Young Mainline consultant, Rob Greening has been in touch following a successful practice session ahead of the BCAC events. Over to Rob for the full report:
"With the BCAC just a few weeks away, I headed down to Farlows Lake with my match partner and brother Brad to cram in as much prep work as we could prior to the match. Upon our first-light arrival and after a brief chat with the fishery manager, it was confirmed to us that the fish were still all held up down the bottom end of the lake, in the various snaggy bays where they can generally be found in winter. I know that part of the lake pretty well, and our aim was to brush up on the topography of the lake bed in the open water swims at the top end of the fishery.
With this in mind we went against the grain and went to the complete opposite end of the lake where the fish had been coming out in the hope to learn as much about the area as possible. After a good play about with the marker and making notes of all the likely spots that appealed to us for the match, we set our traps for the 48 hours ahead. The main spot we chose was at 70 yards range in a silty gully between two bars and we baited it straight away with 3 kilos of mixed Cell/Opal-Cell boilies in 15 and 18mm sizes. We both had a rod clipped up onto the spot, and rig wise we went for Cell bottom-baits tipped with cut down 10mm fluoro pop-ups. The other rods were roved around the swim in the other likely areas we found using various different tactics until we found the winning comibination.
The baited area was the first spot to produce, and after the fish got on it, it was this spot that produced the majority of bites. After each fish we topped the spot up with about 80 baits, and despite the heavy -4 frosts overnight, we managed ten bites between us. A stonking 27lb 12oz linear topping off the other five fish that fell to my rods."
