Cattani Cup - Witherington Farm

Last weekend saw the bi annual Cattani Cup challenge match between Total Fishing.com and the Isle Of Wight at Witherington Farm near Salisbury. I saw match winner Barry Robson (or Blankin Barry as he is affectionately known on the TF Website) on saturday when he was practicing in atrocius weather conditions on the Outer Snake. Fortunately the weather improved considerably for the match the following day and the following is his account of how he fished Peg 75 on the inner snake and what he caught.

Initially plumbed up 2 lines against the far bank ( this was about 2ft 6" deep), 1 line down the track at 10m at 10 o clock (5ft) and another against the near bank at about 8m (3ft).

Set up 2x Preston pink 4x10 dibbers (on 14 latex) and 2x KC carpa shelf's (on hollow elastic). The shelf's have a bristle and would help if conditions made seeing the dibbers difficult. For down the track I set up a Chianti in a 4x14 size. This was back shotted as there was a slight right to left breeze. The near shelf rig was another KC shelf.

I knew there were a few fish about as I hooked one whilst plumbing up. At the all in I fed a large cup of micro pellets down the track and a small amount against my far bank lines.
I started on a 4mm ringers pellet and immediately hooked a carp of about 3lb. There was lots of attention from the small nuisance fish so I replaced the micro pellets with 4mm ones. The small fish were still a problem so I tried a 6mm pellet but this never worked. I eventually changed my cad pot for a bigger size and fed a full pot of pellet after each fish and changed to a corn hook bait. This deterred the small fish and brought in the carp.
I had a great spell after the first hour and was hooking and landing a carp every few minutes.
Towards the third hour the far lines died. I re fed with a large cup of pellets and some expanders and left it. I looked in on the track line and only had a few skimmers. They weren't going to win me anything. I looked back on the far lines. The breeze had increased slightly so I swapped to the KC shelf's. This was a huge mistake as I lost 2 very good fish due to the fact that I had very little control because of the excessive stretch of the hollow elastic.
I changed back to the dibber rig and started to foul hook fish. I shallowed the rig up to fish 4" off the bottom and again started to catch. As the last hour approached, I began to heavily feed my margin line with hemp and corn. I didn't have a lot of faith in this line as no one was catching a great deal down the edge. I had to give it a try though, as it can be very productive by throwing a up a lump or two.
Despite looking in on the margin line every ten minutes, it remained devoid of fish. It was back out to the far lines and try to catch what I could in the last few minutes. A last ditch carp was all that I managed.

At the whistle, I managed 60lb 4oz. This was enough for a win and a £250 payout. The lake generally fished hard for most. I ended up feeding about 2 1/2 pints of micro pellets, about 1/2 pint of 4mm pellets and 1 tin of corn. If I fed to heavily it encouraged too many fish into the peg and led to foul hooking.

This is the second match I have fished on the snake this year. With luck at the draw bag, I have won them both. I feel that aside from the draw bag luck, I have prepared thoroughly and practised hard with a very good angler (Pete Bailey) who has pushed me all the way.