21/07/11 - Rood Ashton

Weight – 56lb 14oz
Catch – 15 Carp
Weather – Mostly cloudy, humid. No wind.
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 5th out of 9 (2nd out of 5 – section)

At least I managed to avoid breaking anything this week and with a pleasure angler sitting in the “pipe” swim when we arrived (despite there being a sign saying the left bank of the lake was closed!) which meant I couldn’t draw it, I thought my luck may change. Unfortunately peg 3 soon dismissed that idea. Not the best peg and one that has previously been left out. Situated between 2 trees, it’s a little narrow and there isn’t any real margin to speak of.

Decided to fish paste again at 13m, feeding heavily with 6mms. Also decided to only feed lightly under the trees, just in case, but never caught, so no more about that. I also set up a pellet waggler, hoping the wind would pick up to create some ripple.

After 2hrs, I only had 5 fish and already behind Pete on peg 1 and Bill on peg 4, both catching on meat. Although I had caught on paste, the fish just didn’t seem to settle, I kept changing my feeding pattern from stopping feeding to 3 quick pouchfuls of bait, but the lack of ripple was making the fish a bit edgy.

There was certainly plenty of fish on the waggler line and I managed to hook 2 fish, losing 1 under the branches of the left hand tree, but without the ripple the fish were proving to be very cagey. I kept feeding 3 or 4 8mm pellet every 30 secs and finally got the fish into proper feeding mode and the last 75mins proved to be my best of the match, however I still had periods where the fish just backed off. I really needed some ripple, because I am certain I would have challenged the winning 80lb weight.

1st 80- 0 - Tony Gilbert – the point - meat
2nd 73-14 - Pete Neate – peg 1 – meat – fished into the corner
3rd 67-7 – Steve Martin – peg 6 – 15 fish down the edge
4th 63-10 – Gary Etheridge

Mark proved he is fallible, by struggling for 40lb. He was having similar issue to me fishing the paste. The fish didn’t really want it and I think the recent heavy rain and cool conditions affected their desire to take the bait.