25/06/11 - Lands End - Johns Lake

Weight – 24lb 4oz (9lb silvers)
Catch – 5 Bream, 4 Carp, 4 Crucians, 3 Roach, 1 F1
Weather – Cloudy, sunny periods & breezy
Match – Open – 7th out of 13

Another poor match for me, although this time I can at least blame the peg. 59 was the only peg in the bucket without a point of an island to fish to, so I knew I was up against before I started.

I haven’t fished Johns Lake (no 3) for a while and its certainly grown on, so it isn’t quite as exposed to the wind as it used to be. When I got to my peg, fishing my margins was a nonstarter, due to a bush to my left that extend 2m out and on the right side were loads of brambles. It also meant the only angler I could see was Kev Molton on corner peg 55.

At least I had a spare peg both side and decided to try and make use of the space, trying to catch anything. According to Steve Seagar who was in 61 I needed caster, but with 30pts sitting in my fridge (for Mondays match) I had none with me – typical.

Set up 4x rigs to fish tight to the far bank, an on the deck hard pellet rig, a soft pellet rig for the silvers and a paste rig.

On the all-in fed a small amount of 3mm pellet at 10m to my left and 11.5m in front. Started tight to the far bank on 8mm pellet and promptly lost 2 carp in the 1st 10mins, 1 was definitely foul hooked and the other I thought was hooked properly, but obviously not.

With no more bites I had a look over my LH 10m line, toss potting more 3mm’s and caught a few crucians and skimmers, but it was very slow. In fact there didn’t seem much being caught at this end of the lake and by the ½ way stage I only had about 4lb. I had kept feeding 6mm left and right on the island, but I couldn’t get a proper bite fishing tight in. I couldn’t lift and drop due to the overhanging foliage, so just tried to rest the rig up against the slope, but the fish weren’t playing ball.

I had also been feeding pellet from the start to my right at 4m and I did have a 3½lb bream on paste, but never had another bite from here. Over my down the track swims, carp started to put in an appearance, the 1st one was foul hooked as it swam though my rig, the 2nd was hooked properly and landed and the 3rd elastic snapped above the dacron – doh!

I kept rotating swims, catching a carp down the track on 6mm pellet, and other 2 from the island again on 6mm pellet and the other on paste.

As suspected I struggled to compete, however another 1lb skimmer would have got me 2nd in the silvers.

1st 68-7 - Leighton Palmer - peg 70 - meat
2nd 64- 4 - Martin Pettifer - peg 45 - pellet
3rd 60- 0 - Martin Lenaghan - peg 41
4th 55- 3 - Steve Seagar - peg 61 - paste

Silvers
1st 12-3 - Jim Jenner - peg 42 - caster