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Match Fishing’s Joe Carass has had a good weekend at his regular haunt – Tunnel Barn Farm!


Well it would seem that winter is well and truly here now. It seems to be upon us much earlier than the previous two years. Hopefully it wont have too much of an adverse effect on the fishing as I love my winter fishing!

This week has seen me on Round Two of the Tunnel Barn winter league with the Match Fishing Drawbags team. You may recall we came second in the first round so we were hoping for a slightly better result in round two.

Tunnel has been fishing incredibly hard for the last two weeks, seemingly the cold weather and heavy rain has really taken its toll on these pools. With that in mind a more cautious approach would be needed in this latest match.

After such a good draw in the first round, we decided to let Captain Paul Bick get on with the draw again, and to be honest I was a little bit mortified when he handed me Peg 18 on House! Nevertheless with Steve Ringer on New 33, Jon Arthur on Extension 7 and Paul on Top 8 we had three good pegs and my very average one so I needed to just avoid a blow out at all costs.

Peg 18 on House is round the back of the lake in the ‘narrows’ it is barely 8metres wide and the next angler is on Peg 21, which is actually a great peg. With my peg being so narrow I fully expected to have to fish as long as I could to my right towards Peg 21. There was little I could do to my left, as there was the small matter of a bridge in my way! Now on any other fishery, a bridge would be solid with fish but for some reason the fish just don’t like it by this bridge and I didn’t expect to catch there although I had to approach the peg with an open mind.

I decided to set up just three rigs as these covered all of the depths in my peg! I fact I plumbed up about 20 areas before the start and the peg differed by just three inches no matter where I put my plummet! This was ideal though as it would give me plenty of scope to ‘chase’ the fish around the swim.

I kicked off at just five metres with pellets and had my first fish within a minute of the match starting! Just when I thought that it might be solid, I was proved wrong as 15 more bite less minutes came and I was already starting a new line. I added another section and moved to my right and fed just five micro pellets. Again an instant response and another F1 but bite less again after this! So 30 minutes in and I’m already on my third line! This is not looking good!

The third line was no better and I was starting to get concerned! The lad on 21 had got off to a better start but it was by no means hectic. With no bites coming on this third line I added another section and went more to the base of the very small far shelf. Luckily I found a few fish this time and a quick burst of five fish got me back in the race. After the fifth fish, bites got much slower. I was conscious of adding any more sections, as I wanted to leave a quiet area for the last two hours. So I started lightly feeding maggots by hand on my very first line at five metres.

After 15 minutes of feeding it I decided to have a look, my first five chucks went straight under with five quality roach. With action being so slow elsewhere I decided to get my head down on these roach. The sport was unbelievably quick and I soon had about 5lb of them in the net, which was worth about four F1s! After so long though the swim went a bit quiet and I was soon into an F1 followed quickly by its brother! It turned out to be a good little decision as I quickly had an extra 9lb in the net in the hardest part of the match. It soon slowed though so it was time to move.

With half of the match to go I decided to start feeding maggots positively at 13metres down the track for the last 30 minutes as I have often caught some big F1s like this in the past. It was time for a look by the island though as I had not even looked there yet, first job was to ‘scout’ the potential with a bit of bread. First look and the float shot under with a 1lb F1, encouraging I thought, second look and something more substantial was hooked. It turned out to be a beautiful big F1 of about 3lb! Very handy. Two more F1s came to the net before that died and despite searching every nook and cranny with the bread I couldn’t find any more fish.

With two hours to go I decided on a look against the island at 13metres towards peg 21, this produced five small F1s quickly and I had a feeling that I was on the edge of the shoal! I added another section and I finally found the epicentre! 10 F1s in 10 drops and all of a sudden things were looking good. I fished this line until I eked out every last bite and with just 20 minutes to go it was time for a look on the maggot line.

First drop and the float buried with a 2lb F1, three more followed before the all out and I was left feeling that I could do no more from the peg. At the weigh in my fish went 39-14-0, which was enough for third on the lake. Unfortunately my section was split with Club Lake and all of the anglers on there had beaten me (the lowest weight on there was 70lb!) but I was happy with my performance.

The team did well too, Steve won his lake. Paul came second and Jon managed third on his lake. This meant we won the event on the day and clawed back two vital points from the leaders Barston.

Yet again it was another great fishing match with close weights from all over the complex, which is testament to the fishing on offer!