Catch - 44 Carp, 5 Roach
Weather - Mostly bright, with odd shower & breezy
Match - Avon Angling Open - 8th out of 15 (3rd out of 9 - lake)
A week off work – yay! Since the budget announcement in March that no one needs to annuitise their pension, my position has effectively become redundant. So I have been working hard in other areas and as yet haven’t taken any prolonged time off, which was much needed.
No fishing last weekend due to Mark Poppleton’s wedding at Wookey Hole, which was a very enjoyable day/evening in excellent company.
Back to today, Tony had 15 turn up with 9 anglers on Ruby and 6 on Sapphire. I had thought about targeting the silvers with a view to the silvers league starting on Saturday and had today’s match been on Emerald I probably would have. Instead I decided to focus on pellet & corn.
My draw put me on Ruby opposite the small island with Emerald behind. Must admit I thought with the forecast wind I would be at the wrong end of the lake and I was disappointed not to have a proper margin to attack, with a willow tree to my left and reed bed to my right.
The intention was to fish pellet or corn at 5m left and
right, but decided to set up a paste rig as well, just in case. A shallow rig
was also set up to fish by the small island, which was 16m away.
Starting on the paste rig next to the reeds I soon had 2
carp, before I couldn’t a proper bite but loads of liners. A switch to the shallow
line resulted in 3 lost carp which was frustrating, before I caught a couple of
roach on 6mm pellet. 16m was too far to catch roach so concentrated on 8mm
pellet, but I spent too long trying to make the shallow line work.
All the while Giles Cochrane opposite was catching well down
his margin. Fortunately for me the 2nd hour was much better by the
reeds where I had kept feeding 6s by hand, catching 10 carp all on paste.
The middle part of the match proved to be more difficult.
The shallow line produced only 1 carp, which meant I needed to concentrate on
the 2 short lines. I had considered setting up a line at 11-13m, but with the
increasing wind thought it would be a non-starter.
Of the anglers I could see, I thought I was doing OK. Giles
had stopped catching carp and switched to silvers, John Thompson and Ron
Hardiman were also struggling, as was the angler to my left. By cutting back on
my feed I managed to keep the odd fish coming from the reeds on paste, but
needed the left hand swim to kick into life.
I tried hard pellet, expander, corn and worm, but it was
slow going. It may have been because the wind was starting to create a bit of a
tow, even a switch to a heavier rig didn’t help, so I was back the paste.
The left hand swim eventually kicked into life, by toss potting
pellet and a purple patch meant I quickly added more carp, although a little smaller
than before, although I managed to nick a couple of better fish from the reeds.
Unfortunately, I think I buggered up the last 25mins, by cupping in too much
bait when the swim faded, which was disappointing.
By the all out I was confident of beating the anglers I
could see, but it transpired my fears about being at the wrong end of the lake
was well founded with Lee Pesticcio and Phil Harding catching behind the
island. Sapphire was the lake to be on through with most anglers catching over
a ton. So overall happy enough to claim 3rd on the lake, but can’t
help feel I should have got a ton had I got my feed right.
1st 134- 5 – Lee Pesticcio – Ruby
2nd 131-10 – Steve Kedge – Sapphire
3rd 124- 4 – Tony Rixon – Sapphire
4th 114- 2 – Matt Tomes – Sapphire
5th 105-15 – Bob Price – Sapphire
6th 98- 9 – Phil Harding - Ruby
Silvers
1st 18- 3 – Phil Harding – Ruby
2nd 17- 4 – Giles Cochrane – Ruby
3rd 16- 1 – Steve Kedge - Sapphire
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