28/10/12 - Lands End - Speci Lake

Weight - 54lb 11oz (15lb 14oz - silvers)
Catch - 6 Carp, 12 Perch, 8 Roach, 3 F1, 1 Chub
Weather - Grey, gloomy & mostly rained
Match - Avon Angling Open - 9th out of 24 (4th out of 11 - lake, 4th overall silvers)

24 turned up today and we were all thankful yesterdays cold northerly wind had disappeared. Instead, it was replaced by grey low cloud and it rained most of the day, but at least it was milder.

I was not too disappointed when I opened my ticket to see 25 staring back at me, since its usually worth a few fish, however after the recent cold weather I was a little apprehensive about how the lake would fish, particularily since some of the colour had dropped out.

For company I had Martin Rich opposite on p40 and Adrian Jefferies to my right on p26. Becuase I wasnt sure how the lake would fish, various rigs were set up to cover my options.

On the all-in some caster was deposited 13-14m down the left hand bank and at 6m with a small ball of groundbait. Whilst that settled I went straight out at 14.5m with double corn to see if there was any carp in the open water. 15mins later I had a 4lber which was a nice start. A further 15mins later I hooked another, but I think it was foul hooked, becuase it shot off towards p40, before breaking me.

A switch to the end bank produced a few big perch up to 2lb mostly on maggot. I spent most of the next couple of hours fishing down the left hand edge where I caught more perch, mostly by lifting & dropping, but bites were little dinks. Inevitably I had a couple of carp, including one foul hooker which firstly tried to snag me on the point of the island, before finally snaggung on some underwater branches the other side of Adrians platform! I was just glad Rixon couldnt see me making a meal of trying to land the carp. Adrian kindly poked his landing net at the fish and unbelieveabley it came free. 10mins later with the hook firmly in the pectoral fin an 8-9lb carp was safely landed. 

I did try fishing mid depth, but only got bites from small roach.

The right hand swim produced a couple of F1s and a carp late on. The left hand open water swim responded to a small amount of caster and corn, with a big F1 and another carp, all on corn.

The end bank definately slowed towards the end and in an attempt to kick start it I cupped in some worm atomic cloud with caster, however this just lead to a mini roach invasion.

Overall, although I had to work hard for bites it was an enjoyable day. I beat those around me, it was just a shame I couldnt catch any more big perch, F1s or skimmers in the last hour to claim the silvers money which Neil Mercer took with 19-10.

1^st 108-  5- 0 Martin Pettifer – p5

2^nd 104-  2- 0 Dave Roper – p16
3^rd 81- 4 – Phil Harding – p28
4^th 77-15 – Dave Wescott – p29
5^th 65-14 – Mike West – p1
6^th 62- 2 – Paul Elmes – p15

Silvers
1^st 20- 8 – Paul Elmes – p15
2^nd 19-10 – Neil Mercer – p32
3^rd 17- 4 – Don Sutherland – p21
4^th 15-14 – Ken Rayner – p25