27/10/13 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 28lb 8oz (19lb 12oz - silvers)
Catch - 18 Perch, 7 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Tench, 3 Carp
Weather - Showery and windy
Match - Avon Angling Open - 1st silvers on match (4th silvers overall)

Today had originally been booked for a MFS match, however unless the match is at Viaduct, getting a decent number of anglers to commit is difficult, because there isn’t a high concentration of MFS anglers in the South West, with us being spread around from Bristol, down to Yeovil and across to Bournemouth. So rather than lose the date it proved ideal for as a practice match for the Winter League starting in 2 weeks.

A bit of cock up at the draw on my part, as I put 23 pegs in the bucket instead of 22. I should have double checked the list, but never mind. The peg not drawn was 21 and Trigger drew 19, who doesn’t need to any help to frame at the moment, but gifting him a space peg meant he was favourite to win.

Fabio drew 24 for me, leaving yesterday’s winning p7 for himself. The last couple of times on 24 it’s been Ok, but I wasn’t that confident today, since the bulk of the fish seemed to be in the central area of the lake. For the second match running Keith Fielder was opposite on p1 and Clive Feddery to my left on p22.

I set up a couple rigs to cover both carp and silvers, but only caught on 2.
- HB billybob 0.1g - > .14 > 16 B911, later changed down to .12 > 16 B911 (tight to the end bank)
- HB chump 0.4g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet

With storm St Jude on its way, we were quite fortunate the wind was blowing from behind, which meant the trees acted as a wind break and we could all fish the pole sensibly.

On the all in caster was deposited at 6m to my left at an angle, micros & 4s at 14 at the bottom of the shelf and then 4s tight in to the bank at 14m. First drop in on pellet against the end bank resulted in a carp, but it was a loner and I couldn’t get a proper bite other than from little fish nipping at the pellet.

So after 30mins and only 1 carp, it was time to see whether I could catch any silvers. The decision was made easier by Keith who wasn’t fishing long against the end bank, which meant any carp weren’t under any pressure to come my side. So I started to feed caster against the end bank, which resulted in a run of perch on double caster ranging from 4oz up to 1½lb, before that line died. Since there wasn’t any carp about I also switched down to a .12 bottom which brought a few more bites.

I had kept the 6m line topped up with caster and eventually caught a decent skimmer, then a tench on double dead maggot, but it was slow going. It was then just a case of rotating swims, because I couldn’t catch more than 2 fish before the swim died.

With just over 2hrs to go, my swims seemed to have died.  Fishing towards p23 pallet only produced 1 little perch, a few smallish fish came from 6m and a few more perch from the end bank. The pellet line was the surprise, since I was expecting a few fish, but only had a small carp and a roach.

It was time to try something different so a cup of caster with some micros was deposited at 13m in open water. Whilst that settled I had a decent tench from my pellet line, plus a big perch from 6m. Initially when I went over the dumped caster I had a roach, so left it for another 10mins, when I had a proper skimmer, quickly followed by 2 one pounders.

After the slow start I was gradually putting together a decent net of silvers. By continuing to rotate swims, a couple more perch & skimmers were put in the net. In the end I nearly ran of caster, as I fed 2pts to keep my swims.

Clive who had been targeting the silvers, packed up early and the only other person to have caught any of silvers was Martin McMahon on p11. Fabio tried to wind me saying he had a load, but I knew it wasn’t true, because I overheard him shouting to Trigger at the end of the match about the lack of silvers showing. However, at least I didn’t go 9lb over my net limit, dropping me from 3^rd to 5^th on the lake!

Martin’s silvers weighed 14-11, which meant I picked up the silvers for Match Lake. Trigger made full use of the extra room romping home to win. Allan Oram won Speci Lake with 135-6 from p34, whilst Mike West won the speci lake silvers with 36-8 of mostly perch on caster. With the colour starting to drop out, those perch are definitely on the munch.

1^st 177- 9 – Craig Edmonds – p19
2^nd 135- 6 – Allan Oram – p34
3^rd 112- 5 – Tony Rixon – p17
4^th 101-11 – Tom Mangnall – p13
5^th 98- 4 – Mike Duckett – p3
6^th 94- 3 – Phil Harding – p6

Silvers
1^st 36- 8 – Mike West – p39
2^nd 27- 8 – Kev Molton – p36
3^rd 24- 0 – Allan Oram – p34
4^th 19-12 – Ken Rayner – p24