practice dosent make perfect

[ATTICUS FINCH]

the anual fur and feather was fished at more house farm on the canal lake .its about two hundred yards long and about 18mtrs across,full of carp to double figures ,F1s to a healthy five or six pound ,a decent head of bream and skimmers ,roach and plenty of gudgeon that just sit over your maggot bait and you end up foul hooking the little buggers.
peg three was to be my home for the day and it didnt look any different to any of the other pegs only the end pegs had anything like a difference.
now i had been out and had a couple of sneaky practice sessions here and to be honest on both days using different tactics i caught well ,40 poundish both times ,so i was quietly confidefnt that if one didnt work the other would.
how wrong can you be.
the sart saw a toss pot of about fifteen to twenty micros being tipped in and a 4mil expander presented all very accurately over the top.
this was a tactic that worked for me on one of the practice days ,i didnt expect a bite straight away and after three minutes i again went thru the same ritual of micro and expander .five times i did this and not a single inquiery was seen. the practice had produced a couple of chunky F1s by now .
i stuck with it but reduced the micros to every other put in as i didnt want to be piling up a small hill of pellet that would fill a feeding fish up .
after an hour i gave that line a rest ,plus the fact it was at 13 mtrs and with the wind and rain blowing in my face it was time to try practice tactic two.
nothing special but i had been feeding a 2+2 line with maggot thru the toss pot ,i did this on every other put in on the micro line so it was a nice little routine that i thought would get me a bite or two..
two dead reds on he hook and a spread shotting pattern the rig was layed out flat and as it sank it was searching the the whole swim thru the depths ,which was about 4ft.
twenty minutes of this produced two tiny gudgeon and a tiddler roach,not really what the doctor ordered.so still on a 2+2 i fed a swim about 2mtrs from the bank as it was still the same depth so i then put a run of fish together that saw my weight climb from about two oz to ten oz as it was a gudgeon a chuck.
undeterred i kept a feed routine on my long line and the original 2+2 but it was a struggle ,word was a few F1s were being caught in the high numbers but by halfway i probably had a pound of bits in the net ,the chap next to me on peg four hadnt had a bite ,he was chucking a small hybrid method out to the far bank.he did end up with five F1s and kicked my arese.
with bout an hour to go i had my elastic pulled and a very lazy fighting F1 came to the net ,and very welcome it was ,next put saw me lose a lump as my line somehow got behind my toss pot and broke my hooklength .have they switched i thought ,well two more of the same stamp ,arount three pounds saw the end of a very cold wet and fishing wise a very frustrating day .my total went 12lb 1oz for sixth overall ,but every cloud has a silver lining and my five points have now put me top of our championship as my main protaganist had a very bad day catching just one skimmer for 14oz and scoring nil point.
so with one definate but possibly two matches depending tier status to go its all very tight at the top.
so as the title says practice [at least for me on the day] dosent make perfect.

 

[OldTaff]

That’s match v practice sessions for you - it’s amazing how differently waters fish during a match.

Good work topping your championship and I hope you can stay there for the next two matches

 

[The Landlord]

Interesting about the gudgeon. I foulhooked a few the other week & last week on one of his videos, Jamie Hughes mentioned that it seems like they're guarding the bait by sitting over it.

 

[gingert76]

gudgeon are a pain for doing that! well done on a tough day!

 

[Neil ofthe nene]

Practice can be a double edged weapon. It can, and has for me, revealed something that has served me well in a match but it is probably more likely to mislead you.

To me the point of practicing on a water is to asses what it is like physically, depth, margins etc. and what I am likely to be targeting. The other point or purpose of practicing for me is keeping "match fit". We hear about this with football, rugby and cricket players but I think it applies just as much to angling. Reflexes need to be kept up as well as thought processes for decision making.

The other side of practicing is to hone methods, or possibly baits, that perhaps we don't use often or are new to us. Trying something new in the match is often not the best idea. Get yourself skilled in the method before trying it in a match.

Practicing is a chance to fish without the pressure and thus you can take your time to not only enjoy the fishing but to work on things in your own time.