Catch - 27 Carp, 13 Skimmers, 2 F1, 1 Tench, 1 Rudd
Weather - Sunny, cool northerly gusty wind
Water Temp - 18.6c - 19.9c
Match - Pole Only Series - rd 5 - 5th out of 22 overall (5th in section)
The 5th and penultimate round of the Pole Only series and it was my turn to fish Paddocks Lake, whilst the remainder had the joys of Horseshoe Lake at Plantations. I was a bit undecided how to approach the match, whether to go for carp or silvers. With the way the series has gone for me silvers looked like the better option in terms of potential overall payout. I was lying 5th with the top 3 being paid out and excluding my dropped result I had 3x 2nd, however the top 3 to date had dropped very few points.
So it would be down to the draw and when I saw peg 3 staring back at me, I thought “OK, silvers it is” But as is usual with leagues that are coming to a close, there was a number of anglers who decided not to fish and when peg 5, the carp flyer to my left wasn’t drawn it put a different perspective om matters. Paul Frairs who draw peg 1, was being less that subtle about the fact I should fish for carp, particularly with the space to my left, thus leaving him free to plunder the silvers (Paul - told you I would put it on the blog, but we wont mention the carp that dived under my platform, between my keepnets, leaving me to thread my top kit the same way! Oops too late).
In truth, now I had some space to my left, I didn’t need much persuasion to go for carp, but various rigs were set up to cover all options just in case. Rigs for the day, was a HB ratcatcher 2 .17 > 16 B960 for hair rigged 8mm, the same rig as Thursday, HB Chump 0.4g, .12 > 16B911 for fishing soft pellet, HB Shindig 0.3g .14 > 18 B911 hair rigging 6mm pellet down the track, HB Billybob 0.2g .16 > 16 B911 meat down my the next pallet and finally a Jolly 4x14 for fishing caster short, but I never used it.
The northerly wind was an issue, as well as been quite cool it was also quite gusty, so catapulting pellet to the far bank was a case timing between gusts, needless to say, some landed on the island, whilst some fell short.
On the all-in micros and 4mms were deposited down the track and I went straight across to the far bank with 8mm pellet. Within 30mins I had 2x small carp, but although there was a few carp showing, they weren’t taking the bait with any confidence. So rather than keep chasing shadows, I went down the track were I spent the next couple hours, catching a few skimmers and a few carp in between, toss potting 4s. The wind was creating a fair bit of tow against the wind and some of the better fish came by holding back, then letting go – just like being on the river. Since more carp were showing I decided to switch rigs to the HB Shindig, but caught more skimmers! Typical catch carp on the skimmer rig and skimmers on your carp rig.
After a few hours the swim needed a rest, so switched back to the far bank were I had been continually feeding 6s, but the fish didn’t really want to be there and other than a lost foul hooker, no further carp were forthcoming.
With 2½hrs to go I was up to 10 carp and really hoping that by feeding meat to the pallet on peg 4 that I would make up some lost ground on the pegs behind me, particularly since my far line wasn’t producing and every time I looked back when shipping my pole, either Lance (p38) or Dave (p36) were landing fish.
A further 17 carp from the pallet, including 2 from the right hand margin was certainly useful, however the average stamp was on the small side, which was unfortunate and meant I was about 15lb shy of what I would expect. Not that it would have helped since the 3 pegs behind me all weighed a ton and any chance of an overall pick up in the series has gone. Nick Harvey on p7 who was fishing towards the end of the island (where peg 5 is) weighed 77lb, which probably illustrates that the concentration of fish in our area wasn’t as high as pegs 36,38 and 40.
Paddocks was definitely the lake to be on, with Horseshoe Lake being patchy with 58lb being the best weight, plus there was only a handful of silvers caught with 1lb 9oz picking up in 1 section.
1st 122- 6 - Lance Tucker - p38.
2nd 116-14 - Lewy - p40
3rd 100-12 - Dave Wride - p36
4th 76-15 - Nick Harvey - p7
5th 73-10 - Ken Rayner - p3
6th 58- 3 - Simon Carvello - Horseshoe Lake
Silvers
1st 31- 0 - Paul Frairs - p1
2nd 20- 4 - Lance Tucker - p38
3rd 18-10 - Mike Owens - p34
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