Catch - 9 Skimmers, 9 Perch, 2 Roach, 1 Rudd, 2 Carp
Weather - Hot & sunny
Match - Open - 3rd out of 34 - silvers (20th overall)
Todays match was a practice for the forthcoming Float Only round in 2 weeks and I was looking forward to getting amongst the venues skimmers and carp. With a scheduled draw for 9.30, there were a few of us still sat in the café at Lands End due to a match on match & speci lakes, plus half of todays match turning up for breakfast, which just goes to show how popular Di's breakfast are.
The draw was completed 15mins later and I found myself on peg 16 and was told it was a decent peg. However having only fished the venue twice previously 15 years and 4.5 years ago, today was about trying to formulate some form of plan. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do following conversations with Tony and Matt Challenger (Scott's Tackle), ending up with a kilo of worm, caster, pellet and paste.
On the all in 3 balls of groundbait with chopped worm, caster & pellet were deposited at 6m & 13m, plus a pot of 4s & 6mm pellet to my right at 13m. Because I was late to the draw I was in a bit of rush sorting my kit out and didn't actually start fishing for 10mins after the all in.Starting on the waggler with 8mm pellet towards the island, I managed 1 hybrid and lost a carp, but that was it for 45mins. Certainly frustrating as there were carp milling around the feed, but trying to get one to take the bait!
A switch to the 6m line and I was soon catching small skimmers and perch on worm, but it was slow going. The 13m line wasn't much better either, but managed to keep picking up odd fish.
Jason Radford to my left had a slow start on paste or pellet, but started slapping pellet, catching a couple of roach, before latching into a 4lb bream. Sometimes there is no justice. My swim was fading, so decided to try something different, because I didn't want to leave thinking what if. So decided start pinging 6s at 14m, fishing 6mm pellet. I managed 1 roach, plus an 8lb carp, but nothing else followed, so potted in more groundbait/pellet to hopefully pull in some skimmers.
The last 2 hours proved to be a bit of a nightmare, I couldn't catch any silvers. The pellet waggler didn't produce and neither did the margins. The only fish I caught was a carp on paste at 14m to my right where I had kept potting pellet.
A disappointing finish and as the weigh in progressed I was beginning to regret not setting up a caster swim to catch rudd/roach on my top kit, as it became evident the silvers hadn't fed. I thought I had about 10lb and it was looking like I was in with a chance of framing.
Paul Faires was leading with 21lb, half of which was "whitebait", because his groundbait/worm swim had died. 12lb was 2nd and by the time the scales arrived there were a couple 9lb weights. 10lb 9oz put me into 3rd and that's were I stayed although Bela ran me close with 10lb 4oz.
An unexpected pick up, but they all count. Also hopefully a bit clearer on how to approach the match in 2 weeks.
1st - 125- 2 - Tony Rixon - p24
2nd - 86-15 - Tom Mangnall - p11
3rd - 70-14 - Steve Skelton - p28
4th - 69-12 - Dave Romain - p44
5th - 65- 0 - Steve Seager - p20
6th - 63- 5 - Nick Chedzoy - p32
Silvers
1st - 21- 8 - Paul Faires - p35
2nd - 12- 0 - Ziggy - p37
3rd - 10- 9 - Ken Rayner - p16
4th - 10- 4 - Bela Bakos - p6
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