Tuesday, 10 June 2014

08/06/14 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 36lb 4oz (18lb 4oz - silvers)
Catch - 4 Carp, 14 Perch, 10 Skimmers, 6 Rudd, 4 Roach, 1 Crucian
Weather - Mostly sunny and windy, later heavy showers
Match - Club - 3rd out of 13

I think it’s fair to say the carp really need to spawn, because they are just not feeding properly at the moment. Following a couple of days of warm weather 2 weeks ago, they were ready to go, but since it’s been cool & cloudy. Hopefully this weeks forecast of constant warm weather will prove correct and the carp can get it out of their systems.

Following yesterdays struggle, I was expecting another for today’s club match at Lands End. 13 anglers turned up, which is a sensible number for Match Lake, but was disappointed to have P24 as my home for the day. I have some good days and some poor days on the peg, so it was a case of see what happens.

There was no silverfish pool today, so payout was for top 3 overall, so the intention was to fish meat short and along the end bank looking for carp, with 2 pellet lines at 13m out in front and to my left for skimmers & hopefully a few bonus carp.

Starting along the end bank on 8mm meat, feeding meat & hemp via a toss pot I soon had a bite, which turned into a perch. After a couple more perch and rudd, I eventually landed a carp, but after an hour that was all I had to show for my efforts. Unfortunately Brian opposite wouldn’t be fishing long, which meant the fish had plenty of space to back off and were unwilling to venture far from the cover of the trees.

Fishing meat just didn’t seem right, so switched to fishing double caster over potted caster and I had a 45min spell of continually catching mostly perch & rudd up to 8oz, plus a pound crucian, but I wasn’t going anywhere fast. So the swim was converted again, to pellet in the hope of pulling a few fish to my side of the tree.

Both my open water pellet swims had a regular consignment of damped 4s dusted with groundbait and by toss potting one swim and fishing the other I caught a few skimmers on banded 6mm pellet. I had hoped for a few carp, but other than 2 foulhooker I didn’t have any. Unlike Craig on p22, who was adopting the hook and release policy. He did eventually get a few in the mouth.

Had we had a silverfish pool, I would have been quite happy sticking with it, but really needed carp to at least frame. My short meat line turned out to be a complete bust, I didn’t have a bite on it. Down the end bank on pellet didn’t produce either and I really wasn’t sure where I was going to get a carp from. 

With 2 hours left, what had been a bright sunny day with a strong wind blowing from behind it became very dark and the heavens opened, which had everyone scrabbling for umbrellas and coats. As for me I ended up running to the car for my coat.

Following the storm, the air was very still and a few carp were now showing themselves shallow. I had tried at 16m behind the willow stump on a conventional shallow rig, slapping for all I was worth but nothing. So I quickly attached a long line rig and mugged a 6-7lber, which was followed by 2 smaller carp, by swinging the rig towards the overhanging branches at 16m. I was hoping that those 3 carp in the last 20mins would see me sneak into the frame, which fortunately they did. 

Overall, many complained about foul hookers, which wasn’t a surprise, particular on the island pegs. Hopefully the carp will be back feeding properly soon. Had I been able to stick with the silvers, I’m sure 25-30lb would have been on the cards.

1st 51-13 – Chris Davidge – p5
2nd 46-7 – Craig Davidge – p22
3rd 36- 4 – Ken Rayner – p24
4th 32-13 – Tim Allen – p17
5th 26-13 – Andy Bradley – p13
6th 25-13 – Dave Bradley – p21

No comments: