Mr Matrix, My Life In Angling: Dillington Open Pairs

So on Sunday Glen and myself teamed up to fish an Open Pairs match at the beautiful Dillington Pond under control by Ilminster Angling. Its a really nice and peaceful place to fish and it is full of Roach, Rudd, Tench, Bream, Skimmers, Chub and Perch.

24 pegs on the pond all of which can throw up a good weight of fish. Feeder tactics are popular here but Pole fishing shallow and on the deck can also produce. Depths vary throughout and can be anywhere from 5' to top 4 deep. I highly recommend that, if you live near Ilminster you look in to fishing here!

So after a hearty breakfast and cuppa tea we did the draw. I picked out B section and Glen drew my home for the day, Peg 1. Regulars informed me that this could be a hit or miss peg as the resident Chub the live by the tree don't always show up.

Glen was on peg 13 and to be honest it looked a nice peg. 2 edge lines of reeds and plenty of water out in front. We both set up at least 3 pole rigs and Glen set up the method feeder to target some Bream.

Peg 1, My Home For The Day

I had good company for the day on Peg 2 and Peg 4. Jamie Rich, Against Men And Fish, was on Peg 2 and Scott Russell, TackleUk, was on Peg 4 and both came over for quick natter before the all in.

Jamie is also a blogger and blogs about matches, tackle reviews, interviews and his own opinions on the sport. A very good read, I recommend having a read. I will leave a link to Jamie's page at the bottom :)

Jamie Just Had To Take A Picture

I set up 2 rigs to my left, 1 on the deck and 1 shallow. To my left I set up another two rigs to fish to the tree, one for on the deck and one at half depth as I planned to feed caster regularly.

I had mixed up 2 kilo's of Super Crumb Black for today and fed this to my left at 12m every 20-30 minutes in hope of some quality showing up. I was to feed Caster over the the top in hope to pick up fish shallow as well.

At the all in I fed some ground bait to my left and begun feeding to the tree by hand. I had no fish in the first half hour and then I started landing a few Roach. I picked up the loose feed and eventually started catching a few decent Roach and Rudd shallow but things soon died off.

Scott mention that it may die off and bites will be missed and he wasn't wrong. I missed 15-20 bites in a row and then everything seemed to have stopped. Glen text me with an hour and a half left and said he was lucky to have 2lb. I replied possitively and said to keep his head down as the last hour could change and I wasn't wrong.

The whistle sounded to end the match and Glen had text me saying he had 3 Chub to 3lbs but lost a big Bream around the 5lb mark. Glen weighed in with 10lb 6oz's which was a great weight for his first visit and on the day what with 18 people on the pond.

I admitted to Glen and Jamie to having between 5 and 6lbs and I guessed correctly. I weighed in with 5lbs 6oz's. Jamie had 7lb 14oz and Scott had 8lb 4oz.