21/09/14 - Merrits - Lavington

Weight - 131lb 0oz
Catch - 19 Carp, 9 Skimmers, 4 Roach, 1 Chub
Weather - Mostly sunny and light breeze
Match - Airsprung - 3rd out of 12

After having a weekend off last week, mainly due to work and feeling absolutely knackered I was looking forward to getting out on the bank, so booked myself into Airsprungs match on Merritts Lake in Lavington.
I haven’t fished here for over 2 years and wasn’t sure how it would fish, although I was told pellet & paste had been working. My home for the day was peg 12, seemed like a good draw at the top end of the lake. Plumbing up revealed it was a bit deeper than I remember and was grateful for the 90mins setting up time, or it was because Andy Fox takes longer than me!

Since the water was a little clearer than expected, I wasn’t convinced about the advice of fishing as tight as possible to bank where it was about 18 inch deep. Instead I decided to target a flat spot about 1m off the bank where it was about a foot deeper. This also left me the option to go tight in if required or to fish against the p13 pallet at 13m, which offered 2ft of water.

As for bait I really wasn’t sure what to take. The venue used to be a corn, meat & hemp water, but in recent years pellet has been allowed, which had changed the dynamics of how the fish fed. In the end I settled on paste, plus pellet and meat. I also had hemp & caster for feed.

Starting at 6m at the bottom of the slope on paste, I had a carp after 10mins. Regular feeding of 6s via a toss pot with the paste resulted in a few dinks on the float, before a skimmer took the bait. A switch the pellet rig produced a couple of roach & skimmers, but no more carp.

In the meantime Ade opposite had 3 carp, but I wanted to leave the margin to settle, feeding a ½ cup of pellet & hemp, every 15mins. I had my first look after an hour on paste and soon had my 2^nd carp. Over the next couple of hours it was a case of rotating between the margin and the 6m, as not to put either swim under too much pressure, which worked catching a few more carp from the margin and more skimmers from the 6m line.

By the time I was up to 6 carp, Ade was on 8 or 9, catching at 6m. I thought he was catching on the deck, but it transpired he was feeding caster and catching shallow on 6mm pellet. I was reliably informed shallow fishing doesn’t work! There was certainly a few carp moving around shallow and I had set up a long line just in case, but every time I shipped out they would disappear. 

Both my margins and 6m line had slowed down a little, which wasn’t helped by lost fish. Unfortunately the mouths on some of these fish are either very small or badly damaged, which meant a few hook pulls for no particular reason.

 

In an attempt to catch Ade, it was time to blast a few casters at 13m and slap an 8mm pellet around. Within 10mins I had a proper lump and being over 10lb had to weigh it individually. At 13lb 6oz it was certainly worth having, although it wasn’t the biggest on the day. That honour fell to Nick Ince on p2 who had one of 17lb. Walking to the scales gave me an opportunity to see how everyone else was doing. Both Tom Ince (p6) and Steve Musitano (p4) opposite the island had about the 8 or 9 fish which was about what I had.

 

Back at my peg I had another carp shallow, but it had become noticeably cooler and the shallow fish had disappeared. Even Ade had stopped catching and I was left regretting not switching earlier and felt I really missed a window of opportunity.

 

The 6m line was still only producing silvers, so it was time for the margins to kick into life. The 6m margin line was slow going, so with 90mins decided to go longer down the margin to the pallet, which also proved very slow on the meat. A switch to paste resulted in a better response, including a couple of 9lbers and I was catching Ade up. In the end I didn’t quite do enough, claiming 3^rd in what turned out to be a very tight finish.

 

Overall a nice day, in nice surrounding. Just wish I had tried the shallow line earlier.

 

1^st 135- 0 – Steve Musitano – p4

2^nd 134-13 – Ade Tiffin – p18

3^rd 131- 0 – Ken Rayner – p12

4^th 108-10 - Nick Ince – p2

5^th 103- 0 – Dave Wareham – p20

6^th 102- 6 – Tom Ince – p6