How To Bag’em At The Double

Mick Macmillan is no stranger to catching big weights, over the past couple of years he has built himself a steady reputation as a man you don’t want to draw next to on the open match circuit. He has an uncanny habit of getting it right when others don’t perform and his last crunching achievement echoes this loud and proud. Over one weekend the East midlands based rod fished two venues that are 130 miles apart, one in Kent and one in Buckinghamshire and using totally different approaches over the two days, he managed to land a very impressive 367lbs of fish and picked up the winnings in both matches. UKMA had a quick chat to Mick who was more than please to give us a step by step insight into how he got the job done.

Saturday Day 1

This was the second match of a 6 match series being held at private lake in Kent. The series consist of 6 matches dropping the worst result at the end. The lake contains a large head of carp to double figures, this is a carp only league with silvers not counting, so tactics will play a big part at the end to avoid the large head of roach and rudd that inhabit the lake.

The draw took place ad I drew peg 8 which has a large island at around 14.5m, it has been a good peg in the last few years, however a large willow tree has now fallen into the lake making this peg an absolute snag galore. My opening approach was going to be tight to the island on the deck, toss potting in corn and 6mm hard pellet, this was around 18inches deep, a 5m paste line and finally a margin line to my left, I also set up a shallow rig.

Rigs:

Island

Nick Gilbert 0.2g Ghandi
Tubertini 175 size 2
Gorilla pole rig line 0.18-0.16 hooklength
Daiwa Hydrolastic black

Shallow

Nick Gilbert 0.2g Ghandi
Tubertini 861 size 18
Gorilla pole rig line 0.16 mainline to 0.14 hooklength
Daiwa Hydrolastic grey (with Pulla Bung)

5m Paste Line

Nick Gilbert XT Power Pencil 0.2g Red
Tubertini 175 size 4
Gorilla pole rig line 0.18 direct
Daiwa Hydrolastic black
Bag’em Matchbaits XPG green groundbait for paste.

At the all in, I started on the island swim at 14.5m with corn after a few iffy bites which I suspect were silver fish, I was into my first carp around the 3lb mark, after this things went very strange, there were fish in the peg; this was evident due to the amount of liners I was experiencing but no more proper bites materialised.

This was the sign to pick up the shallow rig and start pinging 6mm pellet, a 6mm banded pellet was the hook bait. Although initially it was slow things began to pick up and I started putting together a run of fishbetween 3-9lb this continued until the last hour where things dried up and I finished at 5m on the paste, which had been fed throughout the match with Bag’em Matchbaits Super Martine 6mm pellet on a regular basis.

I finished the match the match with 30 carp and 180lb to win the match by more than 60lb, biggest fish of the day was 16lb. I am now joint top of the league after two matches but leading on weight.

Top 6 after 2 matches:

Match Day 2 Alders farm (silver lake)

I was looking forward to this match as I haven’t fished here since the winter league back in February. The lake has been fishing really well lately with fish being caught from all over the lake, talk before the draw was pegs 15 and 16 were the ones to draw.  The draw took place and my home for the day was peg 19, this is a peg I have fished before but in winter. Another important point to make is the rod and line is not allowed during open match’s now so pole only. This is somewhat frustrating as a small island is situated directly in front of this peg at around 25m, normally a very good method peg, anyway with it being pole only I was going to keep things simple...................pole shallow!

Shallow Rig

Nick Gilbert 0.2g Ghandi
Tubertini 861 size 18
Gorilla pole rig line 0.16 mainline to 0.14 hooklength.
Daiwa Hydrolastic grey (with Pulla Bung)

Mick’s TOP TIP – I have learned by trial and error that by incorporating a Pulla Bung with the superb Diawa Grey Hydrolastic for all my shallow presentations in warm weather. This combination gives me enough finesse to eliminate any potential bump offs on violent takes yet still gives me enough power in reserve to handle virtually anything that swims in a commercial match venue with authority.

I set 3 of the above rigs up from the off and these were all identical, the reason being if I was catching quickly and a tangle or a complication occurred I was back in within seconds by simply replacing the rig. You may think that this ‘all eggs in one basket approach’ is risky, indeed it was but I was confident I would catch shallow all match, especially after watching half the lakes resident carp cruising and swirling just below the surface.

To kick the shallow swim off I put in 3 balls of fishery 4mm pellet laced with Bag’ em Matchbaits baits xp groundbait at 14.5m. This is a fantastic groundbait that I use for both shallow and on the deck approaches throughout the year with great success, particularly on venues where pellets play a big part.

Feeding from then on was simple, 10 or so 4mm pellets every 10 seconds and a 6mm banded pellet on the hook. By continually lifting, dropping and slapping I continued to put fish in the net averaging between 1-3lb for the duration of the match with only one bad hour.

I finished the match with 62 carp and 187lb to win the match by 30lb.

A great weekends fishing and two brown envelopes!

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