19/04/14 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 33lb 4oz (22lb 12oz - silvers)
Catch - 4 Carp, 15 Perch, 8 F1, 4 Roach, 3 Skimmers, 2 Crucians, 1 Tench, 1 Hybrid
Weather - Cold overnight. Sunny all day, but cool easterly breeze
Match - Open - 2nd out of 15 - silvers (12th overall)

Back to one of my favourite venues today, which has been fishing well recently and I was looking forward to giving my new pole a proper try out. 15 had booked in today, so it was decided to put 10 on Match and 5 on one side of Johns (41-55).

I found myself on p11 which is a peg I have drawn more often than any other on the lake, so at least I’m familiar with the terrain, however recently it hasn’t been the best area, although Rod did have 44lb of skimmers last week. Overnight was very cold, so I fully expected a slow start, but on arriving to my peg an easterly breeze was blowing into the peg and was a little concerned that I might struggle, because typically the fish retreat to the more sheltered side of the lake in these conditions.

I had decided today would be a pellet & meat, however due to the cold overnight I was beginning to regret not bring more than 1pt of caster. On the all in micros & 4s were deposited at 5m & 13m to my right in open water, meat/hemp under the p10 pallet and finally some caster/meat by the reeds on the island.

Starting across on a HB Billybob 0.1g > .12 > 16 B911 & double caster I soon had a perch, followed by a small carp, then a few more perch. As expected it was a slow start for many, although Dave Sawyer opposite on p13 already started catching silvers including some skimmers on caster at 4m.

After an hour I had no more carp from the reeds, only perch. Neither of the pellet lines produced and only one perch came on meat by p10 pallet. The next hour was very slow, so decided to stick with fishing caster across keep catching perch which weren’t any bigger than 4-5oz and hope for a few better fish to turn up, but only had an F1 and no carp. I had kept toss potting caster with some meat, occasionally trying meat on the hook, but caster was producing the bites.

Moving in the 4hr hour I finally caught a skimmer over the pellet, catching 3 in the space of 20mins, but these were the only skimmers I had all match, which were replaced by tiny roach. I really wasn’t sure want to do, there just didn’t seem to be many feeding fish in the swim. Dave opposite was still catching at 4m, including some unwanted carp and Martin Pettifer on p15 was also catching carp, as was Rich Lovering on p18.

I had already started pinging 6s towards the point of the island and had already tried swinging a shallow pellet rig at the odd fish I could see, but they weren’t interested and every time I put the pole anywhere near the island any fish that were there disappeared. It probably wasn’t helped that the water levels looked to have dropped from there winter levels, which meant it wasn’t as deep as normal tight to the island.

I managed another 2 carp over my deep water pellet lines, but they were only small and it was becoming obvious that I was nowhere near framing, because the pegs on the other side of the lake kept catching carp and I did notice peg 1 landing a few as well. My meat line still failed to produce, so in the last 90mins decided to go back to the reed bed by the island with caster and hope a few better fish showed up. As it happens I couldn’t get the rig in quick enough as the perch were replaced by F1s, crucians, a tench and a small carp, to finish the match strongly. My only regret was bring 1pt of caster, ideally another pint would have changed how I approached the match and no doubt would have caught more silvers, by setting a 2^nd caster swim.

Overall the lake fished well, although generally the skimmers didn’t feed in any numbers, but those that were caught had tubercles on their heads so they will be spawning soon.

1^st 129- 3 – Martin Pettifer – p15
2^nd 108- 3 – Rich Lovering – p18
3^rd 78- 8 – Rod Wootton – p50
4^th 75- 7 – Steve – p1
5^th 74- 0 – Chris K – p54
6^th 73-15 – Steve Seagar – p41

Silvers
1^st 30- 4 – Dave Sawyer – p13
2^nd 22-12 – Ken Rayner – p11
3^rd 18- 0 – Rod Wootton – p50