Weight – 29lb 12oz
Catch – 5 Carp, 5 Skimmers, 1 Roach, 1 Motherless Minnow
Weather – Mild, breezy & mostly cloudy
Match – Club – 5th out of 16
With 16 anglers booked in I managed to spread everyone around the lake, with most on the favored far bank. I don’t like someone else drawing for me, so as I was holding the draw bag, I saw the pegs on the far bank disappear, leaving me with p22 in the corner. Today’s match was also the semi final for our knockout and I had Andy who beat me in last year’s final. Conveniently he was on p19 on the end bank so at least we could keep an eye on each other.
As I was walking around selecting the pegs, a car pulled into the car park and the occupants got out surveying the lake with the intention of fishing. By the time I walked back round I told 1 of them there was match on, before asking whether they read the big white board at the entrance, which clearly stated that Woodlands was closed. However, despite stopping in front of the board they still managed to miss seeing it!
The weather forecast was for strong winds, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a flat calm lake, although the wind picked up as were setting up. With the expectation of strong winds I didn’t bother with a long pole, only a rig for the margins, plus a method feeder to fish slightly to my left as not to interfere with peg 19 and a straight lead to fish to peg 20 on the end bank.
With the wind blowing down this end I quite fancied it for few a fish, however after 2hrs 25mins I had yet to catch, whilst Andy had 2 carp. After Fridays practice I had decided to concentrate on the method, whilst building my margin swims. I did lose 1 fish and had a few liners, but no fish. Since the wind wasn’t quite as strong as expected (although when I went round to the opposite bank during the weigh in I realized I was slightly sheltered from the worst) I decided to set a shallow pellet rig at 13m after seeing a couple of fish boshing close by. 20mins later I had my 1st carp on 8mm pellet and thought I sussed it, but ½hr later no more followed. They just didn’t want to come in close, although they were boshing further out in ripple.
I was in danger of getting pre-occupied trying to catch shallow, so decided to give it up as a bad job and focus on the margins where I had kept feeding 4mms and corn. After a few rig adjustments, finally started to catch on 6mm expander, unfortunately they were small skimmers, but at least I was catching and I was confident the carp would turn up.
I hooked 6 carp down the edge, losing 2 (1 was definitely fouled as it shot off), but 2 of the 4 landed were proper 8lb fish. Fortunately Andy only had 4 carp, although he lost a couple, so I knew I would be in the knockout final.
The winners came from the middle of the lake, where the fish seemed to be happiest today.
1st 82-8 Kev – p28 (12 carp. 10 in the last 90mins down the edge on worm)
2nd 78- 6 Chris – p13 (shallow 8mm pellet)
3rd 43- 4 Graham – p11
4th 32- 6 Tim – p7
5th 29-12 Ken – p22
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