14/09/13 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 71lb 2oz (8lb 5oz - silvers)
Catch - 11 Carp, 4 Perch, 3 Ide, 2 Roach
Weather - Warm & sunny
Match - Open - 1st out of 11

Sometimes you know you are going to win and occasionally it comes as a surprise. Today’s match definitely fell into the latter category.

11 had booked in including a couple of Acorn regulars who were mixing a lot of groundbait. Well it would be interesting to see whether their approach would work. I found myself on peg 11, which is now officially the peg I have fished the most at Lands End over the last 5 years (I felt the need to check).  Allan Oram was opposite on 13 and neither of us really fancied this end of the lake, because it hasn’t been the best recently and I wasn’t sure how best  to approach the swim.

Following Friday’s heavy rain and today’s bright sunny conditions, I didn’t think the skimmers would feed, so felt targeting carp would be the way to go.

Rigs for the day were:-
-          HB ratctatcher 1 > .14 > 16 B911 (fish by the island)
-          Shady Shallow > .17 > 18 B960 (hair rig pellet – long line)
-          Ackoo Powertrap 0.2g > .16 > 16 B911 (meat)
-          HB Shindig 0.2g > .14 >  16 B911 (soft pellet)

After feeding some meat down by the p10 pallet and pellet left & right down the track I started by the island, which was only a foot deep due to the water level still being low. However there was a few carp moving around, although I didn’t expect the fish to hang around for too long in such shallow water, so decided to start on caster and catch what I could. After depositing a ½ cup of caster the carp moved onto it straight away, but when the float buried it was a perch. Another followed, before landing a small carp and then a big ide.

I preserved with the island, but it was really slow going, the carp still didn’t want to settle and there wasn’t too many silvers showing. A switch to the pallet produced a couple of perch and another big ide on 8mm meat.

In the meantime I kept firing 6s to the point of the island and there was plenty of tails waving at me. A switch to the long line pellet rig produced a carp straight away, but these carp are really cute and I couldn’t get another. In fact all match I had fish showing by the island. I tried toss potting caster, cupping caster, toss potting pellet, cupping pellet, but I couldn’t get any consistency, which was very frustrating.

A quick look down the track on soft pellet didn’t produce, which just left the p10 pallet. Talk around the lake suggesting it was fishing hard, although those on the other bank seemed to be catching best.

With 2hrs 15mins to go I had 4 carp, plus my silvers, but another look down by the pallet produced 4 carp in 4 put ins, losing a 5^th which felt like it foul hooked, but I couldn’t get another bite. A switch back to the island resulted in 2 lost carp, then another lost carp from the pallet, followed by another from the island when I switched back. 5 lost carp in 45mins and I thought I blown my chances of any pick up. Alan in the meantime had started to catch on soft pellet and I was fairly sure he had caught me up.

Another switch back to the pallet produced another carp foul hooked in the tail, before landing 2 more with 5mins to spare, including a 9-10lber. By the all out, I was fully expecting to be hoping I had enough for 3^rd, because apparently p19 had been catching all match and p17 had caught well in the last 2 hours. Fortunately p17 hadn’t quite caught enough and p19 had lost quite a few, so it was surprise when it transpired I had won my 6^th match in the last 10 outings.

1^st 71- 2 – Ken Rayner – p11
2^nd 65-12 – Mark Walsh –p24
3^rd 64- 3 – Andy – p17
4^th 60- 4 – Dan – p19
5^th 54-11 – Allan Oram – p13
6^th 47-7 – Gabriel – p21

Silvers
1^st 14-10 – Nigel Bartlett – p15
2^nd 8- 5 – Ken Rayner – p11