Messingham Sands - Hollywood Lake

The Hollywood Lake at Messingham Sands is one of my favourite lakes and one I have had some great results on in the past. For those who have never been to Messingham Sands, the Hollywood lake is a canal style lake approximately 450 meters long and 30 meters wide with 30 pegs, pegged on a single bank. The Lake is stocked to the rafters with Carp, F1's, Crucians, Skimmers and Tench.

Draw time arrived and as I ended up holding the bag I was one of the last to draw. I wasn't disappointed when peg 10 graced my hand when I did manage to draw though; it's not a peg I have drawn before, but I know it can be a decent area. The middle of the lake is pretty consistent and produces decent results regularly. On arrival at my peg, I discovered a strong wind blowing from right to left straight down the lake. With this in mind I came up with a plan

The Plan
As the wind was quite strong, it was going to dictate how far I could fish on the pole. After some experimenting holding the pole in the wind, I discovered that 11 meters was the distance I could hold comfortably and would be able to present a rig properly. I plumbed my first rig up at at 11 meters and  had a depth of around 7 ft. I expected this line to be my main line of attack. My second line was to be at a top 2 plus 2 distance, on this line I had around 5 ft of water. I was hoping this line would be a good back up for the 11 meter line, especially later in the match.
I also set up a bomb rod for the far bank and a margin line for for my left hand margin.

Bait
This was as simple as it comes, I had some fishery 6 and 8 mm pellets for both the pole and bomb and some corn and groundbait for the margin.

Rigs:
11 Meter Rig

• Pole - Browning Silverlite 10-12
• Elastic - White Browning Stretch 7 
• Mainline - 0.18 Browning Hybrid Power 
• Hooklength - 0.16 Browning Hybrid Power 
• Hook - Size 16 Guru LWG eyed, tied with a knotless knot with a hairrigged micro band 
• Float - 0.5g Scotthorne AS1 
• Shotting - Strung bulk set just above the hooklength 

Top 2 Plus 2 Line 

• Pole - Browning Silverlite 10-12 
• Elastic - White Browning Stretch 7 
• Main line - 0.18 Browning Hybrid Power 
• Hooklength - 0.16 Browning Hybrid Power 
• Hook - Size 16 Guru LWG eyed, tied with a knotless knot with a hair rigged micro band
• Float - 0.3g Scotthorne AS1 
• Shotting - A strung bulk plus 2 droppers 

Margin Rig 

• Pole - Browning Margin Mauler
• Elastic - Orange 20 plus Stretch 7 
• Mainline - 0.20 straight through 
• Hook - Kamasan B911 XS size 14 
• Float - Drennan Carp 4 0.2g 
• Shotting - Bulk set 6" above the hook 

Bomb Rod 

• Rod - 10ft Browning Sphere Bomb 
• Reel - Sphere 930 
• Mainline - 0.20 Browning Cenex ABR 
• Hooklength - 0.18 Browning Hybrid Power 
• Hook - Kamasan B911 XS eyed tied with a knotless knot with a hair rigged mini band
• Bomb - 1/3 oz square 

The Session 

I started the session by feeding a quarter pot of 6 mm pellets on the 11 meter line, but, instead of going straight over the top, I decided to start on the bomb to give  the fish time to move in on the pole line.

To keep bait going in over the top I fed 5 or 6, 6 mm  pellets every minute or so; I hoped this would get the fish feeding confidently before I went on it. 10 minutes on the bomb with an 8 mm pellet in the band proved fruitless and 1 tiny Tench was all I could muster. 
A change to the 11 meter line proved a good move as first drop in I hooked and landed a decent Carp. The next put in resembled the first and another decent Carp was soon netted.
The first hour was pretty productive and going into the second hour I had 10 fish in the net. For some reason though the bites started to become iffy, so I switched form a 6 mm pellet in the band to an 8 mm. The impact was immediate as I was soon getting proper bites again and back catching steadily. One thing I did do is change the hook to a 14 as I felt the 16 was getting masked by the bigger pellet resulting in missed bites. The 14 hook soon rectified this and I started hitting most bites.

I decided to give the long line a bit of a rest and give the short line a try. I had been constantly feeding this by hand with 6 mm pellets. I started with an 8 mm in the band staright away on this line due to how positive it was on the long line. Within 30 seconds I was in on this line too, a good lump around 8 lb was soon netted safely. The remainder of the match followed the same script, swapping between lines and constantly putting fish in the net.
By the end of the match I had caught near on 50 Carp and at the weigh in I totaled 178lb 8 oz which gave me a comfortable match win
Happy days