21/06/14 - Lands End - Johns

Weight - 50lb 1oz
Catch - 10 Carp, 2 Rudd, 1 F1, 1 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Hot & sunny
Match - Open - 5th out of 11

With Ridgeway fishery currently closed a few of the regulars, such as Vince and Ryan Shipp have been coming to Lands End and bolstered the numbers to 11. We also had a nice sensible draw time of 10am so no rush to arrive on time.

  

Today’s match was on the no3 lake otherwise known as Johns Lake (not Sydney’s, which is the lake behind Johns – please take note Mr Nicholls). Now the dynamics of this lake seems to have changed in the last 12 month, following the introduction of the small carp from Sydney’s lake. Normally the end pegs are the draws to have, but more recently the middle pegs have been more consistent, particularly for the bigger fish.

 

I found myself on p42, which is usually good for a few fish, but not what it used to be, following the removal of the bush from the island. For company Rod Wootton was on p41, Dave “Beanie” Wescott on p68 and Andy Hembrow on p70. Must say there was plenty of banter between the 4 of us for most of the match.

 

On arrival there was plenty of carp swimming around, so a conventional shallow rig was set up, as well as a long rig mugging rig. Whilst setting up Ray White was walking and said meat hadn’t been as good as normal, but paste was working. So decided to hedge my bets feeding pellet & paste by the weed bed and meat/hemp at 6m to my left.

 

On the all-in Rod, Andy & I all went shallow chasing the cruisers, but none of us caught, the carp were just shying away and didn’t seem to be in the mood for feeding. Dave in the meantime had 3 or 4 carp on paste by the weed bed, so I switched to paste by my weed bed, but managed to bump/lose 3 carp in 20mins, eventually landing one on the 4^th attempt.

 

Since I couldn’t get a bite from anywhere else I stuck with targeting those shallow fish, by keep feeding 6s off the end of the island. There was no point feeding tight to the island, because of the overhanging sedges. It turned into a real frustrating match. Rod had the carp climbing out of the water up the bare bank, with his float in the middle of the melee, but no bites.

 

I had brought 2pts of caster, because I thought I would be on Match Lake and since the carp were proving difficult I thought something different might work, so started feeding the caster. Scaling down to .14 bottom and 18 hook buried inside a caster, but this only produced 2 rudd. I even dropped the well disguised bait onto the nose of a passing carp, but still no take.

 

I wasn’t the only one, Rod had given up chasing the cruiser around, Andy started catching down his right hand margin and Dave was still catching the odd fish on paste. I eventually did catch a few, even taking 3 carp in 20mins and I thought great they started feeding, but no. I had a few carp that were gently taking the bait before rejecting it, even scaling down to 6mm pellet didn’t help.

 

My 6m line only produced 1 small carp and my margin which I started feeding after 3hrs eventually produced 3 carp towards the end of the match.

 

As it turned out my weight was the best along my bank, which just seems to typify my fishing at the moment, drawing OK, but not quite on the fish.

 

1^st 164- 5 – Ryan Shipp – p58 (meat)

2^nd 93- 3 – Vince Shipp – p61

3^rd 88- 7 – Andy Hembrow – p70

4^th 66- 4 – Dave Wescott – p68

5^th 50- 1 – Ken Rayner – p42

6^th 33-12 – Rod Wootton – p41

 

Silvers

1^st 20- 5 – Rod Wootton – p41

2^nd 8-14 – Andy Hembrow – p70