Weight – 29lb 14oz
Catch – 8 Perch, 5 Carp, 2 Roach, 1 Bream, 1 F1
Weather – Very windy, sunny periods, heavy showers & hail.
Water Temp– 9.0c > 9.0c
Match – Lands End Winter League rd 6 – 10th overall, 5th on lake, 3rd in section
Who would be a fishery owner? There are some proper whingers about, who think they know best and like to tell everyone else how things should be run, but they never take on the responsibility themselves. As a match organiser myself, I felt for Mike who was getting some stick for events outside his control.
Today’s match clashed with 2 others, Viaducts teams of 5 and Ray Coopers Bullocks Farm series. The Viaduct league doesn’t really impact on this series, however Ray’s Bullocks series does. Unfortunately a small number of anglers decided to fish Bullocks Farm, not sure why, because Lands End is a far better a fishery. Mike had managed to fill all except 6 spaces for today, however by the end of the draw a total of 5 anglers didn’t turn up, possibly due to the forecast bad weather, which meant 11 space pegs.
For those anglers filling in, they had a random draw of the pegs left over. As it turned out, it meant that league leader Adrian Clarke was in a section of 2, instead of 6! When your lucks in, it’s in. This situation of course meant some were unhappy, which is understandable, but rather than ranting about how things should have been run, they should be asking why the no shows didn’t turn up.
Back to my match. With the forecast weather being very unpleasant, fishing an exposed Johns Lake was going to be difficult. Ideally I wanted an end of lake peg, however peg 51 found its way in to hand. Not an ideal draw to maintain a push in the league, particularly with pegs 41, 42 & 55 being the better pegs in my section.
Looking at recent past results peg 51 has never won a section, in fact over the winter league series peg 51 has been the 4th worse peg on the lake.
As the match started the wind was off my back, so at least I could fish the island. A small amount of micro pellet was cupped in at 12m, plus a half pot 14m to my right. I started next to the island on corn, feeding nothing hoping for an early carp, but after 10 mins I had no indications.
1st put in at 12m with pellet and 10 minutes later a 4lb carp was safely landed, another 10 minutes later a 3lb bream also found its way into my net. A further 10 minutes later I was attached to a munter, after playing it to the net the hook pulled! Doh!
At this point I was disappointed, but these things happen and I was catching. Well I thought I was catching, but after losing that carp I didn’t have another bite for nearly 3 hours (in a 6 hour match). Whether the wind switching from blowing off my back to blowing left to right was the reason, but the heavy rain/hail showers certainly made life very uncomfortable.
The end and more sheltered peg 55 had got off to a flyer, landing 5 or 6 carp in the 1st hour, whilst peg 42 also had a couple of carp. I felt things slipping away after an initially strong start and with only 2 hours left I only had 2 fish for about 7lb.
Unlike yesterday I was at a lose what to do next, there just didn’t seem to any fish around and kept telling myself to be patient. I kept rotating swims, even trying the lead and hair rigged corn. I couldn’t even get a bite on my silvers rig and single maggot.
I was beginning to get a little desperate. Following another rotation of swims, I came back to my right hand margin, which I had been feeding with caster and 4mm pellet. Instead of pellet or corn on the hook I tried double red maggot and the float buried. Unfortunately it was a micro perch. Oh well at least it was life and 3 more "wasps" quickly followed before I hooked a carp. After a lengthy battle a very feisty 8lber was landed. Next put in a foulhooker made a successful bid for freedom straightening my hook in the process.
I had also started pinging 4mms to the point of the island opposite peg 50 and another chuck with the lead & hair rigged corn, the tip flew round and carp no 3 was landed. The rest of the match was spent swapping between the margin and the fishing the lead. The last hour was the best of the match and I needed an extra 30 minutes or so to mount a proper challenge for the section.
In the end I finished 3rd in the section. Dave Avery won my section and the match from peg 42 with 54-8, mostly carp down the edge. Peg 55 was 2nd in my section with 36-3, so another carp or 2 and I could have pinched 2nd.
Overall in the league, I managed to jump 1 place to 6th, but really cant afford any more slip ups or poor draws.
1st Adrian Clarke 35pts
2nd Nicky Collier 31
3rd Mike Duckett 29 (159-9)
4th Andy France 29 (115-4)
5th Anton Page 28 (207-15)
6th Ken Rayner 27
7th Kev Molton 26
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