It has certainly been an interesting week for Joe, with mice and more than a few F1s occupying his time!
It has been a great week for our Match Fishing Drawbags team at Tunnel Barn Farm, but more of that later.
I hope you have had a great Christmas break, I know I certainly did. Every year I use the two weeks to have my own ‘Closed Season’, which gives me a bit of time just to recharge my batteries and catch up with the family, which is always nice.
However the prolonged period of inactivity has seen a few unwelcome visitors enter my shed! At first the problem wasn’t bad at all, the odd loose pellet hastily chewed by the cute little Mickey but as soon as my gear got damaged it was time to turn up the heat!
Before I went away for Xmas I noticed that my cool bag had been left unzipped.
Rob Wootton returns to the venue that can only be described as roach soup!
After a really successful feature for Pole Fishing a couple of weeks ago I decided to book into the pairs league on the river Welland that runs through the town centre of Spalding. This place becomes rammed with roach all through the winter and it’s been somewhere that I’ve ignored in the past but after loads of good reports I just had to give it a go and several others from my neck of the woods agreed. Last sunday five or six anglers from Leicester including my travelling partner Sam Merry were mingling at the draw, asking about the form of the venue and catching up with mates that only get senn once or twice a year.
All the talk was of how coloured the venue was, me and Sam had a quick look before the draw and although the sun was still firmly below the horizon we could tell that there was plenty of extra water on the venue.
The long and the short of it!
It’s been a good week for Joe’s Match Fishing Drawbags team and here he tells all!
Well it’s been another week and yet another winter league round at Tunnel Barn Farm. You may recall last week that we had suffered at the draw bag. Well this week we were hoping to get our campaign right back on track, which meant Jon Arthur taking up the reigns as the drawbag!
One thing I didn’t expect though was his keenness! In fact I arrived at 7. 55AM (20 minutes before the official draw time) and Jon had already drawn and was walking around the lakes! Luckily, it was decent news this week and I don’t mind admitting that my peg was the worst of the four in House 14, but it is a peg I've always fancied drawing so I wasn’t despondent at all! Steve Ringer was on Extension 34, which has been a decent area of late; Paul Bick was on Club 11 – again a good draw.
Match Fishing’s Joe Carass has had more than a slice of luck this week!This week saw the fourth round of the Tunnel Barn Winter League, and yet again it was a weekend of indifferent results! But more of that later. I had a few days off last week, and because I haven’t been for a few weeks I decided on a couple of midweekers at TBF. Well, I cannot complain about my drawing arm lately as Wednesday saw me on Extension 21 which has been on fire lately and the Friday saw me on Canal 3, again a great peg. However the fish hadn’t exactly read the script as the Wednesday was a real struggle and my 21lb was good enough for precisely nowhere! The Friday was even harder and after five hours of freezing cold action (well actually non-action) my 11lb was enough for second.
This week Joe has been back to Tunnel Barn where things haven’t quite gone as planned!The third round of the Tunnel Barn Winter League has come and gone and I can only say we are all very disappointed with our result! But more of that later. The league is really picking up pace now and with the very best anglers at this type of fishing attending, you sure get punished for a bad performance!In the first two rounds we have had relatively good draws and done the business from them however for some reason, despite turning up 20 minutes before the official draw time, we were still nearly last to draw! This is not normally a problem but the rival teams at the top of the league had drawn very well and there were very few favourable pegs left in the bag. My draw saw me going to Peg 5 on the Top pool. This is a lake that I know little about but knew that a simple pellet approach would probably be a safe bet.
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.
Every one seems to only talk about success stories here’s something Rob Wootton thinks we can all relate to. . . The team I’m fishing for this year has had a mixed start to their winter league campaign on the river Soar - a soul destroying team last on the first round on an out of sorts river knocked the confidence a little but when we finished second in the next round we knew that there was still hope of a turnaround.
Joe Carass reflects on a couple of successful weeks at the prolific Tunnel Barn Farm!Tunnel Barn Farm has been somewhat of a second home for me this year. Since moving down here permanently in February I have found it to be the perfect place to frequent. Not only is the fishing good, but you are also fishing against some of the best anglers in the sport at that kind of fishing. Anglers such as Stu Palser, Pete Rice, Pete Caton, Steve Ringer and Paul Newell to name a few all go there regularly and as you can imagine it can be a tough nut to crack!I love a challenge though and set about trying to suss this place out.
Middy’s Andy Quarmby has been on fire again recently thanks to thinking outside the box! Theale pit is a natural lake, in Theale, just outside Reading; it is quite a big lake, probably around 15 acres. It was stocked with carp about 25 years ago and the same stock have survived and bred, and it is literally solid with 6oz-7lb carp. However in recent years the match scene has gone downhill, through fallings out, and poorly run matches to name a few. In April of this year, my friend Pat Pritchard announced he was taking over the running of the matches, with organised pay outs, and a few rules such as a 5kg groundbait limit, to keep a bit of order etc.
Joe Carass reflects on a summer of fishing that has seen him have more than a few up’s and down’s!What a summer of fishing! We have had a new English World Champion crowned in Sean Ashby, had the two big money matches won by Matrix anglers and the UK Champs won by a relatively unknown angler in Marc Rodger. It has been a funny summer too with endless rainfall across the nation that has not only caused the rivers to be unfishable at times but also the commercial fisheries have suffered! Nevertheless it has been a year to remember for many reasons!My fishing has largely revolved around the UK Champs this year. Going into Round Three at Larford Lakes I had a very realistic chance of winning the event. And going into the round I was full of confidence.
Middy backed Andy Quarmby has been winning a lot of matches lately and it’s all thanks to making good decisions! Recent matches have highlighted one thing to me, making a key decision in a match is the difference between winning and being an also ran. Yes I know this may sound obvious but my recent encounters at Pans Hill highlight this quite well I think Pans Hill Sunday match 29th July (Pans Lake) Pans lake, for those who have never been, is a typical 14m wide snake with typical depths. It has a large head of mirrors and commons 1-3lb and F1s 6oz-2lb. Typical winning match weights in summer are usually between 80-130lb with plenty of bites to be had.
Match Fishing’s Joe Carass talks about the first round of the prestigious UK Champs!This year has seen me enter the UK Champs for the first time in my angling career. It has been an event that I have long admired but until this year have never really had the time to fish it. My angling has changed somewhat in the last 12 months and I needed something to really get my teeth stuck into and this seemed to be the perfect competition to get involved in. The first round was to be at the fantastic Lindholme Lakes nr Doncaster.
Joe Carass Recounts the recent second round of the UK Champs, could he capitalise on a good first round?Following the good start that I made to the UK Champs I was understandably quite excited at the prospect of the second round. It was to be held at Viaduct Fishery, which is somewhere that I have only fished once and that was for a feature in the middle of winter. Luckily though my job puts me in contact with most of the big names in the sport. I didn’t want to go the venue un prepared so several calls were made.
Harry Billing ended with a good result in the White Acres Garbolino Spring Classic. Here’s how he got on…
I was really looking forward to the Garbolino Spring Classic at brilliant White Acres. It is smaller in numbers than the usual festivals, but still full of very good anglers and I would need to get my drawing arm going this week! I was also hoping to continue the Garbolino-sponsored anglers domination of the recent festivals, with Grant Albutt, Andy Geldart and Darren Cox all winning the three major Spring festivals!
DAY 1 – TREWATERS 26
Really fancied this peg but it was windless and really struggled for 19lb. I couldn’t make anything work, all the fish seemed to be to my right which was where the wind was blowing.
