15/04/12 - Plantations - Main Lake

Weight – 43lb 9oz (18lb 0oz – silvers)
Catch – 16 Skimmers, 7 Carp, 3 Roach, 1 Crucian
Weather – Frosty start. Mostly sunny, but cold northerly wind.
Water Temp – 14.6c – 15.3c
Match – Pole Only Series – rd 3 – 12^th out of 30 overall (7^th out of 10 – sections, 2^nd in silvers)

The 3^rd round of the Paul Frairs series meant it was my turn to be on Plantations pegs 1-19. Due to the northerly wind that had been blowing for most the week, no one really knew whether the fish would have followed the wind into the high numbers. However the one peg everyone wanted was peg 7, so I was disappointed to pull peg 4, whilst Marks Broomsgrove got Kev Perry to pull peg 7 for him.

My peg was on a small point with anglers either side, whilst those that fish the lake regularly said it was a decent peg, but to be honest I thought I would struggle to compete and that’s the way it turned out. I settled on 2 swims at 14m fished at angles. To my right I started with toss potted 3 & 4mm pellet and to my left I potted ½ a cup of pellet, catapulting 4s over the top. I also started feeding 6mm cubes of meat over my short line for later. Due to the anglers either side I didn’t have a margin to fish which was disappointing.

After an hour I had 5 skimmers all on 4mm expander, but it was really slow going. Andy to my right already had a couple of carp on paste, including one about 10lb, plus pegs 12 & 19 had also caught. The 2^nd hour was much the same and I was struggling to get a run of fish together.

An early look over the short meat line, resulted in a bumped carp and a big skimmer. I tried here a couple of times throughout the match, but other than a couple of quick bites I didn’t have anything. Those carp didn’t want to come in close.

Having feed pellet by catapult over my left hand swim, I was hopeful of catching a few, but again I couldn’t get a run together. I caught all my carp from here, plus some better skimmers on hard 6s, but it was a case of continual rotation. Since my right hand swim had failed to produce for a while, decided to pot some meat and pellet, which produced a nice crucian on meat, but other than a couple of quick bites no more fish followed.

With 45mins left 2 handfuls of caster went in at the bottom of the near shelf on my top 3. 15mins later I had 2 skimmers for 5lb which turned out to be crucial as I demoted Andy Hockin on my left into 3^rd in silvers.

A difficult day. The fish had obviously followed the wind, since the better weights came from that end with Simon on p12 winning with 113lb mostly on corn. Mark Broomsgrove came 2^nd from p7 with 70lb. In hindsight, I perhaps should have feed more, since a couple of anglers including Andy to my right who caught mostly on paste had feed 2-3pts of pellet. I could have also tried shallow and a couple of anglers opposite did catch shallow, however they weren’t catching any quicker than me, plus I didn’t want to miss out on any silvers. Finally my 7 carp were a smaller stamp than normal and I probably missed out on 10-15lb as a result.

Not a complete disaster thanks to my silvers and I am now currently lying 6^th in the overalls and 6^th in the silvers. Fingers crossed for a couple of decent draws in the remaining matches.

1^st 113- 4 – Simon Carvello – plantations 12
2^nd 81- 2 – Rod Wootton - plantations 30
3^rd 70-11 – Mark Broomsgrove – plantations 7
4^th 66-14 – Brian Slipper – plantations 27
5^th 66- 2 – Andy Hayson – plantations 18
6^th 65- 6 – Dave Wride – acorns match lake 1