16/12/12 - Trinity Waters - Woodlands

Weight - 11lb 13oz
Catch - 14 Roach, 7 Skimmers, 1 Rudd, 1Carp
Weather - Mostly sunny and breezy
Match - Avon Angling Open - 12th out of 20

I was hoping after the recent mild weather the lake would fish and it did for some, but most struggled. Being such a deep lake the water temperature takes longer to warmer up and it was still feeling the effects of last weeks ice.

The last time I fished this lake was 15mths ago and was told dead maggot over micros was the way to go. Peg 26 however wasn’t ideal, but at least the forecast wind would mostly be off my back.

For the first 30mins I searched the swim with corn on the hook, initially trying at 5m, 16m, then the straight lead out into the middle, but other than a couple of liners on the lead nothing. Andy Hembrow opposite had an early carp on the method from the middle, but no more followed.

In the meantime Steve Seagar on p27 & John Bradford on p24 had both started catching small roach. I went out to 14.5m where I deposited some micros & 4s and started catching small roach and skimmers, but it was hard work, particularly when they came off as you shipped back. I did hook a carp in the tail, which I eventually netted and I hoped a few more would turn up. Unfortunately they didn’t.

I had set up a positively fed swim at 14.5m to my right, but again only small roach. I tried soft pellet, but only had 1 bite on that. I had also been feeding 4s & corn at 5m, hoping to catch later on, but this didn’t yield anything. In fact most of the fish seem to have been caught to my left, whilst those to my right where struggling, except for Dave Evans on p15 who was catching down the margin on corn.

With the expectation of carp I had been fishing with .12 bottom and 18 silverfish pellet. I did swap to .10 & size 20 hook with a lighter elastic later on, which meant fewer bumped fish, but in reality I was going no where fast and was quite pleased when the match ended.

1st 66-10 - Martin McMahon - p32
2nd 50-14 - Rod Wootton - p31
3rd 48-15 - Mike West - p29
4th 45- 0 - Tony Rixon - p9
5th 43-12 - Kev Molton - p2
6th 42-12 - Dave Evans - p15

Silvers
1st 8- 8 - Andy Hembrow - p13
2nd 8- 5 - John  Bradford - p24
3rd 7- 9 - Tony Rixon - p9