Weight – 53lb 2oz
Catch – 7 Carp, 10 Roach
Weather – Mostly cloudy, bright later. Cool westerly.
Water Temp – 7.6c – 7.8c
Match – Club Christmas Match – 1st out of 13
As well as being our Christmas match, today was also the last match in our club series, as well as the final for the knockout. With 2 matches to go I had a comfortable 11pt lead, but lost 7pts to Andy on the Little Lake last month. As for the knockout, I hoped it would be 3rd time lucky, because the 2 previous times I reached the final I fell at the last hurdle.
Reports suggested the fish were shying away from too much feed and looking at the results from yesterday’s match showed a winning weight of 51lb (Vince Shipp), but half the field, which included Des Shipp, didn’t weigh and the best silvers weight was only 6lb.
I found myself on peg 31, which initially I wasn’t impressed with. It’s situated on the island opposite the road bank, which we decided not to include it, because it had been fishing awful, with only one weighing in from yesterday match, so I wasn’t optimistic. However the big consolation was I had loads of space, with the next peg being around the corner of the island on peg 35. So I was billy no mates and couldn’t see anyone.
With so few silvers showing, I decided to ignore trying to catch any roach and only set up 1 pole rig (0.4g HB frostie, .12 bottom, 18 silverfish pellet) to fish soft pellet and maggot. I also set-up a lead rod to search the swim and a 3AAA Crystal Insert Waggler.
5mins before the all in a carp topped about 35m out. At least there was some in the area, which was confidence booster. On the all-in I went straight out at 12m on 4mm expander without feeding to see whether there was any fish close in. After 10mins I missed a bite, before connecting with the next 10mins later, landing a 5lber.
So with the blank avoided, I cast the lead with double hair rigged corn to where the carp had previously topped. In the meantime I toss potted a pinch of micros, plus a couple of maggots over the pole line, as well as a big toss pot of bait 13m to my left and finally started to catapult caster almost at right angles to my right, in front of peg 32.
For the next 30mins I was getting loads of liners on the lead but no fish. I had a gut feeling the waggler might work, so I cast it as far as I could with double maggot. Over the next 90mins I had 4 carp, including a near 10lber which decided to kite right around the island, which meant I had to stand on my seat box in attempt to hold the rod as high as possible to avoid getting snagged on the platforms (I couldn’t walk round due to the shrubby).
The carp seemed to have sulked away, because I started to catch the occasional roach. Whilst fishing the waggler I kept the pole line topped up with a pinch of bait, as well as continuing to catapult caster to my right, where I had a few roach, but they weren’t really coming regularly.
With an hour to go, I was wondering where my next carp would come from, when a carp topped to the right of where I had previously caught. 15mins later I had a carp on double corn and my final carp came on the pole with 10mins remaining.
I thought I only had 35-40lb, so was a bit surprised to weigh 53lb. As it turned out it really didn’t matter, because the rest of the lake really didn’t fish well, with the next best weight being only 9-14. In fact the rest of the field only weighed 44lb in total, so this was probably my most convincing win.
Being the last club match, meant I am now the club champion, the club lake champion and the knockout winner.
1st 53- 2 – Ken – p31
2nd 9-14 – Don – p15
3rd 9- 2 - Kevin – p11
4th 9- 1 – Andy – p13
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