27/01/13 - Lands End - Match Lake

Weight - 9lb 6oz
Catch - 29 Roach, 5 Skimmers, 5 Perch, 3 Rudd
Weather - Blustery showers
Match - Winter League rd 4 - 24th out of 34 (9th in section)

Due to the recent cold snap, I didn't go last weekend, so was looking forward to getting back onto the bank.

Today's 4th round was back to a free draw and most wanted to avoid Johns Lake which is the most exposed of the 3 lakes used. The recent snow & ice, had been replaced by wind & rain. I'm not sure which I prefer.

This league has so far been poor for me, however prior to today I was lying 5th in the silvers league so that's what I planned to focus on. Peg 3 wasn't ideal, but it had some silvers forms, although it is on the more exposed side of match lake and past experience suggested when its cold the fish prefer the more sheltered side of the lake.

Once everyone had drawn it became apparent I was in the section of doom, with 6 of the top 15 in the overall league and 8 of the top 15 in the silvers league. So my drawing arm handed me a very average peg in a very strong section!

I only set up 3 silvers rigs and no carp rigs. A HB frostie to fish on top of the shelf by the island, a 4x14 jolly to fish maggot/caster down the track and a 0.3g HB chump to fish soft pellet.

After depositing some caster by the p2 pallet and some micros 14m to my left. I started across by the island and immediately caught small roach, plus a 1lb perch before it died after 30mins. I did try to catch across later in the match, but with no sun on the water I don’t think the fish were happy feeding in the shallow water.

I had also being feeding caster by hand to my left by the bush, which produced the odd fish throughout the day, but it was a case of catch 1 or 2 before they disappeared. The swim by the pallet had only yielded a couple of small perch and after a couple of hours I ended up dumping a cup of caster hoping for some better fish to move in later, which they never did.

The pellet swim initially produced a couple of 3oz skimmers on soft pellet and a few roach on maggot. Despite keeping the swim topped in the hope of pulling in some late skimmers it only ever provided small roach.

By the half way stage I had so far left the right hand side of the peg alone to give the fish somewhere to back off to. Since all my other swims had died a small cup of caster and dead maggot was fed 13m at the bottom of the shelf to my right.

So far I had been reasonably sheltered from the wind, but it was gathering strength and I felt I needed to do change my rig and swapped to a 0.4g jean Francois float which provided a more stable presentation. I also changed down to .08 bottom and 22 hook, which the small roach seemed more willing to accept. The problem however was the size of the fish. Initially I had hoped to catch some decent perch and a few skimmers, but they seemed to be completely absent from the swim, so I kept plugging away on the small roach hoping a bigger fish would turn up.

After a really violent heavy rain shower when a gust of wind must have topped 60mph, it quickly calmed down again and I landed a near 3lb skimmer, before the small fish returned. I did managed another decent skimmer, but knew I was way off the pace, with a lot of fish being caught on the other side and bottom end of the lake.

P1 to my left weighed 10-12 (which included 1 carp) and p5 weighed 2-12. I could have probably caught slightly more had I started my right hand swim earlier, but ultimately I think I would have only gained 1 maybe 2 extra places. Typically if you are only catching roach, it usually means there aren’t many bigger fish around.

So my poor run and now become an awful run. It will end, hopefully next weekend!

1st 71-2 Mark Brennan – p13
2nd 64- 5 Tony Rixon –p11
3rd 60- 0 Mike Duckett – p32
4th 59- 1 Bela Bakos – p22
5th 56-14 Clint Wotlyla - p33
6th 48- 5 Mark Poppleton – p19

Silvers
1st 23- 0 Bob Gullick – p17
2nd 22- 9 Tom Thick – p15
3rd 17- 1 Tony Rixon – p11
4th 13- 7 Mark Brennan – p13
5th 13- 5 Mark Poppleton – p19
6th 11- 4 Mike West – p61