Sunday 30 October 2011

29/10/11 - Lands End - Johns Lake

Weight – 31lb 6oz (12lb 5oz – silvers)
Catch – 21 Roach, 6 Crucian, 5 Perch, 4 F1, 4 Bream, 3 Carp
Weather – Bright start, then heavy rain, then mostly cloudy. Cool breeze
Match – Open – 6th out 14 (2nd out of 4 - lake)

14 turned up for today’s match, which was split with 10 on match and 4 on Johns (no 3 lake), so we know where everyone wanted to be.

I found myself on p68 on Johns, which I practically ran to, however it was like a baggers convention opposite with Tom Thick on p41 (yes the same peg he won from last week) and Rod Wootton on p42. As we were setting up it was noticeable there was no fish moving around, in fact those that were, were further up the lake out of the way.

Started fishing towards the aerator, whilst feeding the island and 13m to my right down the track, hoping to pull in some fish from further up. I had an F1 on corn within 5mins and thought we would be in for a good day, but the next hour was a bit of struggle.

After an hour I was starting to get regular indications, but then the wave machine started, so I had to bin that line. I had still been feeding pellet half way down the island, but not even a liner.

Decided on a rethink and cupped some caster & micros at 6m, plus caster & 4mm to the point of the island where I fished 4 maggots on the hook, hoping the maggot fluttering in the flow would tempt a bite, which it did after 5mins in the shape of a 6lb carp. Great thought I sussed it, but my next fish was a tiny perch.

With no further carp a switch to 6m fishing caster & occasionally 4mm expander, started to get regular bites from roach, with the odd crucian. At least I was catching, because since the aerator started, both Tom & Rod had caught very little.

90mins after it started the wave machine stopped, as did my 6m line. So back out towards to the aerator and I kept the pellet going in against the island and down the track 13m to my right.

There was still very few carp showing in our part of the lake, Tom had yet to catch one, whilst Rod was picking up the odd one, but it was generally slow. I was catching a few crucian, F1 and skimmers from the aerator mostly on 6mm pellet, but no carp.

A further look around the island still didn’t result in any fish, although a few fish started to show themselves, but the pole over their heads, just seemed to spook them.

With an hour to go I concentrated on fishing 13m down the track. So far I had only caught a skimmer an hour previously on this line and was hoping for a good last hour to catch up Rod. First drop in on corn and 5mins later I was attached to carp, but it shot off surfacing in the gap between the 2 islands, before the hooklength gave way – I suspected it was foul hooked. My next fish was an 8lber, before I lost my next carp in the weed bed to my left.

Unfortunately the carp seemed to have backed off since my next fish was a skimmer, followed by a roach. 5 seconds before the all out I hooked a carp, which I managed to net and was left wishing they had turned up an hour earlier.

The lake didn’t fish as well as expected due to the cold week and the carp just sulked away further up the lake.

Today I concentrated on .14 bottom fishing hair rigged 6mm pellet or corn. I could have probably caught more silvers had I gone down to .12 bottom. I did have another rig with .12 bottom to fish soft pellet or caster, but that resulted in too many small fish. The carp just didn’t want to be here.

1st 55-15 Martin Lenaghan – p17
2nd 52-12 Mark Poppleton – p21
3rd 48-15 Rod Wootton – p42
4th 41- 8 Mike West – p22
5th 37-11 Nigel Bartlett – p1
6th 31- 6 Ken Rayner – p68

Silvers
1st 25-12 Martin Pettifer – p11

Monday 17 October 2011

16/10/11 - Lands End - Speci Lake

Weight – 45lb 1oz
Catch – 6 Carp, 15 Roach, 3 Perch, 1 Rudd.
Weather – Cool overnight, bright with a slight breeze.
Match – Teams of 4 – 13th out of 44 – 3rd out of 11 section

I was asked by Tony to guest for Avon Angling today, ignoring the comment about being desperate! However I was looking forward to the match, because it been a while since I fished a league match and wanted to do well.

So I was really disappointed to be handed peg 29 on speci lake, a) its 16m to the island and I didn’t fancy fishing long with my back problems at the moment, b) if you draw speci you need to draw either of the corners or the points of the island and c) these middle pegs normally come bottom of the section.

The only consolation was I had a spare peg either side, so at least I had plenty of room and occasionally it does throw up a weight of skimmers, but with the bright flat conditions I wasn’t expecting many to show.

Some micros & 4mm’s were cupped in at 13m to my left and started to catapult 4mm’s 13m to my right. Decided to start fishing caster to the far bank, feeding caster with some chopped worm and predator plus. After 45mins I only had a couple of small roach, bumping a couple of perch, but generally surprised by the lack of response.

I had already topped up the left 13m swim, but again only small roach showed on 4mm expander, so with an hour gone I barely had a pound in the net. Steve Seagar on p27 had a run of decent silvers at 6m and Andy Lloyd was foul hooking plenty of fish on p31 from the point of the island.

I persevered with the left 13m swim, but now started feeding my margins with caster as well as pinging 4mm’s to the island. The LH swim had completely died and a look over the RH 13m swim didn’t yield anything. In fact I couldn’t get a bite on maggot, so real struggling. Steve in the meantime was plundering his margin of chub and Andy had stopped getting any indications.

I tried my margin with double maggot, which produced a couple small fish before I hooked a carp, but after 5mins the hook pulled. Back into the margin and 15mins later another carp, 20mins later I finally netted a 5-6lb ghostie, which was foul hooked in the front flipper. Thought I did well to get it on .12 bottom and double 4 elastic – thank goodness for pulla bungs!

Moving into the 2nd half of the match, I was probably last in section. I hadn’t fed my LH swim for about 2hrs just to let it completely settle and decided to dump a big cup of caster, with some pellet & corn. A bit of last resort, but I didn’t have any choice since I needed some decent fish. In the meantime I still kept the pellet going into RH swim, as well as feeding the island. Letting the caster settle for 30mins, I tried the far bank with corn and lost a foul hooker. A move to the margins resulted in 2 more lost fish, as well as losing a carp from my RH 13m line. I may let my feeling be know at this time – it was so frustrating, some of the carp were definitely foulhooked, but I was sure at least 2 were hooked properly.

Back over the LH swim and all I got was more roach. Another pot of caster resulted in a couple more roach so that line was binned, as was the island swim, deciding to concentrate on the margins and the RH 13m swim.

With 90mins to go I managed to land a small carp which was again foulhooked. It was getting to the point where I was scared to pull back too hard in case the hook pulled.

In the last hour I kept feeding the RH 13m line with 4mm’s and eventually started to get indications on corn landing 4 carp which were actually hooked in the mouth, including 2 doubles, landing the last 1 just after the whistle.

Definitely got out of jail, with that last hour, catapulting me from near last to 3rd in section, which was a very welcome surprise. In fact I nearly grabbed 2nd in section from Andy Lloyd who weighed 49lb. Tom Thick won the lake from p33 with 74lb. Steve Seager in the meantime had the best silvers weight from the lake with 23lb of mostly chub.

1st 88.4 – Jon Gray – p41
2nd 86.10 – Lewis Jones – p17
3rd 86.5 – Clayton Hudson – p3
4th 84.22 – Ryan Shipp – p22
5th 79.12 – Paul Elmes – p5
6th 74.12 – Tom Thick – p33

Silvers
1st 27.7 – Mat Tomes – p11
2nd 23.0 – Steve Seagar – p27

15/10/11 - Fishponds

Weight – 123lb 0oz
Catch – 17 Carp.
Weather – Mild, flat calm
Match – Club – 2nd out of 8

Today was the last Saturday club match, as well as the 9th of 2011 at our club water. Despite missing 1 match I was only 3pts behind Andy for the lake championship, thanks to 5 wins.

With the flat conditions and no ripple anywhere, I didn’t fancy it for shallow fishing, so decided paste would be the best way to go, however with the cool overnight conditions I also set up a 0.5g hillbilly dweezil to fish hair rigged 8mm pellet.

Ideally I would have preferred to have drawn along the long bank, but found myself on p12, which has a long platform out into the lake. Decided on 3 swims, 3o’clock to my right at 8m, 11o’clock at 10m and the left margin.

15mins into the match I already had 2 carp on paste and thought we were on for a really big weight. Unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. Since the start of the match I had been pinging pellet towards the aerator because there was a few fish showing themselves, however I didn’t have any bites on either of the pellet wagglers I had set up. I even tried bread flake, but still no takes. The fish really needed a ripple over their heads to take the bait confidently, so decided not to bother any more with that line.

After an hour I had 4 carp, followed by a further 4 in the 2nd hour, but it was really hard going. Most of the fish came to paste with 1 on pellet. During the 3rd hour it seemed like the lake just switched off, with only 1 more carp, but foul hooked 4.

I kept rotating swims and kept feeding a handful of 8mm pellet into each swim which brought the carp back catching 8 more in the last 2 hours, 6 on paste and 2 on pellet.

I knew I had beaten Andy opposite it was just a question of whether I could beat him by more than 3 places. Judging by all the splashing I could hear from Glenn on peg 15 I suspected he had beaten me, which he duly did. Fortunately I just beat Roger & Chris, which meant I tied with Andy for the lake championship on points, but courtesy of more wins won the series.

1st 165lb – Glenn – p15
2nd 123lb – Ken – p12
3rd 114lb – Roger – p1
4th 106lb – Chris – p3

Monday 10 October 2011

09/10/11 - Trinity - Woodland Lake

Weight – 29lb 12oz
Catch – 5 Carp, 5 Skimmers, 1 Roach, 1 Motherless Minnow
Weather – Mild, breezy & mostly cloudy
Match – Club – 5th out of 16

With 16 anglers booked in I managed to spread everyone around the lake, with most on the favored far bank. I don’t like someone else drawing for me, so as I was holding the draw bag, I saw the pegs on the far bank disappear, leaving me with p22 in the corner. Today’s match was also the semi final for our knockout and I had Andy who beat me in last year’s final. Conveniently he was on p19 on the end bank so at least we could keep an eye on each other.

As I was walking around selecting the pegs, a car pulled into the car park and the occupants got out surveying the lake with the intention of fishing. By the time I walked back round I told 1 of them there was match on, before asking whether they read the big white board at the entrance, which clearly stated that Woodlands was closed. However, despite stopping in front of the board they still managed to miss seeing it!

The weather forecast was for strong winds, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a flat calm lake, although the wind picked up as were setting up. With the expectation of strong winds I didn’t bother with a long pole, only a rig for the margins, plus a method feeder to fish slightly to my left as not to interfere with peg 19 and a straight lead to fish to peg 20 on the end bank.

With the wind blowing down this end I quite fancied it for few a fish, however after 2hrs 25mins I had yet to catch, whilst Andy had 2 carp. After Fridays practice I had decided to concentrate on the method, whilst building my margin swims. I did lose 1 fish and had a few liners, but no fish. Since the wind wasn’t quite as strong as expected (although when I went round to the opposite bank during the weigh in I realized I was slightly sheltered from the worst) I decided to set a shallow pellet rig at 13m after seeing a couple of fish boshing close by. 20mins later I had my 1st carp on 8mm pellet and thought I sussed it, but ½hr later no more followed. They just didn’t want to come in close, although they were boshing further out in ripple.

I was in danger of getting pre-occupied trying to catch shallow, so decided to give it up as a bad job and focus on the margins where I had kept feeding 4mms and corn. After a few rig adjustments, finally started to catch on 6mm expander, unfortunately they were small skimmers, but at least I was catching and I was confident the carp would turn up.

I hooked 6 carp down the edge, losing 2 (1 was definitely fouled as it shot off), but 2 of the 4 landed were proper 8lb fish. Fortunately Andy only had 4 carp, although he lost a couple, so I knew I would be in the knockout final.

The winners came from the middle of the lake, where the fish seemed to be happiest today.

1st 82-8 Kev – p28 (12 carp. 10 in the last 90mins down the edge on worm)
2nd 78- 6 Chris – p13 (shallow 8mm pellet)
3rd 43- 4 Graham – p11
4th 32- 6 Tim – p7
5th 29-12 Ken – p22

Saturday 8 October 2011

07/10/11 - Trinity Waters - Woodlands Lake

Weight – 50lb 6oz
Catch – 8 Carp, 5 Skimmers, 1 Tench, 1 Roach
Weather – Showery, strong NW wind

Well my back injury wasn’t quite as bad as first feared. I did go fishing last weekend at the Winterbourne Duck Pond just to see how it felt and successful came though a busy session catching small skimmers. Sadly there was a major fish kill at the pond since last year, which has meant the majority of the big skimmers and carp have died, however there seemed to be plenty of 1-3oz skimmers, plus a few 2oz carp of various colours (discarded pets?).

Today’s session was about practicing for Sunday’s club match. I haven’t been to Woodlands lake since all the landscaping and what a change, although I’m not sure about the individual pegs being set back into little bays.

Tim Allen from our club decided to join me and as they say 2 heads are better than 1. I had already been told of the better areas, but decided to settle on p27, which is an average peg in the middle of the lake. With the strong wind, it would also give me a chance to sort out some pole rigs.

Initially started on the method, but mixed the green swim stim and micros separately so I could mix and match to see what worked. After 45mins I had tried meat, hard pellet, soft pellet and maggot without success. Tim in the meantime had 2 carp on a standard cage feeder with corn on the hook, so I opened a tin and hey presto a carp! Another carp followed shortly after, but the cold wind was having an effect on the fishing.

I deliberately didn’t want to target the silvers, since Sundays match wouldn’t have a silvers payout, so the 6m line was fed with 4mm & corn, as were the margins. Started with a 0.8g rig, but it wasn’t longer before I tried 1.25g rig due to the tow, which did produce a few skimmers, plus a near 2lb tench on red maggot. Although I stayed with it for a while the pole just wasn’t working due to the windy conditions.

After 2hrs a local old boy turned up, who knew “everything” and with the whole lake to choose from promptly set up next to me on peg 26. With Tim on the other side it now meant the margin I had started feeding could now be redundant, particularly now he started crashing about. I tried explaining to him what I was trying to do, but being a know it all he reckoned it wouldn’t make a difference. Muppet!

Since the pole line wasn’t working (including the margin which I had feed for 3hrs), I concentrated on the feeder, I had set up 2 rigs, 1x method feeder and 1x pellet feeder, fishing 17 turns out, so a gentle lob. The method was the better way to go and I found by moulding more micro pellet, then groundbait seemed to get bites quicker. Also corn was the best bait, although according to “know it all” corn doesn’t work.

Unfortunately I lost a few carp on the feeder, a couple when the free running feeder bounced the fish off the hook. I also lost a few when the hooklength snapped. Really not a fan of the method, but sometimes needs must, so a softer rod and stronger hooklengths for Sunday.

A worthwhile practice, but I think I will be a happier if I draw the other side. Tim also had 30lb.