October arrives and my thoughts begin to turn to pike, so Tuesday 3rd sees me at Bowood complete with pike gear. Peg 10 my favourite is taken by another regular also after pike so I decide to take a look at peg 8 but on getting on the platform it felt VERY spongy and with gaps in the boarding where it had rotted I made the decision to go on peg 9 which is still a decent distance of 10 but I did ask if it was okay first.

Pike rod depth adjusted and sardine attached to the two single barbless hook set up, at 9:15 I launched, rather more like lobbed, the sardine out to around 20m and began setting up the pole. I opted to continue with my heavier approach with the 1g bulk six inches from the 14 hook. A small rudd first put in sees me change to corn and it was a case of waiting for the bites, which were generally Polaris like lifts. I had 4 blades, 3 roach and 12 rudd for 3-14, however most of that weight was taken up by a beautiful rudd of 1-10. Pike – not a sniff!

The Friday arrives and I head off to Meadowlands Fishery just outside Coventry as I was organising a silvers match there on the 14th. Arriving just before 9am I had a word with the bailiff and confirmed the match was taking place, he said that they had lost some bookings as the clubs that had booked in suddenly folded! I bought a bag of micros as I wanted to try and see if I could get the bream feeding over micros. I had a drive around the whole lake making a mental note of what pegs had been suggested should be left out plus how that fitted in with a potential 24 taking part in the match. I decided to settle on peg 16 which had the wind blowing straight in at me and parked up behind the peg. I set up three rigs, the first on a 6-8 elastic was a light 0.2g float (the Peatmoor) to 0.12mm and 0.10mm hook-length with a 16, this was for a 2+2 line,. The second was a rig I had made up specially for the venue with 0.14mm to 0.12mm hook-length and a 16, this was coupled with a soft 6-10 elastic and was going to be my main approach with a bulk 12inches from the hook and a single number 8 dropper. The final rig was a Chianti style float taking 0.3g with strung out no 8 and 9 shot but with similar line and hook to my main rig, again coupled with a soft 8 elastic.

I began fishing just after 10am and planned to finish by 2:30 at the latest, in fact I finished at 1:45 as the weather was getting worse and the carp were a pain but more of that later. I put 3 balls of Sonubaits F1 sweet dark mixed 50-50 with Sonubaits Method Match laced with chopped worm and casters plus a few pieces of corn on the 10m line directly in front in approx 3.5ft to 4ft of water. I then put approx 100ml of wetted micros at 10m but at an angle (10 o’clock), this was my trial line to see if the carp would settle on that or would the bream. Some casters and wheat were thrown on the 2+2 line although I was not placing much faith in this line!

The day went quickly and I ended up with 22 bream/skimmers, seven roach, 8 perch and a gudgeon of my target fish for around 16lb. Carp appeared and I had 36lb+ plus lost two. The biggest landed was a battle scarred one of at least 10lb that was so ugly my camera stayed in my pocket!

The bulk of the fish came from directly in front, the angled line with micros produced only roach to maggot or expander, the short line produced a perch and a carp, after which I stopped fishing there! Best bait on the day was worm, but I caught on maggot, caster, corn and expander!

Sunday sees a rare excursion at the weekend to Bowood, I had the whole lake to myself and went on peg 10. Fishing like the last visit from 9:15 to 11:45 (I’d accepted it was one of those days by then!) it was a struggle with two half ounce rudd, one of about 5oz, another of 6oz a skimmer of 11oz and that was it, a 1-07 total!

Not to be deterred I was back on Tuesday but decided on a change and headed along the opposite bank to peg 23. This side is shallower closer in and means to get a depth of water around 6ft you need to fish at 13m. A similar set up to the opposite bank sees me manage 24 rudd and 6 roach on corn for a level 5lb but the star was another cracking rudd of 1-07. No pike again, need to have some consistent cooler weather I think.

Saturday 14th arrives and I’m back at Meadowlands having left at silly o’clock to get there at 8am for a 9am draw! The weather had not been kind to us as there had been very heavy rain on Friday plus the coldest night for some time which I hoped (wrongly) would calm the carp down and allow the bream to feed.

Money sorted and draw done I was sat at peg 24 ready to start by 9:45 for an 11am start!

I had set up 3 similar rigs to my previous visit but this time could only find 2.5ft of water! Feeding in a similar way at the all-in I began to get worried when after 10 minutes on maggot I was still waiting for a fish, a switch to worm head brought me a few bites but managed to drop off the first 3 fish hooked at which point I swapped to my lighter rig (0.12 to 0.10mm) I began to get a few fish on my main line but kept getting disturbed by carp. To cut a long story short I weighed in 13-10 of silvers, mainly small skimmers, but landed over 36lb of carp, the best being 8-9lb and lost a further 5 that snapped me. The peg on my right fished longer at 13m but then fished short for the last hour as he was also plagued by carp as were most, he ended up with 27-13 and was second overall to a weight of 33-13. The peg on my left had 10-05, in fact the top three weights were the pegs to my right 20, 21 and 23. Still it was a nice day’s fishing.

Pike I hope will be a feature next time!

A Meadowlands carp