Catch - 43 Skimmers, 6 Carp, 2 Roach
Weather - Cold & foggy start. Sunny later, but cool northerly breeze
Match - West Tackle Open - 1st out of 11
Larford is one of those venues I have always wanted to visit and when I found out that West Tackle was running an open on Arena Lake I wanted to book in.
Unfortunately a few couldnt make it due to a winter league on the river, plus Steve broke down on the motorway, which meant 3 more couldnt fish, leaving just the 11 of us.
Arena is the smallest of 3 lakes at Larford, with Match & Specimen Lake being the most popular (and famous). Arena is rectangular, wider at the car park end, becomig narrower at the far end and has 44 pegs, so with 11 of us we had plenty of space, Fishery rules meant we had to buy their own pellets, limited to 4x 100g (3pt) bags for a 5hr match. 6hr matches arent allowed, but the good news was Arena is float only, so no lead chucking which I was happy about.
The only information I was able to glean, was the lake was deep, with carp averaging between 2-10lb and skimmers. Tactics are to fish down the margins, short and a long line.
It was another cold morning, with fog and mist for most of the journey and by the time we had the draw at 9.15 you could just about see the whole lake. I drew 16 which is in the middle of the right hand bank, which meant absolutely nothing to me, in fact everyone was fishing this one blind.
Plumbing up revealed about 3ft down the margins. However there wasnt any discernable shelf and at 5m I had 6ft of water, before it gently sloped away to nearly 7ft at 12m. Speaking to the fishery manager after the match he said there had been a couple of cold nights, plus heavy rain that had knocked the colour out of the water.
I really wasnt convinced the short line would be the place to start, instead I started at 12m, feeding a small ball of grounbait and a few 4s. On the 6m line I started feeding pellet and corn every 10mins.
Starting at 12m using a HB Chump 0.5g (0.12 >18 B911), I soon started to catch skimmers and by the end of the first hour I had a dozen skimmers and 2 carp, all on 4mm expander. Nick to my right also had a good start and we were neck & neck.
It became obvious the fish wanted a bit of grub and I kept the fish coming by feeding a nugget of groundbait with a few 4s, every second fish by a toss pot. Moving into the 2nd hour the fishing became difficult, then I lost a big carp, which broke me, unsettling the shoal. I decided to step up to a 0.14 hooklength, but bites were a little slower, so I switched back to 0.12 and during the 3rd hour I was catching really well. The pattern for the day was to keep feeding every second fish and when ever bites became iffy, I cupped in a larger ball and a few pellets. I also had to dot down the float, becuase most bites were just little dips.
Whilst I let that settle I would try my short line, catching a carp straight away on corn. I then pulled out of the second before that line died.
The sun finally made an appearance at 1pm which meant most of us could warm up a bit and by 2pm a cool northerly wind picked up blowing into my face.
My long line had slowed up, but I wasnt too worried, becuase at least my margins now had some ripple and I hoped the carp would be more willing to come in over the groundbait maggot and caster I had deposited. Alas I only had 1 carp on double corn and in reality I spent too long looking for another.
With my long line slowing down, I decided to start a new long line at an angle to my left feeding only pellet and corn. By switching between the two, I managed to keep the fish coming, albeit slower than before. My short line also produced a few fish towards the end, but it was slow going. 4mm expander was definately the best bait, whilst corn only produced the odd fish. In total I fed 3pts of groundbait and about a pint of 4s over the long line.
Nick had struggled towards the end, but I noticed Mark catching strongly towards the end and I thought it would be close between the 2 of us. I was first to weigh and my skimmers went 49lb. I must admit I thought I had a little more than that, but some of the skimmers were a bit thin and scrawny. Had they been a bit plumper then it could have been 55lb. My 6 carp however weighed a little more than expected giving me a total 82-10. Nick had 55lb which inlcuded 23lb of skimmers. Mark had slightly overestimated his skimmers, probably for the same reason I did weighing 33lb, whilst his 10 carp brought his total to 80-14. So less than 2lb in it.
Considering the conditions I was really pleased. Its been a while since I had 49lb of skimmers and I would be quite happy to make a return viist.
1st - 82-10 - Ken Rayner - p16
2nd - 80-14 - Mark Poppleton - p22
3rd - 58- 0 - Kev - p40
4th - 55-10 - Nick Merry - p19
5th - 39-15 - Andy Fox - p36
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