12/12/21 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 13lb 14oz

Catch - 19 Roach, 9 Skimmers, 1 Perch

Weather - Mild & breezy.

Match - Winter League (40 fished)

The 6th and final round of this Winter League. Lying 2nd, I was at least guaranteed a top 6 position, but I obviously wanted to stay 2nd, which meant ensuring I stayed ahead of Ryan Shipp who was 4pts behind me. There was an outside chance of winning, but it would have required overturning a 7pt deficit from Chris Telling which was highly unlikely.

P7 on the Old Match Lake would be my home. To be honest I would have preferred p8, but when I got to my peg the wind was blowing into my bank and although the lake has been fishing hard, I fancied it for a few.

Plumbing up the swim was a bit all over the place, with deepest spot at 13m at 5ft and generally shallower everywhere else and not that flat.

Feeding a big ball of BMGX : FA1 (50:50) with some BMG boosted micros & pinkie to my right at 13m and a small ball slightly to my left again at 13m, I started on a mini banjo feeder towards the island hoping for an early carp, whilst letting my pole lines settle. After 15mins I tried the straight lead and corn for a further 15mins, but other than a few liners no bites.
Switching to the 13m right hand line I was soon catching small roach and it took 45mins to catch my first skimmer of about 1lb.

After an hour both 13m swims just died with just the odd small roach. In the meantime, a few carp had been caught around the lake, which was a worry.

The rest of the match was a case of setting up a new swim with a small ball of feed with micros, I managed to catch a skimmer, but couldn’t get a 2nd, so had to set up another swim, gradually moving out to 16m.

I was still periodically looking for a carp by the island, by the aerator to my right where I had been pinging 4s in the hope of stirring the carp into some form of activity and finally down the margins but had no indications.

Fortunately, the last 90mins was more productive on the skimmer front. I had to wait for a bite but was at least catching a few. With 30mins left I potted a ½ cup of micros and dead maggot at 7m which produced a further 2 skimmers, losing a 3rd on the all-out.

At the end of the match, I thought I had blown it, as I was aware a few people had caught carp and I thought I only had about 10lb. Fortunately, a few of my skimmers were bigger than I thought and weighed 13-14 and was relieved to finish 3rd in section, behind Chris who had an excellent match, winning the lake with 23lb of silvers.

This result kept me in 2nd overall and £550 better off, so very pleased with how my league has gone. I only had 1 section win, but managed to be consistent throughout, with a 4th in section being my worst result.

Well done to Chris on comfortably winning the league.

1st - 66-12 - John Morgan - p41 (Kingfisher)

1st - 66-12 - Jamie Dixey - p44 (Kingfisher)

3rd - 48-  8 - Dave Willmott - p4 (Heron)

4th - 34-14 - Glyn Reynolds - p10 (Heron)

5th - 33-  2 - Jason Crump - p20 (Heron)

6th - 32-  6 - Ryan Shipp - p17 (Heron)