Catch - 8 Skimmers, 1 F1, 1 Roach, 1 Carp
Weather - Gusty wind, sunny with cloudy periods
Match - Open - 18th out of 36, 5th out of 12 - lake, 3rd overall silvers
Back to Lands End. This was the unused reserve date
for the winter league and with 36 booked in all 3 lakes was used. Another
mediocre draw for me, p28 this time and I had Mark Brennan to my left on p26
and Sean Townsend to my right on p29. In fact there was a number of very good
silverfish anglers on Speci today, with the most disappointed being Nicky
Collins who drew the carp flyer p32. I offered to swap.
Sean & I didn’t show much enthusiasm for tackling
up, but you have to give it a go. The wind would be an issue today and it
didn’t know which way to blow. One moment it would blow from the east into p25,
then it would go flat calm before blowing from behind.
I didn’t realistically think I could pick up targeting
carp, so hoped the skimmers would have a go. Main rig for the day was HB Chump
0.3g > .10 > 18 silverfish pellet. I did set up a few other rigs, but
never caught on them.
A few people have quizzed me about my float
descriptions. Most of the floats I use are handmade from Neil Powell who goes
under the name Hillbilly www.hillbillyfloats.co.uk At £2.20 the floats aren’t cheaper, however you will
struggle to find a better made float and unlike some commercially made floats
the eyes don’t rip out or explode, so as a consequence I don’t replace them as
often.
Back to the match some caster was cupped by the
island, a pinch of micros/4s at 11.5m, then a big cup of loose groundbait,
micros & 4s to my left at 13m in p27. I started by the island, but after
20mins I had no bites. A look over my 11.5m line on 4mm expander and I bumped a
skimmer. Its no surprise I couldn’t get another bite, so re-fed another pinch
of pellet at 12m, which did produce a skimmer as did the groundbait swim. So
after an hour I had 2 skimmers, as did Mark and Sean had 1. However the anglers
opposite were all catching silvers and Nicky had a couple of carp.
The 2nd & 3rd hours were
very quiet with only 1 more skimmer and a roach. I had tried the island again,
caster at 5m and caster by the p27 pallet, but not a bite. Sean was threatening
to go for a walk when he had a skimmer over his short caster line and I then
had a 6lb carp at 12m. He then threatened to go for another walk when he hooked
a double figure carp!
At the half way point not many carp had been caught,
so decided to feed some meat at the bottom of the near shelf 11m to my left in
the hope of catching a few big lumps late on. Another pot of groundbait &
pellet was dumped at 14m this time to my left and another pinch of pellet at
13m.
The remainder of the match went quite well. The short
caster line didn’t produce, although it was a useful place to allow me to rest
the pellet swim. It was a case of catch a skimmer, feed then try another area
of the swim. In the end my pellet line moved to 14m and each re-feed moved a
foot to my left along the bottom of the shelf. The groundbait swim produced 2
more skimmers.
With 90mins left the meat line was abandoned, because
Sean had caught a few more carp as had Steve Skelton on p33 and I wanted to
concentrate on the skimmers, because I felt that was my best chance of a pick
up. The silverfish anglers opposite had been catching, but mostly a smaller
stamp fish so if I could keep catching I thought I might be in with a chance,
although losing a big skimmer at the net I thought would cost me, but overall felt
pleased with my efforts.
By the all out Sean thought I had won the silvers, but
I was conscience that those opposite all started better than me. As it turned
out that lost skimmer did cost be an extra £15, because Clint Wotlyla won the
silvers (skimmers, perch & roach) with 17-2 from peg 34. In fact it was
quite close with silvers on that side with most catching roach and roach in
amongst some skimmers, yet hardly any roach or perch showed my side. John Green
(p36) had 13-0, Gary Cross (p37) had 14-2 and Shane Caswell (p39) had 9-8. As
for Bob Gullick on p40 he only had 1 F1 and a perch.
Since Clint won the silvers overall, it meant I picked
up for the silvers on the lake. Sean won the lake with 5 carp, but Trigger easily
won the match from p22 with 226lb.
1st 226- 3 - Craig Edmunds - p22
2nd 97-12 - Dave Roper - p68
3rd 70-12 - Bela Bakos - p17
4th 65-14 - Martin McMahon - p58
5th 65- 7 - Paul Elmes - p55
6th 60- 5 - Phil Harding - p70
Silvers
1st 17- 8 - Craig Edmunds - p22
2nd 17- 2 - Clint Wotlyla - p34
3rd 15-14 - Ken Rayner - p28
4th 14- 2 - Gary Cross - p37
5th 13- 0 - John Green - p36
No comments:
Post a Comment