26/05/11 - Rood Ashton

Weight – 11lb 2oz
Catch – 3 Carp
Weather – Strong NW wind. Sunny period but cool
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open

Heavy winds and showers preceded this evening’s match and it felt cold.

14 booked in, which meant there was only 1 bad peg, since those along the top bank weren’t included. Unfortunately, I drew the noted cesspit, known as the pipe swim. You are set back in a small bay about 6m behind everyone else and its really shallow close in. With the wind blowing straight into my bank and only 10lb coming from the peg last week, a difficult evening was likely.

The wind was too strong to fish 13m in front, so I focused on the left hand margin at 8m and a clump of reeds to my right at 11.5m. Both swims were at the edge of the bay as it started to deepen off. When I arrived there were a few fish showing about 30m out, so I also set a pellet waggler.

On the all in I started on the pellet waggler hoping to pick up an early fish, whilst I put 2 pouches of 6mms into both margin swims. Without any bites on the waggler I soon switched to the pole, but it was 45mins before I had my 1st fish. I had another 2 over the next hour, but that was my lot.

With an hour to go I dumped nearly 2pts of pellet into my left hand margin, but never had a bite from there again.

The wind was a real pain in the arse and I would have quite happily fished the method today, but being a float only match it wasn’t an option and the wind was too strong for a conventional waggler, so I was hoping for a few fish on the pellet waggler, but it never happened, I even tried bread without success.

I didn’t hang around for the final results, but 49lb won my section from the top left hand corner, which was sheltered from the worse of the wind. The angler to my left only had 1 carp, whilst 19lb came from the peg to my right.