Before John’s report I just want to say a few words and introduce John.
John is the newest member of Team MAS and has an excellent match record with his club Greenhill AC winning many matches over the last few years. John has been a member of Greenhill AC for many years and was part of the junior section and was coached by MAS Managing Director Phil Ackerley when he was younger.
Recently John expressed an interest in fishing the River Soar to Phil looking to expand his skill set as he had never fished a river. With this in mind a practice session was arranged, advice given and some rigs prepared.
As you can see from the photo John had a good session on the Waterside section and more on this can be found here - http://drpiscatorial.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/2014-practice-day-on-river-soar-on.html . The following week an open match was arranged and John drew the 1860 section and in his first ever river match finished 3rd in his section with a nice catch of Roach.
John has picked up fishing the river and is enjoying every second, learning fast and he has a bright future ahead of him and we look forward to future events with Team MAS.
Due to his performance in the open match John was selected to compete in the Bennetts Bait and Tackle team this past weekend to compete in his first ever Winter League match.
Johns Report -
My peg for the match today was peg 78 at Sutton Bonnington, from the team talk after the draw was this section has very few small fish and the plan was to aim for the bigger fish. When I got to my peg I chose to concentrate on the advice given and I set up a feeder rod with a 40g Sensas cage feeder with size 14 Sensas feeling 3410 hook to 0.15 line. For my pole rigs with the flow and it still raining and going to rise I set up a 6g Jean Francois to 0.13 main line at 12 meters with a size 18 Feeling 3405 to 0.09 Sensas Super Competition length for small fish and set a second rig with a 8g Exner Butterfly flat float to 0.15 main line and size 14 3410 to 0.14 Sensas Super Competition hook length.
Groundbait for today was kept quite simple, 1 bag Sensas 3000 Gros Gardons Noire mixed with a bag of Sensas Terre de Riviere to reduce the food content and add weight in the rising water and strong flow. Hook baits for today were worm, casters, red and bronze maggots and fluro pinkies.
The match started at 10.30 I balled in 5 big balls of groundbait to create a wide area with a target zone of 3 bait droppers of chopped worm and caster. To allow the pole line to settle I started the match on the feeder, on my second cast I had a Skimmer which was a great start to the match that just got even better as on my forth cast I had I landed a tench. Although it was great first 45mins it did not last for long and the remainder of the match was a struggle and swapping between different tactics and baits I added another Skimmer and some small fish for 1.710kg and 4th in my section. It was a pleasure to peg next to and watch World Champion Sean Ashby at what he does best even if he does win the section with a big Bream 5mins before the end of the match.
Thanks John, we have lots more coming up as John is competing in the Sensas Canal Masters with other Team MAS members which will be another good learning curve as he will be introduced to canal fishing and using Bloodworm and Joker for the first time. Keep an eye out for regular reports from the matches and features following John’s progress as he continues to learn and compete at the highest level.
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