17/08/14 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 102lb 0oz (9lb 3oz - silvers)
Catch - 24 Carp, 8 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Perch
Weather - Wet start, sunny & windy
Match - Open - 8th out of 21

With 21 anglers booked in we were split across Match and Speci but it was like a baggers convention at the draw, even Lee Werrett made the trip across the bridge.

I found myself on p11, which I don’t mind, but it would nice to fish a different peg because I have drawn it a quite a bit over the last few years. Following yesterday’s success with paste, I intended to do the same again. However, plumbing up revealed the far shelf was even shallower and there was no flat spots except in the very shallow water by island.

Eventually I found a deeper flattish spot to my left by the reeds which didn't prove very productive. I thought fishing pellet would be better, particularly since the overhanging grasses were less of an issue and less likely to catch by swing a pellet rig around. Rigs for meat to my left by p10 platform and soft pellet in open water were also set up.

Starting on the pellet across and I couldn’t get a bite over the loose feed 6s, even though I could see fish moving around, which meant I was soon on the paste rig. Even this was proving difficult to entice a bite.

In the meantime Lee Werrett on p8 was catching on pellet by the island, as was the angler opposite on p13. After 30mins, I so far resisted the temptation to fish in the really shallow off the point of the island, but felt I had no choice and sure enough had a carp almost straight away on paste. Since the water was so shallow I could only catch a couple of fish at a time before they became spooked.

After 2 hours I had to go back to the car for a bucket of 6s, giving me an opportunity to see how everyone was doing along my bank. Lee was admitting to 13/14 carp and the angler on p3 had 9. My total so far was 7 so not too far off the pace.

The remainder of the match proved to be frustrating. There was obviously fish across, but catching them was difficult. I tried the pellet rig again, but without success. I thought my 5m pellet line was going to come alive, with a few early small skimmers, before catching a couple of carp on expander. In hindsight, when it went quiet I should have just kept the little & often feed routine, but decided to dump a pot instead.

It was my meat line that proved to be the most disappointing. I really expected to catch a few proper lumps, instead it was roach or perch, plus a couple of decent sized skimmers. I had to 2x 7lbers with 20mins to go, but it was too late.

I managed to at least overtake the angler opposite and after his quick start kept pace with Lee, but ultimately I had too many smaller fish and not nearly enough of those meat fish. The water across by the island was too shallow for the fish to settle for any period and this certainly slowed my catch rate. When I caught the big skimmers on meat, I did consider sticking with catching silvers, but thought someone would have at least 20lb. unfortunately I was wrong, with only 11lb 3oz needed to claim the silvers prize. Really should have feed the 5m pellet line a little more carefully, because I know I would have picked up at least an additional 2lb of silvers.

Overall the venue fished very well with 8 tons being recorded.

1^st 165-11 – Kev Molton – p15
2^nd 157-14 – Craig Edmunds – p22
3^rd 132- 1 – Lee Werrett – p8
4^th 124-12 – Andy Hembrow – p29
5^th 122-11 – Steve Tucker – p19
6^th 114- 0 – Tony Rixon – p24

Silvers
1^st 28-10 – Rod Wootton – p36
2^nd 27- 1 – Nigel Bartlett – p27
3^rd 11- 4 – Mike West – p5