16/05/13 - Leechpool

Weight - 38lb 6oz
Catch - 35 Carp, 18 Skimmers
Weather - Bright & sunny, cold later
Match - Evening Float Only rd2 - 7th out of 9

At least we managed to avoid the showers, although we could see 1 or 2 coming quite close. On arrival the sun was out, which felt quite warm and there seemed to be plenty of fish moving around, so a good evening fishing was expected.

The lake was pegged with peg 1 in the cattle drink on the far bank, working anti clock wise round to peg 9 next to the farmhouse. There was a gentle breeze blowing into pegs 1 & 2, which I quite fancy, but ended up on the first peg on the long bank. Mark suggested that fishing down the right hand margin would be good, because last year he had a big weight doing that, but plumbing up revealed it was very shallow.

Since everyone arrived early we managed to get going at 5.45 instead of 6.00. My main rig was HB billybob 0.2g > .16 > 16 B911, which I would fish at 8m. After cupping in some 4s, I tried fishing paste next to the tree on my left where I had seen a few fish topping, but after 1 bumped fish in 3 put ins, I didn't waste too much time.

Back out to 8m and I was catching small carp, with 6mm expander, being better than 4mm. After an hour I was up to 22 fish, including 2 skimmers. Unfortunately the fishing just got slower as the evening went on and more skimmers started showing, which is always an indication there isn't many carp around.

I ended up having to chase the fish out to 11m and dropping down to a .14 hooklength to keep the fish coming. As for the margins I only had 1 carp. I think the problem was the evening turned quite chilly and my margin was shaded from the sun by a big tree.

I'm not sure what went wrong, but I think as it got cooler the fish simply moved out into a deeper/warmer area.

1st 104- 6 - Tony Gilbert - p1
2nd 80- 8 - Pete Neate - p2
3rd 67- 0 - Ian Willitts - p5
4th 62-14 - Mark Poppleton - p9