Catch – 14 Bream, 11 Carp, 4 Roach, 2 Crucian
Weather – Rainy start, quickly clearing. Mostly bright & sunny.
Water Temp– 6.5c > 6.5c
An e-mail from Mark AKA "Slider" on Wednesday revealed he had the day off and would I come out to play. We eventually decided on Merritt Lake, because they allow keepnets, which apparently was important to Mark – bless!
He also felt my last blog entry was rubbish, because I didn’t mention him beating me on my "home" venue and relieving me of a golden nugget. Some people just want all the glory.
Merretts is Mark’s club water, so I needed to return the favour and beat him on his home water. The lake has 30 or so pegs, with an island at 1 end and plenty of open water. Apparently the lake had been fishing well recently, so fingers were firmly crossed for a good day. However heavy overnight rain could put a dampener on things? We chose a couple of pegs that would offer shelter from the forecast wind.
I started on the straight lead fishing double or tripe corn, whilst setting up the pole. After 90 mins I landed 4 carp and lost 1, so at least there were a few fish willing to feed.
On the pole, I set up 2 rigs to fish at 13m, which was 8ft deep. I was hoping to catch roach & skimmers, and Mark thought that we would we catch a few carp on pole line as well. The silvers rig was 0.8g Jean Francois, with .10 bottom & 22 silverfish hook & the carp rig was 4x16 Chianti, .13 bottom & 18 B911.
I cupped 2 balls of groundbait (Black Lake and Black Mussel & Squid), with a pinch of caster & pinkie. Having let that settle for ½ hour, 1st put with the silvers rigs produced a 3lb carp and the 2nd put in resulted in another about 1lb. To be honest I wasn’t expecting any carp to come over the groundbait, but since they were showing, I switched to the carp rig but never had a bite. A switch back to the silvers rig resulted in a skimmer, but bites soon tailed off.
At this time of year, it’s difficult to assess when and by how much to top up. I decided to cup a small ball, plus another pinch of casters. A few more skimmers followed, but again bites tailed off. Mark in the meantime only had a couple of carp and his pole line was only producing roach, so I made sure he knew I was battering him – that will teach him to send me cocky texts ;¬)
I felt topping up with a ball of groundbait wasnt sufficient and decided to top with some chopped worm, 20/25 caster, plus a small of groundbait. This seemed to do the trick, after an initially slow start, I had a purple patch of 30/40 minutes when every put in I was coming back with a skimmer or a carp, including 1 of 5lb, which took a while to get out on 6 elastic.
Throughout the session I was feeding my margin with caster & chopped worm, but only caught a few fish and no carp, so with an hour to go, 2 handfuls of caster, maggot & chopped worm went into the margins. In the last hour my long line became a bit dodgy, however Mark started to catch after adopting a shit or bust attitude, feeding 2 cups of fed.
My 1st put in the margin after letting the swim settle produced the biggest carp of the day at 5lb 6oz on tripe red maggot. I thought about another go, but Mark needed to go and I was more than happy with my day. My silvers net went 11lb 5oz (including a 12oz crucian that missed the keepnet!), whilst the carp went 30lb 1oz.
The majority of my fish on the pole fell to single maggot, fished mostly 1/2cm over depth, all on my silvers rig.
Mark weighed 19lb – so let that be a lesson to you! 1-1 for the year now.
As the afternoon turned to evening the wind dropped and w
e had a very pleasant end to the day.
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