05/01/13 - Lands End - Speci

Weight - 21lb 2oz (15lb 9oz - silvers)
Catch - 6 Perch, 3 Roach, 2 Chub, 1 Skimmer, 1 Carp
Weather - Mild & still
Match - Open - 5th out of 6 (3rd - silvers)

To keep everything fair for the Winter League on Sunday, today’s match was on Speci, as it has been for the 2 previous rounds.

Had I written this blog immediately after the match, it would have been very short and full of expletives. I should have at finished 2nd overall or at least won the silvers by a comfortable margin, but my run of poor form was set to continue.

I was happy with p40, in fact my 2 previous visits to the peg has resulted in match wins, so I started full of optimism. The water was a little clearer than expected and according to Mike who was opposite on 25 the water was “chocolate” yesterday, but I still expected a few fish to feed following a settled period of mild weather.

With plenty of space 4 swims were targeted. Down the right hand bank towards the cage, 14.5m straight ahead and at an angle towards the island and finally to my left by the overhanging branches.

Starting down the right hand bank on caster I didn’t have a bite, but a switch to maggot produced a carp, which promptly bust me, when it tried to snag me in the nearside bushes. 10mins later I was attached to another carp which I lost when the hook pulled, as did a 3rd, although that one was at least foul hooked.

This set the tone for the rest of the match. The carp had disappeared from the right hand margin, to be replaced by big perch, which kept coming off the hook, which wasn’t frustrating at all! The problem was the fish would drop off as I was shipping back, which I don’t think is helped by the awkward angle you have to ship back at due to the high bank. I even lost a big 3lb F1 at the net, when the hook pulled.

My straight 14.5m swim had been kept topped up with 3s only produced 1 bite, whilst the 14.5m left hand swim, which I loose fed with 4s produced a big skimmer and a carp on soft pellet. The swim by the overhanging branches had been regularly fed with caster and eventually produced a couple chub and perch, but even here the perch were dropping off.

Needless to say come the end of the match I was really disappointed. I thought I had slightly more silvers than Mike, but losing 8 big perch, 1 F1 and 3 carp ultimately was too many, with Mike actually winning the silvers with 17-14. You come to expect to lose a few a perch, due to their boney mouths, but that lost F1 would have been enough.

Taking the positives out of the situation, at least I got my tactics right to put myself in the position to win, but for what ever reason I cant buy a result at the moment and lost fish at the net has cost me money on the 2 last matches at Lands End. Coupled with some poor draws I am now on my worst run of 7 matches without a pick up.

1^st 35- 6 – Mike West – p33

2^nd 29- 2 – Dave Wescott – p27

3^rd 24- 4 – Jim Jenner – p31

4^th 23- 5 – Tom Mangnall – p32

5^th 21- 2 – Ken Rayner – p40

 

Silvers

1^st 17-14 – Mike Duckett – p25

2^nd 17- 9 – Tom Mangnall – p32

3^rd 15- 9 – Ken Rayner – p40