05/06/16 - Shiplate - Main Lake

Weight - 57lb 14oz (10lb 12oz - silvers)
Catch - 7 Carp, 14 Roach, 9 Skimmers, 4 Eel, 3 Rudd, 1 Tench, 1 Hybrid
Weather - Hot & sunny
Match - Club - 1st out of 7

I was looking forward to this match, because I have never fished the main lake on my previous 2 visits to the venue and thought it would useful to get an idea of how to fish the lake in case I drew it in the Float Only series next month. 

However it was really disappointing (and embarrassing) to have only 7 anglers turn up, particularly since the whole lake had been booked. Fortunately we sorted something out with the owner only taking one half of the lake (pegs 1 - 9).

At the draw I found myself on peg 5a, only 1 of 2 pegs put in without an island chuck, so all the rods stayed in the bag and the intention was to fish shallow on the pole. From the information gathered the lake can fish quite hard at times and this was confirmed by the owner, but at least the sun was out and a nice day was forecast.

Rigs for the day were a conventional shallow rig, a long line rig, pellet rig to fish on the deck, a short meat rig and a paste rig.

On the all in, I started at 14.5m after feeding a half pot of 4s & 6s, fishing a banded 6s on the deck, pinging pellet over the top. After 45mins I managed 1 skimmer and fishing shallow proved fruitless. There had been plenty of ripple as we were setting up, which soon disappeared, with the majority of the ripple being on the opposite bank, leaving it flat calm in front of me.

Due to the lack of carp action, I started feeding caster (left over from last week) down the left hand margin, with small balls of paste. By fishing half a worm I started catching silvers, including some quality roach, all the while I kept pinging 6s at 14m.

After 2.5hr the ripple returned and I caught 5 carp in a 45min spell, however any thoughts of amassing a good weight were soon scumpered when the wind dropped. The rest of the match was a case of switching between the margins catching silvers, whilst hoping for the carp to turn up and fishing shallow where I managed 1 more fish. I tried the long line rig, as well as the waggler, but the carp were proving very hard to tempt in the flat conditions. Fish spotting was also difficult due to the amount of "white" water in front of me.

At the half way point I also started feeding meat at 5m and managed to net a 14lb 2oz carp late on, but no other were forthcoming. A wins, a win but would have been happier had more members turned up.

1st - 57-14 - Ken Rayner - p5a
2nd - 30- 7 - Andy Lord - p8
3rd - 23-11 - Andy Bradley - p9