Weight - 27lb 10oz (13lb 14oz - silvers)
Catch - 2 Carp, 10 Skimmers, 7 Perch, 7 Roach, 1 F1
Weight - Windy start, but calmer later. Mild & cloudy
Match - Loyalty Match - 1st silvers on Speci - 8th out of 14 overall
Only 14 of us today, due to a clash with the winter league at Avalon, but after we had paid our £1's over the year, there was £240 in the pot, plus pools for the day. There was quite a debate about how best to peg Match & Speci, a) to split the pegs evenly over both lakes and b) taking into account the forecast heavy winds.
Before the draw the result from yesterdays match surprised everyone, because Andy Hembrow won with 160lb from p25. Due to the heavy winds on Saturday only 2 pegs were put on speci (p25 & p40) rather than the more exposed p1 & p24 on match. Andy caught most of his fish at 19m towards the island and this influenced our decision to put p39 in instead of p40. There was also an argument for putting in p26 instead of p25 so you could at least reach the island with 16m. All if, buts and maybes.
At it happened I drew p25 and Tony Rixon p39. Realistically we both expected pegs 31-34 to do the damage, but was hopefully those carp may still be in the area. If not silvers was likely to be my only realistic opportunity to pick up.
I didn't have 19m of pole, so had to be content with fishing 16m towards to the island, which was initially fed with micros and 4s, later catapulting 4s over the top. Caster was also fed by the p26 pallet and down the left hand bank. A small amount of pellet was also fed at 14m at the bottom of the shelf down the left hand bank.
Starting on 4mm expander (SM Chimp 0.4g > .10 > 18 silverfish pellet) I managed 4 small skimmers during the first hour towards the island, but some of the fish in the swim were really small pecking at the pellet producing a few false bites. Tony seemed to be experiencing the same issue, which suggested there wasn't many carp in the area.
After 90mins a 1.5lb skimmer was very welcome, as was a F1 30mins later, but generally it was slow going. I did hook a carp but the hook pulled when I got it on the top kit, it felt like a decent fish and I think it was hooked properly but will never know.
I had kept catapulting caster towards p26 pallet and decided to try a prawn hoping for a perch. 10 seconds later the float slides away and was very surprised to see an 8oz roach attached! The next 2 fish were perch before the swim faded. On my 2nd visit to the pallet I had another 2 perch followed by an 8lb carp, again on prawn which really upset Tony. Something about a surf and turf angler.
Anyway, with no further bites a switch to the 5m line were I had been feeding caster for 3hrs only produced a roach. So it was back out on the long lines for a few more small skimmers (which are a good sign for the future) and another carp which I didn't really want.
I could see Steve Seagar on p32 catching well, no doubt aided by the fact the forecast wind was non existent and according to Tony, Mike on p33 was catching as well, which meant I needed some more silvers.
Fortunately 3 perch from the outlet pipe in the corner with 30mins to go made me feel a bit more comfortable about winning the lake silvers, which I duly did. As it turned out I also finished 3rd on the lake.
1st 98-14 - Steve Seagar p32
2nd 86-15 - Craig Edmonds - p24
3rd 52-13 - Mike Duckett - p33
4th 51-12 - Nick Duckett - p11
5th 49- 7 - Andy Hembrow - p16
6th 46- 6 - Kev Molton - p13
Silvers
1st 15- 0 - Nick Duckett - p11
2nd 13-14 - Ken Rayner - p25
3rd 11- 5 - Chris Fox - p7
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