Catch – 10 Carp, 7 Roach, 3 Bream, 2 Perch, 1 Rudd, 1 Gudgeon
Weather – Mostly cloudy with sunny periods. Windy later.
Match – West’s Sponsored Open – 2nd out of 23
As mentioned in my last blog today’s match was organised by Andy Fox, with tackle vouchers available for the winners and the lake already paid for, meaning a 100% pay out, plus an additional superpool for those who wished to join in.
With so many here the draw would be crucial with end pegs or those with some space being favourite. I was more than happy to find myself on a noted flyer on the right bank opposite the willow tree and end peg before the bridge over to the island, meant I had some space.
Obviously the banner started about “you are going to win etc”, which I hate, because at the moment I could quite easily cock up a good draw, although deep down I would be disappointed if I didn’t at least frame.
My peg is a noted area for bream and settled on 3 swims. The far bank on the method feeder (.20 to 16 carp feeder), 13m feeding 3 & 4mm pellet, with soft green swim stim and 5m feeding caster for roach, which to be honest I had hoped I won’t need.
After feeding my pole lines, I started on the method and following my practice a few months ago I was hitting the mark casting tight to the far bank. The big advantage of the method is the hook is hidden so it was no problem if I clipped the far bank vegetation or over hanging branches, which was just as was well on occasion.
3 carp in the opening ½ hour on hair rigged white boilie, certainly settled the nerves. However other than 1 lost carp in submerged branches I didn’t have anything for the next 90mins. The grapevine suggested the lake was fishing very hard with only 2lb being the top weight, so I just kept the 13m line topped up, hopefully allowing the bream as long as possible to settle.
After 2 hours a switch to the 13m produced nothing on 4mm expander. I could have sat on the method, but since it isn’t my favourite method and I felt I need to keep putting fish in the net so switched to the 5m, however the fish were small and the bites were difficult to hit. I really wasn’t going anywhere fast, so focused back on the 13m, which did produce a 2lb skimmer and a few small fish, but it was very difficult.
By the ½ way stage I was aware the far end peg on the island had caught a couple of carp. With no further skimmers, despite the odd bubbles coming up, but the skimmers just weren’t taking the bait, regardless of what bait I tried (pellet, maggot, worm).
The next hour was spent chopping and changing, then a run of 5 carp proved really useful, which was just as well, since Dean on the far end peg had 2 carp both around 10lb and Nick on the other far end peg on the left hand side of the island had reportly caught 30lb. As it happened Nick had gone for a walk with an hour to go to rest his back and a quick chat revealed he had 9 carp, which was the same as me.
A further 2 lost carp in the submerged snags was frustrating and if I was to fish the peg again, I would probably go round and try to clear some of them out. The last hour was mostly spent on the method for 1 more carp. Brief looks over the pole line, still failed to produce.
By the end of the match I was surprised to have caught 10 carp, since usually no more than a couple are caught, but the stockie’s introduced 18mths ago are starting to show. The other surprise was the lack of skimmers with 13lb being the best silvers weight.
As suspected Dean won with 39-14, which was a bit frustrating considering he only caught 6 carp compared to my 10. However happy to have framed and my weight was slightly better than expected and Nick’s 30lb turned out to be 24lb.
Thanks go to Craig Knight for paying for the lake and Andy Fox for organising the lake and supplying tackle vouchers for Wests Tackle of Trowbridge of which I collected £50 worth, plus £80 pools.
1st 39-14 – Dean Adams
2nd 34-12 – Ken Rayner
3rd 24- 0 – Nick Merry
4th 16- 2 – Steve Ince
5th 12-12 – P Sims
6th 11- 5 – Mick Stowford
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