21/11/21 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 45lb 12oz

Catch - 32 Carp, 12 F1

Weather - Bright & sunny. Cold northerly breeze.

Match - Winter League rd 4 (40 fished)

On Thursday I made my first visit to Chard Reservoir and had a really good day with Andy Seery, catching 11 Bream for c.36lb on the feeder. A tricky day as the fish weren’t feeding with confidence, but enjoyable none the less.

Today’s match was the 4^th round of the Ivy House Winter League and my turn for Heron (p7-p11 & p19-p23) on the long banks. With the forecast northerly breeze, I fancied sitting in the 20’s out of the wind, however drew p10 which meant the wind would be cutting across me right to left. Also looking at past results, p10 hasn’t featured in the main frame, with p11 being the dominate peg and p9 starting to come into its winter form, which is where league leader Chris Telling was sat.

Plumbing up revealed the peg started to shallow up at 13m and the depth was about 6in shallower from 13 to 16m. As I was setting up there was obviously a lot of fish

moving along the island and decided to start on the lead & bread hoping for an early fish, but nothing which was a surprise and it became obvious throughout the match that despite a ball of F1 sitting next to the island they just didn’t want to feed.

I also tried a little cage feeder with maggot on the hook, but again no takers, so came back to the 13m line where I had fed a 50:50 mix of Choc Orange and BMGX and some BMG boosted micros. After an hour I had 1 tiny (4oz) carp with Chris already on 6 and must admit I thought my chance of good points was evaporating.

Moving up the shelf to 14m, fishing a 4mm BMG expander and still feeding a tiny nugget of groundbait & micros produced a few fish, but the wind was a pain. A switch to a chimp rig sat better in the wind and by fishing a single maggot, just feeding maggot and micros I started to catch.

The wind meant I couldn’t fish comfortably beyond 14m, so every time I felt the swim was fading, I would restart a new one 1m to right of the last. With 90mins remaining I was about 5 or 6 fish ahead of Chris but then hit a sticky patch where I struggled to catch, allowing Chris to catch me up.

Fortunately, the wind dropped a little allowing me to fish at 16m and by alternating between 2 swims back on the pellet rig I started catching again in the last hour.

By the all out I felt there was 1 fish between Chris and myself, and fortunately the result fell my way as I won the section and lake, plus coming 2^nd overall. The result means I am now 2^nd in the league behind Chris with 2 rounds remaining.

1.    68-12 – Ian Millichip – p23 (Willow)

2.    45-12 – Ken Rayner – p10 (Heron)

3.    44- 8 – Chris Telling – p9 (Heron)

3.    44- 8 – Vince Shipp – p44 (Kingfisher)

5.    44- 0 – Stu Foale – p34 (Willow)

6.    39- 4 – Tony Rixon – p33 (Willow)