16/03/14 - Lands End - Johns

Weights - DNW - tipped back 30lb
Catch - 5 Carp, 8 Skimmers, 2 F1, 1 Roach
Weather - Sunny, but windy
Match - Open

With the weather picking up and reports of big weights yesterday I was looking forward to good days fishing. With 16 of us, 10 would be on Match Lake and 6 on 1 side of Johns Lake (41-55). I was happy enough with p55, however it can be a boom or bust peg. When I got my peg I was concerned it wouldn’t be my day, because the wind was quite strong blowing down the lake and the only place with no ripple was my peg, which from experience is not a good thing. However I thought I might be able to draw some fish from the pegs opposite, that was until a father and his 2 sons turned up to fish pegs 56,57 & 58.

Today would be about targeting carp since the peg doesn’t have any silvers form and with that in mind rigs were set up to fish pellet, meat & corn.

To cut a long & boring story short, there didn’t appear to be many fish in the peg. After 3 hrs, I managed 2 carp & an F1 at 14m in open water on corn, but I couldn’t get a bite by the spit or under the tree to my right. With no bites over next 90mins I was really scratching my head what to do next. I decided to keep a positive feeding regime of meat/caster under the right hand tree, changing from pellet/corn by the spit to meat/caster, more meat & caster down the left hand bank and a new open water swim with a big pot of pellet/corn.

The last 90mins proved to be my best. Over the pellet/corn I had all my skimmers & another F1, but no carp. Under the tree only produced 1 carp, which was a surprise, but the real surprise was the fact I couldn’t catch by the spit. After regularly potting in meat/caster with no response, a full pot of caster/meat was dumped in with 30mins to go. Needless to say I had 2 carp in the last 5mins.

I think it was only coincidence that I started catching when the pleasure anglers left, whilst the kids running around didn’t help, I genuinely believe I would have struggled regardless, it just wasn’t my day, bring an end to 8 straight Lands End pickups, so no complaints.

Overall the venue fished very, very well, which I was really pleased to see. Mike has received some unjustified stick about the lack of fish, but it was obvious today and yesterday that this simply isn’t the case. Saturdays open was won with 170lb and the best silvers weight was 44lb. personally I think the constant change between high & low pressure over the winter upset the fish.

1^st 155- 1 – Martin Lenaghan – p21
2^nd 131- 3 – Martin Rayett – p42
3^rd 125- 9 – Tony Rixon – p19
4^th 115- 5 – Shaun Townsend – p11
5^th 113- 2 – Adrian Jefferies – p17
6^th 97- 3 – Chris Davis – p41

Silvers
1^st 32- 4 – Shaun Townsend – p11
2^nd 25-12 – Tony Rixon – p19
3^rd 24-12 – Steve Seagar – p3