19/06/21 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 38lb 0oz

Catch - 9 Carp, 8 Skimmers, 1 Eel, 1 Roach

Weather - Cool & cloudy

Match - Open (14 fished)

Decided a trip back to Ivy House was overdue and with reports that the Old Match Lake was fishing well I was looking forward to it. The only issue was the weather which had cooled down considerably over the last couple of days.

Peg 8 put me in a good area. Starting on 6mm pellet @ 5m, looking for an early carp only produced 4 small skimmers in the first 30mins. In the meantime, I had been pinging 6s to the island and 3^rd cast on a small method feeder produced a 2lb carp, which broke the middle section of my rod! Oh well it was a good excuse to buy a new 10ft Freespirit XTC.

I did try the waggler and was beginning to get a few indications, before losing the lot on a root. Have to say on reflection I didn’t fish a particular good match over the next 2 hours or so, probably overly aggressive with my feed, to compensate for not being able to fish to the island the way I wanted, on a lake which wasn’t fishing well.

I had fed pellet micros and 4s at 14m, pinging 4s over the top fishing worm, hoping for carp but only caught a few more skimmers. I had set up a negatively fed swim without success, when I should have  set up a proper skimmer rig as there were very few carp feeding.

Gradually a few small carp did make an appearance from the 14m line, but it was slow going.

With 2.5hr to go I had started feeding my margins, 6s down the left and corn/4s down the right. It wasn’t until the last hour than 1 registered my first bite on 8mm pellet down the left and landed an 8lber. 2 more followed, plus a 4^th on corn down the right.

Come the end, I knew Gary on p9 had done well, fishing down the right-hand end bank, but caught very little fishing long or down his left margin (towards me). Take what you will from that. As for me, breaking my rod definitely cost me as I am fairly confident, I would have caught a few off the island and I really should have come at least 3^rd. Instead, my 38lb was only good enough for 8^th.

1^st 123-  8 – Gary Donachie – p9

2^nd 86-12 – Mark Poppleton – p1

3^rd 45-12 – Gareth Boycott – p3

4^th 45-  6 – Stu White – p10

5^th 43-  6 – Chris Fox – p2 

Silvers

1^st 30-  4 – Chris Fox – p2

2^nd 21-  2 – Stu White – p10

3^rd 20-  0 – Alan Smith – p4