Weight – 24lb 6oz
Catch – 12 Roach, 9 Rudd, 8 Bream, 3 Perch, 2 Eel, 1 Carp, 1 Barbel
Weather – Rain at start, then mostly cloudy. Mostly flat calm.
Water temp – 16.0c > 16.5c
With the forthcoming 1st round of the Veal’s Winter League looming, I needed some practice at the venue. Sundays practice open had been won with about 40lb and the general consensus was there was bites for everyone.
Trinity Waters evokes very polarised views about whether it should be included in the Winter League, because the fishing can be challenging. As expected many of those that struggle to catch are not prepared to work for their fish. Personally I like to venue, set in a lovely location, John & Sue have worked hard to continually improve the fishery.
Wildmarsh is a 70 peg lake, which will have 3 sections of 15, which meant there was a 75% chance I would drew there on Sunday. The other lake, Woodlands would be dominated by carp and would effectively look after itself, so it made sense to practice on Wildmarsh.
I few days earlier I received a call from my best mate, Jim, when we realised we hadn’t got together for nearly 9 months, he decided to come along with me for the practice session. Since most pegs had a tree between them, we settled on pegs 44 & 45 because the vegetation was less dense, so at least we could have chat, whilst we fished.
The winter league would be float only, so I really wanted to get the waggler sorted, because if I drew Wildmarsh in the match I felt the waggler would give me an edge since most anglers would only fish the pole.
I set up a loaded 8g-enser-dream waggler, with 5 x no.6 bulk 2 foot from the hook 4 no 10 droppers, fishing in 7 foot water. I feed 6mm swim stim expanders, plus small balls of groundbait laced with chopped worm, caster & 3mm pellet. Whilst the fishing was never hectic, I caught skimmers up to 2lb 12oz mostly on half a worm at 25/30m.
I also had a few fish on the pole at 12m, but felt I probably overfed the swim from the start, cupping 4 balls of groundbait with caster & chopped worm. In hindsight, I should have started a little more cautiously.
As part of my practice session I also tried the margins, but only managed 1 carp about 6½lb and a barbel.
This was a really enjoyable session. The weather conditions were hardly ideal for catching skimmers, but I finished confident with the waggler and hoping for an open water draw on Sunday.
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