Catch - 26 Carp
Weather - Sunny with light breeze
Match - Wests Tackle Open - 2nd out of 20
A change of scenery today. I would have fished Lands End, but Tony had yet to make a decision about whether he was fishing so I booked in with Wests.
Reports so far had suggested the lake has been fishing well, with 4 tons in yesterday’s match, although there were only 11 fishing. With 20 today the fishing was likely to be a little harder, but at least it looked like being a decent day weather wise.
Pegging today meant peg 1 was on the far side opposite the
reeds, then peg 2 by the car park rotating clockwise round the lake. I drew p20
in a peg called the “snag pit” and as you can see from the photo it’s a bit of
a trek to get to the peg. Needless to say Mark was pleasure fishing on peg 1,
which brought a few groans at the draw.
Most of the pegs on this side of the lake have deeper
margins, because the land owner uses a digger to de-silt close in. However plumbing
around discovered it was the same depth all around, just over a foot deep.
Yesterday was cold & wet and I fully expected a slow start in such shallow
water. As well as 2 pole rigs, a HB Billybob 0.1g > .14 > 16 B911 to fish
at 13m & a HB AK47 0.1g > .16 > 16 B911 to fish the margin, I also
brought my tip rod, thinking about setting up a method feeder, but instead
decided on the straight lead, feeding 8s at 25m.
On the all in a mixture of micros & 6s was deposited at
13m to my left where it was slightly deeper and started at 13m to my right in
the slightly shallower water toss potting 6s. After 20mins I hadn’t had a bite
from either swim so switched to the straight lead & meat, catching 2 carp
before the end of the first hour.
Moving into the 2nd hour a switch to 6mm expander
resulted in getting bites quicker and 3 carp, followed by 2 carp on the pole on
4mm expander. Over the pole line it was the left hand swim which produced, whilst
the right hand swim didn’t produce a bite despite a couple of attempts
throughout the match.
The 3rd & 4th hours were very
slow. It was a case of catch a carp from 1 swim, before switching to another,
landing 3 on the pole and 2 on the lead, but losing 3 carp to snags didn’t help
my cause. I kept feeding 6s over the pole line and eventually the carp seemed
to be more settled with 11 more carp on 6mm expander in the last 2hrs. I had also
started feeding meat & little hemp into the margins, but this only produced
3 smaller carp in the last 2hrs.
I was in shouting distance of Mark and knew he had beaten
me, but wasn’t sure about the anglers to my right, because I couldn’t see anyone,
other than the anglers opposite on the lawns. After the initial slow start I
had an enjoyable end to the match and the new pole had a proper workout as I
had to stop a few carp from diving into snags, which gave me confidence that I
have brought the right pole.
As for today many struggled in the bright conditions, particularly
those that fished paste or meat and I think a few attacked there swims a little
too much, forgetting it’s still only April.
1st 118-14 – Mark Poppleton – p1
2nd 86- 8 – Ken Rayner – p20
3rd 73- 2 – Ady McTiffin – p9
4th 63- 2 – Paul Sims – p11
5th 43- 6 – Tim Martin - p8
6th 39- 0 – Bryan Neale – p17
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