Weight – 24lb 6oz (19lb 14oz – silvers)
Catch – 51 Roach, 10 Skimmers, 3 F1s, 3 Perch, 1 Carp, 1 Rudd, 1 Gudgeon
Weather – Persistent rain to start, cleared later
Match –Open – 4th in silvers
16 booked in for today (excluding Mr Rixon who was under orders!), which meant Match Lake and 1 side of Speci (25-32) were in. I found out later that this was the 5th match in as many days at Lands End.
With the rain and the forecast wind for later, I fancied a sheltered spot and duly pulled p25. Happy with that since the peg has been kind to me in the past – as soon as you say that sort of thing it’s usually the kiss of death.
With only 4 of us on Speci (Martin Pettifer on 28, Mike West on the flyer and current match record p31 and Jason Fern on 32) we had plenty of space. Unfortunately I had 3 pleasure anglers opposite on pegs 39 & 40, who were using the scatter gun approach to feeding.
Previously on this peg I have found a lot of silvers, but not too many carp. I decided to start looking for carp at 14.5m in open water on 8mm. There was no point trying to target the island, a) it was over 17m away and I don’t think my back could have taken it and b) the pleasure anglers were using small method feeders casting to the point (even from p40).
I also put some caster & 4mm pellet 13m down the left hand margin and ½ a pot of micros and 4mm at 11.5m at an angle towards P26 where it shallowed up.
1st bite on 8mm pellet resulted in a roach as did the next put in. Ok no carp, so I started feeding a pouch of 6mm’s to draw some carp in.
Down the left hand margin on double caster, I had a small roach and a switch to soft pellet had the same result. 30mins into the match and 5 roach in the net I wasn’t going anywhere fast and 13m was too far to come back with 2oz fish. I topped up the 11.5m swim, continued feeding the 14.5m line and started feeding 6mm down the left hand margin.
Since there was so many roach in the swim, if I was going to catch them, then I needed to come short, but I could only target 1 swim because I didn’t have enough casters to try different areas, so I concentrated on the small bush to my right, hoping for a chub. In the end I kept catching roach and was quite enjoying myself, but ultimately I wasn’t building enough weight.
My 11.5m swim produced skimmers, F1 and roach on soft pellet, feeding a toss pot of 4mms and by the half way stage I was doing OK. Mike West had to take a walk from his flyer, because he only had 1 fish and according to him Match Lake was also fishing hard. My best point of reference on how I was doing was keeping an eye on Martin Pettifer who is a decent silvers angler and thought we were about even on the silvers.
Another look at 14.5m on 8mm produced another skimmer and a big F1, before the roach moved in again. The left margin that I had kept topped up with 6mm, produced a single carp which I lost at the net, before the roach again moved in. Do you see a pattern here?
Unfortunately it’s about now that I blew the peg. I started to feed my 11.5m with more 4mm by catapult, when in hindsight I should have kept it tight with the toss pot and occasional cup. I could have caught roach all day down under the bush, but they were getting smaller.
The problem with feeding 4mms by catapult was it seemed to have pulled in more roach and the soft pellet was getting hammered. A switch to hard pellet helped, but the damage was already done.
Despite the result I had an enjoyable days fishing, just a shame I wasn’t a bit more patience, because I sure I would have beaten Martins 20-14 (which included a 1½lb chub down the edge) and got close to John Bradford’s 25lb. No one was going to get near Mike Nicholls 43-10 of skimmers – fair shout. To be honest I think the skimmers probably felt safe in a noted carp flyer and were taken by surprise! Lol
1st 75-9 Craig Edmonds – peg 15
2nd 69-10 Scott Puddy – peg 1
3rd 68-15 Dave Roper – peg 19
4th 59- 6 Mike Nicholls – peg 22
5th 59- 1 Phil Harding – peg 21
6th 52-14 Andy France – peg 3
Silvers
1st 43-10 Mike Nicholls – peg 22
2nd 25- 5 John Bradford – peg 13
3rd 20-14 Martin Pettifer – peg 28
4th 19-14 Ken Rayner – peg 25
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