Weight - 34lb 13oz (7lb 14oz - silvers)
Catch - 3 Carp, 7 Roach, 4 Skimmers
Weather - Bright & sunny with little wind
Match - Open - 2nd out of 11
1 of us today on Speci lake and I think most of us were
looking forward to a change from fishing Match lake. However, the lakes were
iced over mid-week and the water certainly looked quite clear, so a challenging
day was on the cards.
Mark Poppleton had threatened mid-week to go home if he drew
p36, so he was really happy when he actually drew p36. After spending several
minutes in the car park contemplating what to do, he eventually decided to fish,
but he wasn’t in the mood for any banter- lol.
As for me, my drawing arm seems to have deserted me recently
and p28 hardly filled me with joy. However the last time I fished here earlier in
the year, I picked up in the silvers, so that was my intention today, because normally
you would expect the carp to come from the end of the lake.
For company Andy was on p26 and Martin Heard on p29, but at
least the sun would be behind us on what would be a very bright day with very
little wind. Fishing was 10.15 – 15.45, it was suggested we have an earlier draw,
but I don’t think Mike West can get out of bed any earlier!
On the all in some micros & 4s was deposited at 13m and
some caster on top of the far shelf. I started on double corn fished at 14m to
my left hoping for an early carp, but didn’t have so much as liner, which just
confirmed my fears there were no carp about. To fair no-one was catching much,
although Martin had a few skimmers on pellet.
A switch to my pellet line produced nothing, I even set up a
2nd pellet swim to my left at 14.5m, but again not a bite even on
maggot, whilst Martin was still getting the odd skimmer. I like to feed some
groundbait with my micros and normally add some sweet fishmeal, but today I was
trying some Marukyu Nori silverfish groundbait, but just got the feeling it was
too pungent for a cold clear lake, so mixed up some of my normal mix, re-feeding
my 2 pellet swims.
A switch to the far line produced a small roach on maggot.
So after an hour and 35mins I avoided a blank. Another roach soon followed, but
they didn’t hang about in the shallower water.
So back on the pellet, using a HB Frostie 0.3g > .10 >
18 silverfish pellet and I had a 2lb skimmer on 4mm expander. Was it the change
in groundbait? I don’t know, but I felt more confident using bait that I have
used successfully before.
3 more skimmers came by rotating left & right, then I
hooked what I thought was another skimmer, but as I shipped back it became
obvious it was a carp. 15mins later a big common weighing 13-2 was safely
netted, which put me back in contention, before Martin landed 2 smaller carp.
Unfortunately both Martin & I struggled to catch for the
next 90mins or so. Those skimmers obviously didn’t like the carp charging
around and neither of us caught another skimmer for the rest of the match. I
had a couple more roach from the far bank, but it didn’t last.
It was difficult to assess my position in the match, because
it was very close. Mark had a few silvers and a couple of carp, Allan Oram on
p31 had 3-4 carp and Steve Martin on his first visit to the venue on p33 was
probably leading.
So target the silvers on maggot/caster or stick with pellet?
Another look over my 5m line produced a roach, but I had to wait for a bite, so
decided to stick with pellet. Fishing 16m to my left at the bottom of the
shelf, produced 2 carp in the last 10mins and was now fairly certain I had
framed, which is how it turned out. Even without the carp, I would have picked
up the silvers by double-default.
1st 49-10 – Steve Martin – p33
2nd 34-13 – Ken Rayner – p28
3rd 32-14 – Mark Poppleton - p36
4th 31- 1 – Allan Oram – p31
5th 18-12 – Martin Heard – p29
6th 16-13 – Mike Duckett – p38
Silvers
1st 11- 0 – Mark Poppleton – p36
2nd 10- 8 – Steve Martin – p33
3rd 7-14 – Ken Rayner – p28
4th 7- 8 – Martin Heard – p29
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