of 30 points with Alan Lamb our best performer with 5 points off the Match Lake. Our score left us close to the bottom of the league so again not our best start. The fishery produced some great weights with 10 ton plus catches recorded that day, so if you are on the fish an enjoyable day should be had.
Hopefully as the league continues and the weather improves so will our catches and points.

Next matches will be the inter club Dogs Bollocks match at Partridge and the second round of the spring league the following day.

Tight Lines.