03/08/14 - Sedges - Brick Lake

Weight - 58lb 5oz (46lb 0oz - silvers)
Catch - 35 Bream, 1 Fantail, 1 Eel, 2 Carp
Weather - Mostly sunny. Breezy start, becoming flat calm later.
Match - Float Only - 2nd in silvers, 2nd in section

I really wish I was able to fish this league, but had to drop out when I couldn’t make 2 of the dates, so instead I was guesting today to make up the numbers and even then 1 dropped out late. The joys of being a match organiser!

With 39 anglers spread over Brick and Tile, after yesterday’s carp fest, I really fancied a draw on the middle of Brick and hopefully some silvers action. I got half my wish with p12 on Brick, which is 1 from the end and with the wind blowing into that end my fingers were crossed for a good day. For company I had Steve Evans to my right on p11 and Clayton Hudson to my left on p13.

Having not fished the venue since last year, reports suggested paste or meat were best baits and I must admit I sat at my peg for 5mins deciding which way to go. The wind was quite strong blowing across me from 10 o’clock and I just felt paste would prove too difficult, so settled on a meat line at 5m, a groundbait line at 11.5m for the skimmers and I planned on ping 8s at 14-16m to catch shallow. I thought about setting up a pellet waggler, but decided against it with the way the wind was.

Rigs for the day:
-  Wire stem 1g > .14 > 16 B911 – worm/expander
-  HB dweezil 0.75g > .16 > 16 B911 – meat
- Shady Shallow > .17 > 16 B960 – pellet shallow

On the all-in 4 balls of groundbait (krill & natural swim stim) plus soften 4s were cupped in at 11.5m and meat/hemp at 5m.

Starting on the shallow rig I was hoping for an early mug fish after seeing a few carp boshing around, but after 15mins and no indications it was time to switch to the groundbait line. In the meantime I was beginning to question my decision not to use paste, because Clayton got off to a flyer catching mostly skimmers and a couple of carp.

I soon had my first skimmer on worm using the heavy rig and after a 2½  hours was catching consistently, finding it best to cup another ball of groundbait and 4s after every 2^nd fish. I occasionally dropped in on the 5m which was also feed regularly with meat/hemp, but as yet only had 1 missed bite.

After 3hrs the skimmer line was fading a little and thought it was time to try and catch shallow after priming the line for the last couple of hours. 5mins later I had a carp – happy days, but bugger me if the wind didn’t just drop and all that lovely ripple disappeared. I tried the waggler over the long pole line, but with the flat calm conditions I couldn’t tempt another carp.

So decision time. Do I try to catch more carp or keep after the skimmers? With Tom Mangnall winning my section I felt the best chance of a pickup was stick with the skimmers. With the wind dropping the heavy rig just wasn’t sitting right and the elastic on the meat rig was too heavy for the skimmers, so another rig was set up, this time a 0.5g HB dweezil, which I had to dot right down. This time 6mm expander proved to be the best bait and I managed to keep putting skimmers in the net, but it wasn’t as prolific as when the wind was blowing. Fortunately I managed a couple more skimmers from the 5m meat line, plus a carp.

By the all out I knew I had more skimmers than Clayton, but Ziggy came down asking about who’s caught silvers and he thought he had about the same as me. I think he was being generous because he had nearly 20lb more than me! At least I finished 2^nd in the silvers for a pick up and I also finished 2^nd in section behind Tom.

1^st - 109- 8 – Martin Rayet – p20
2^nd - 99- 6 – Martin Lenaghan – p8
3^rd - 98- 3 – Joe McMahon – p3
4^th - 92- 2 – Steve Seagar – p24
5^th - 91- 9 – Tom Mangnall – p14
6^th - 88- 1 – Tim Clark – p7

Silvers
1^st - 64- 6 – Ziggy – p18
2^nd - 46- 0 – Ken Rayner – p12
3^rd - 28- 9 – Glen Bailey – p19
4^th - 24-14 – Gary O’Shea – p5