Monday, 8 September 2025

07/09/25 - Lavington - Ellis

Weight - 86lb 2oz (6lb 6oz - silvers)
Catch - 11 Carp, 9 Skimmers, 1 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Thundery showers in morning, clearer in the afternoon.
Match - Club (14 fished) - 2nd overall

No fishing last weekend as Abi and I stayed over at friends, for a welcome break.

Today was the John Lowe Memorial following Johns passing over 3 years now. With 14 booked on, Martin was able to give everyone a spare peg either side, but it was expected to be a tough match.

I was happy with p10. It’s normally the end peg, however with the extra anglers, I had Tim Lynch on p13. As I had no island to target the rods stayed in the bag and as I wasn’t sure how the lake would fish, I decided to cover all options as the start and see how it goes.

On the all-in I fed 2 balls of groundbait (Coco Squid : Crushed Expander) with kriller micros and 4s at 11m in 6ft of water, plus pellet and corn (covered in Baninion Boost) at 11m off to my right.

Whilst that settled I cupped in a small amount of 7mm meat (covered in Sludge Boost) by the right hand lillies. I caught a micro perch on the first drop in and then a 8lb carp on the second.

No more followed so I rotated between the groundbait swim where I picked up small skimmers on 4mm expander and 3 better skimmers on corn over the 11m right hand swim.

At the halfway point (5hr match) I felt there were 3 anglers leading the way, but generally it seemed to be slow going for most. As I wasn’t catching much in my deeper water swims, I decided to focus on the margins, targeting the left side where it was 2ft deep with CoCo Squid paste over micros and 4s and by the right side lillies where it was 3ft deep.

I had to keep rotating swims to keep catching. The right side produced the better stamp fish up to nearly 11lb and quickly caught up those ahead of me.

A moment of frustration was seeing someone’s rig (attached to a carp) move into my right-hand swim. When the float dipped, I hooked the rig rather than the carp. Unfortunately, the rig was hooked in the tail and after 5mins eventually I lost the fish in a snag, after it trashed my left-hand margin. I did recover the errant rig which I returned to its owner Paul Fryer at the end of the match.

After the commotion the fish returned, although it was not as prolific as I hoped. In hindsight, I may have fed too much down the left margin, as I struggled to get a clean bite in the last 15mins. Even fishing double corn didn’t help.

On the all-out I thought I was in with a shout of framing. Fortunately, the stamp of fish I caught helped me to 2nd place.


1.   
99-10 – Andy Almond – p23
2.    86-  2 – Ken Rayner – p10
3.    76-14 – Paul Fryer – p2
4.    73-  8 – Martin C – p6
5.    69-  6 – Steve Musitano – p31
Silvers
1.    19-13 – Steve Musitano – p31
2.    18-  8 – Tom Ince – p19
3.    16-  4 – Tim Lynch – p13

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