The Glorious Glebe

With the theme of my blogs all about improvement, this month of May took me back to one of my favourite waters... Mallory Park Fisheries in Leicestershire and more notably the Excellent Glebe Complex.

Last year I took part in a doubles match at the complex and drew an end peg catching a couple of Carp on the Feeder and a number of fish on the pole down the Margins on Corn and Paste to weigh 102lb 2oz for 6th in the Match. My only regret on this match was not attacking the margins earlier.

Having enjoyed that day and being really impressed with the complex, I bit the bullet when Maver announced the complex was to be used as a qualifier for their "Match This" event and bought a ticket.

Cutting a very long story short.. I got my "Hat nailed on"!! by a regular angler to my right who weighed over 140lb for 6th overall in the contest. My Miserly 35lb gave me real food for thought. This guy caught the majority of his fish tight across on Lake 7 using the feeder, casting very accurately inches from the bank.

With the complex being membership only, it is difficult to have a practice. But when Fishery Owner Roy Marlow invited me back the following day I wanted to try and put into practice a mixture of Feeder and Margin fishing. I wanted to prove to myself more than anything my tactics were not way off the mark.

The Session
Just like last year's doubles match I decided to attack an end peg on lake 6 of the complex. Weather was a pleasant 14 degrees with a nice breeze blowing into my bank. The previous day the Margins did not really produce on any lakes and with the wind being a North Easterly, I was a little nervous about the edge swim.

Lake 6 on the Beautiful Glebe Complex was the chosen venue for the day

Bait wise I wanted to keep things simple and use a Cage feeder set up with a mixture of groundbait and loose offerings. Marukyu EFG 161 was the chosen mix.

Of all the available Marukyu range the most popular seem to be EFG 131 and 151 and for good reason. But for me the 161 is massively under rated. It is labelled as a method feeder mix, but I find the red tinged mix versatile for anything. So I intend to use this both in the feeder and down the edge.

Tutti Frutti flavoured corn, natural corn with hemp and dead maggots made up the hookbaits. Potentially a little early in the year, but I also mixed some Marukyu AFP 310 Paste which has a beautiful sweet almost marzipan smell, this was to be used down the edge. I also had a cap full of SFA450 Sanagi additive in a cap to glug my baits if things went stale.

The bait tray was kept simple with everything based around EFG 161 Groundbait

Feeder Tackle :
Maver Powerlite 11ft Feeder rod
TDX3012 Reel loaded with 6.6lb Daiwa TDR Line
15 inches 0.18mm Hooklength to 16 Korum Barbless Carp hook
20g Prestons Mesh feeder

The complex enforces a very strict "No Method" rule and the bait must be presented a minimum 20 inches away from the feeder. Everything at the complex is geared towards the safety of the fish and the environment. There is an element of "Traditional" fishing and values at the complex and that really appeals to me. I know there will be times during the session I wished my hooklength was a mere 4 inches from my feeder, but its a rule I must overcome.

My Anti tangle feeder rig

The rig consists of the feeder running on a simple bead and snap link, a rubber float stopper is used as a buffer. Below there are is a 5 inch loop, into which I tie 3 more loops. This creates a stiff link that kicks the hooklength away from the feeder on impact reducing tangles. The hooklength is simply attached to the final loop. I had 2 x 15 inch hooklengths made up, 1 with a quickstop on a hair and the other with the hair cut off to simply straight hook dead maggots.

The peg was around 35-40 yards to the far bank. I had the inviting corner but after a few practice casts it became clear the bottom was very snaggy. However my main plan was to fish to the post which each peg has on the far bank. Remembering my lessons from the previous day, the local angler used this as a marker to drop literally inches off the bank. I clipped up and made a number of practice casts to get as close to the bank as possible.

Margin Tackle :
Daiwa Tournament X pole
Rig 1 Corn : 4x12 Jim Standish Margin Float .16 Silstar Straight through to 16 Drennan Margin Wide Gape hook
Rig 2 Paste : 4x10 J-Series Wire Stem .17 Guru Ngauge Straight through to 14 Kamasan B911 hook
Black Hydrolastic

Left: Paste rig. Right: Corn rig.

Around 10 metres to my left was an inviting inlet pipe, plumbing around I found a small flat bay just beyond and another submerged pipe with around 2 feet of water at 12.5 metres. Here would be my main pole attack. Again learning from last years match, would the fish feed earlier with the wind blowing into this area, or would it be the same story as the previous day's match. I decided to attack it from the off and let it settle for an hour or so. Here I introduced 3 pole cups of loose EFG161 laced with dead maggots and a few grains of hemp and corn.

Margin line just beyond the inlet pipe

I kicked off on the feeder introducing 3 quick feederfuls of my groundbait mix with 5 dead maggots on the hook. I wanted to get bait in as I felt the previous day I did not cast enough and keep the fish interested. Line bites began after 4 or 5 casts and my first real wrap around came 35 minutes into the session. A procession of good stamp carp averaging 5-6lb came to the net, including a stunning Ghost Carp. Things then became a little more finicky with a few foul hooked fish. So it was off with the normal hooklength and on with the hair-rigged quickstop with double tutti frutti corn. My thinking was the heavier corn would sit better on the deck rather than wafting up as the dead maggots would. The trick worked and after around 2 hours I had around 50lb in the net.
Foul hooking became a problem again, and I felt there were too many fish feeding on the groundbait. I decided to only fill the feeder every 2nd fish, this brought another steady stream of fish over the next 30 minutes.

Time to look on the pole and with double corn fished an inch overdepth, I was amazed when the float disappeared immediately. A small carp around 2lb was the culprit. This became a theme with a number of small fish coming from down the edge. A change to the Paste rig and a large lump of AFP310 wrapped around a grain of corn. In this depth of water I don't like to use any shot down the line and just use the weight of the paste to set the float. The J-range float has a thick wire stem ensuring the line stays straight in the breeze whilst shipping out. First drop on the paste and wallop! A much larger stamp carp around 7lb came to the net. Alternating between a double corn hookbait and the paste the theme was the same...Small carp on Corn, Lumps on Paste. The AFP310 definitely sorted out the bigger fish.

This Beautiful Mirror of around 9lb fell to the AFP310 Hookbait

I got into a rhythm of feeding a pot full of loose crumb after every 2nd fish and if the bites dried up, I would have a quick look on the feeder looking to nick the odd fish. Bearing in mind It was only 2 and a half hours into the session (around 1.30pm) when I went onto the margin line, I was surprised even with the breeze blowing into the bank, how many fish had come over the feed. Its all too easy to think the fish only come in close towards the end of the day.

Conclusion: 
It is never easy learning from a battering off somebody else, I could have easily let my chin drop and think to myself I didn't have a clue about the Glebe and how to approach the venue. And although I was essentially pleasure fishing, with more accurate casting and a more measured approach to the margin line I put together way over 100lb of Carp, tench and Bream.

I believe that the under rated EFG161 and its lovely red tinge and over 40 attractants made a real difference. After all Marukyu products are designed to be fishing bait and not just fish food. The paste almost certainly pulled out the better stamp down the edge and my balanced rigs on both pole and feeder meant I lost very few fish... and these fish pull back!

One thing is for certain I cannot wait to get back!

Thanks goes to Roy Marlow at Mallory Park Fisheries for allowing me to do this feature.
For more information on Marukyu products visit www.Marukyu.co.uk for your nearest stockist.

A selection of the fish from my 100lb+ day on the Glebe

P.s. The following day I used the same feeder tactics and similar margin tactics to record 93lb 8oz on the Marukyu Media match. Again not enough to worry the locals, but a distinct improvement on the Match This result.

Tight lines.