Catch - 26 Skimmers, 2 Roach
Weather - Dry start, then heavy drizzle
Match - Open - 3rd out of 26 - silvers (17th overall)
A little behind on my blogs (again), but decided to fish Tuesdays cost cutter open at Ivy House in preparation for the float only league on Sunday. Arriving at the café I wasn't the only one, with Tony Rixon, Chris Fox and Trigger bolstering the numbers.
As regulars know Andy Lloyd has being working hard to improve the venue. The latest work has seen the original causeway widened, the island flatten and the excess soil used to make a 2nd causeway splitting the lake in two, thereby creating a 20 and 24 peg lakes. Personally I think this will be a good thing in the long term and I'm sure commercially (lets remember Andy is running a business) it makes sense and should improve the fishing once the stocking of each lake is worked out.
The lakes had also been re-pegged and p37 put me on the island, next to the new causeway. Initially I was quite pleased, because the wind was blowing down this end and a couple weighs of carp had been caught during the previous week. However I was less pleased when the 2 pegs opposite were taken as well as p38 to my left, so I felt a little cut off.After spotting a swirl by the causeway I started on the slapper rig hoping for an early carp, but never had a bite. A switch to 13m where the swim starts to shallow up, fishing 6mm expander over 6s and corn I had a big skimmer followed by a few more skimmers before it slowed, but still no carp. In fact everyone around me seemed to be struggling. Therefore decided to on the skimmers.
I had set up a secondary swim to my left in open water feeding groundbait and pellet. This produced a number skimmers throughout the match on various baits (expander, worm, dead maggot), but couldn't get a bite on corn, which has caught a lot of fish recently.
My 13m line had a regular helping of 6s, but the pellet only got nibbled from roach which was a little frustrating.
I had also been pinging pellet to the causeway all match, but no signs of fish so decided to feed groundbait, which brought the fish in, but I simply couldn't get a bite. This wasn't a unique problem, because a number of other anglers had similar issues. In hindsight I should have fished a longer line, or even set up a waggler. I just felt the fish where unsettled feeding against a bare bank. No doubt it wont be long before the green stuff starts growing back.
By the all out I was happy with how the match started, although disappointed with how in finished. I did consider staying on, but again the weather had turned to more of the wet stuff and I didn't fancy spending my evening getting even wetter.
Andy doesn't pay de-faults, so unfortunately Baggy who came 2nd in the silvers also framed, meaning my 3rd in the silvers put me 1 out of the money.
1st 137- 2 - Elick Payne - p18
2nd 113- 3 - Tony Rixon - p6
3rd 98- 8 - Andy Lloyd - p42
4th 71-11 - Chris Fox - p21
5th 66- 2 - Baggy - p16
6th 59-14 - Oggy - p20
Silvers
1st 47-15 - Craig Edmunds - p31
2nd 44- 2 - Baggy - p16
3rd 21- 6 - Ken Rayner - p37
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