12/03/17 - Lands End - Johns Lake

Weight - 52lb 11oz (18lb 3oz - silvers)
Catch - 18 Skimmers, 8 Roach, 6 F1s, 2 Perch, 1 Rudd, 7 Carp
Weather - Mostly cloudy.
Match - Winter League rd 5 - 2nd out of 33 - silvers, 1st out of 5 - silvers section

After yesterdays match I really needed a good day today. This being the penultimate round of the Winter League it was my turn for Johns Lake. Holding a fragile lead on the Silverfish League I needed another silver section win to consolidate my position.

Whilst I wasn't too concerned were I drew, because at this time of year the fish start to spread out, however ideally wanted 1 of the bottom 4 pegs (41,42,68 & 70) because they are usually the most consistent areas for silvers.

Fortunately I drew p41, would have preferred p42 but I was happy enough. Rich Lovering who was just behind me in the league drew p66 in the other section, but was moaning about it being no good, until I pointed out that silvers was won from his peg in the last round.

2x rigs were set up to fish the open water, one for hair rigged pellet and the other for soft pellet. I had another rig to fish caster short and a rig to fish caster down each margin.

On the all in, I went out to 13m tapped a few 4s out via the toss pot with a banded 4mm pellet and was soon attached to an 8lb carp. Next put in I had a pound skimmer, then an F1. For the next hour so I tried various spots at 13-14m toss potting 4s and continue to pick up decent skimmers and a couple of F1s, before it slowed.

A switch to feeding micros/4s and trying to catch from the one spot with the expander rig resulted in another run of fish. Again I had to move around the peg, but I was catching.

The surprise was my short caster line, which only produced a couple of small roach, so gave up on it half way through.

I had also started feeding caster down each margin. The right hand produced a decent perch, plus a few roach and carp. The left hand side which was a little shallower only produced carp, but I wasn't too concerned because I hadn't seen anyone put together a net of silvers so the section points were secured.

Rich Lovering was moaning away, claiming he could only catch small skimmers and this would be his dropped result, however he managed 9lb of them which was just enough to win the silvers sections. He looked a lot happier.

Overall a much better day than yesterday, where I managed to stay top of the silvers league, but its incredibly tight with 6 of us potentially able to claim the top 2 pay out positions.

1. 179- 4 - Craig Edmunds (Mosella) - p33
2. 141-10 - Shawn Kitteridge (Thyers) - p18
3. 109- 1 - Tony Rixon (Mosella) - p40
4. 103- 8 - Paul Elmes (Mosella) - p13...
5. 88- 8 - Russ Peck  (Lands End) - p51
6. 80-14 - Pete Nurse - p18
Silvers
1. 19-12 - Mike Duckett (Lands End) - p34
2. 18- 3 - Ken Rayner (Colmic) - p41
3. 18- 0 - Rob Watts - p11
4. 17- 6 - Andy Hembrow - p5
5. 14-14 - Emma Drysdale (Legacy Tackle) - p29
6. 13- 8 - Tony Rixon (Mosella) - p40