26/09/09 - Lands End - Match Lake

Weight – 26lb 8oz
Catch – 6 Carp, 5 Perch, 4 Rudd
Weather – Sunny & warm
Water Temp– 14.5c > 15.0c
Match – Open – 10th overall

With 17 anglers, Mike decided to peg 1 side of Speci Lake (25-32) as well as Match Lake.

Its funny how certain pegs get stuck to hand, whilst other pegs you cant get close to. I hardly draw pegs 1 & 24, but cant keep away from the top end (pegs 10 & 11), so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I opened the card to see peg 11 staring at me.

Mark was unhappy with peg 31, until I told him I would swap it for mine. Anyway I took his casters, which took a little pursuding, to add to my own and hoped for a day catching chub tight to the island.

15 mins before the match the "wave machine" (well that’s what Tony calls it) started. A pot of caster & 4mm pellet went in on the island & I started on double caster, waiting for the chub. After an hour it was obvious there wasn’t many silvers about, but I did notice carp responding to the feed. So a switch 6mm hair rigged pellet resulted in a couple of carp, but the fish weren’t taking the bait properly and a switch to paste resulted in a couple more carp.

This was turning into a frustrating match, because I could see carp moving around but getting them to take the bait was proving challenging. At the half way stage my 4 carp, from what I could hear & see was doing OK, so when the wave machine turned off I was hopeful I could catch properly. Unfortunately the session just become even more frustrating. The carp were coming to the feed, but wouldn’t take the bait.

As well as hard pellet & paste, I tried caster & expander, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Mike was on 13 and was having the same problems. To be honest I stuck with fishing the island a lot longer than I should have, because I could see the fish and was determined to make it work.

In the end the better weights came from the other end of the lake, where there was a slight ripple.

As for Mark, he won the match with 99-6, which included over 10lb of chub, all on expander to the point of the island, although he said he had to scale down to get bites, despite the carp having their backs out of the water.