Catch - 12 Carp, 3 Roach, 1 F1, 1 Skimmer
Weather - Warm & sunny
Match - Gary Wall Memorial - 19th out of 29, 7th out of 11-lake
With 7 straight pick ups, my run had to come to an end
sooner rather than later. There was a club knock up between pegs 13-24, which
meant only 5 pegs were available on Match Lake, with everyone else split
between Speci & Johns Lake.
When the draw was called, I was still unpacking the
car, so decided to continue loading my trolley, because I was going to be at
the back of the queue anyway. The last peg left was 58, which I was happy
enough with, although it can be a bit of a boom or bust peg, but usually reliable
for a few fish.
For company I had Tim Ford opposite on 55 and Adrian
Jeffrey was to my left on 61. Having fished this peg a few times in the past I
knew silvers were out of the question and the depth all over was pretty much
the same, even tight to the island and down the margin.
Decided on a 3 pronged approach, pellet by the island,
meat/hemp 13m to my right by the brambles and meat at 5m to my left. Since
there was a few fish moving around, I started on a long line swinger rig,
feeding 6s by the island, which produced a few fish, but with the bright flat
conditions they were proving very cagey. The situation wasnt helped by the
overhanging sedges which I caught a few times in an attempt to get tight to the
island, which was proving impossible. I even tried a really short rig so I
could poke between the sedges, lifting and dropping, but it wasn’t right.
The right hand bramble swim was my most productive on
8mm meat, but I had to wait longer than expected to get a bite. After 4hrs I
had 10 carp, which was probably just ahead of Tim and Adrian, but news was
filtering down that they were catching at the other end of the lake.
Unfortunately my last 2 hours only produced 2 carp.
Trying to catch shallow by the island was proving frustrating so decided to be
really positive and give them a pot (in fact it got 4 pots over the last 2hrs)
to get their heads down. This only produced one small carp, plus little knocks
from small silvers pecking at the pellet. My right bramble swim, which I
expected to get stronger towards the end, just died and again small silvers
started pecking at the meat. As for my 5m line, which I feed religiously for
the duration produced one lost carp when the hook pulled, which was either very
big or foul hooked, plus a skimmer.
After his initial catch and release policy, Tim
started to get regular bites over his paste line, but unfortunately for him
they were only small 2lb fish. Ultimately we were at the wrong end of the lake,
with the top 3 weights coming from the bottom 4 pegs. The smaller carp transferred
from lake 4 are a good sign for the Winter League, so hopefully this lake won’t
be quite as patchy as previous years.
So I couldn’t make it 8 consecutive picks up. Had I
fished the match again, I would have probably repeated what I did today, with
the exception of potting pellet to the island. In hindsight I should have just
kept catapulting the pellet in the hope they would switch on properly late on. All
ifs, buts and maybes!
1st 211- 2 - Craig Edmunds - p9
2nd 134- 6 - Anton Page - p42
3rd 129-14 - Tom Thick - p5
4th 114- 8 - Tony Rixon - p32
5th 101- 7 - Scott Puddy - p26
6th 99- 7 - Clint Wotlyla - p70
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