23/10/22 - Lavington - Ellis Lake

Weight - 114lb 0oz

Catch - 14 Carp, 1 Perch

Weather - Heavy rain cleared to be sunny

Match - Club (8 fished) - 1st overall

As I will be at Ivy House quite a bit over the autumn and winter, I fancied a change of scenery with the chance of catching some units. Therefore, I jumped on a club match at Lavington. Waking up with the raining hammering down I did waver about going, but the forecast suggested it would clear up in a few hours.

Driving to the lake there was plenty of water on the roads and arriving at the lake car park there were 4 no shows, either because they were put off by the weather or by roads that were unpassable.

I drew peg 9 with no island chuck, which meant I didn’t bother with the feeder rod. With all the heavy overnight rain, most thought it would fish hard, and I thought 50lb would be a good target weight.

Looking at my peg I decide on 3 areas, down the left margin next to some lilies feeding micros and corn, 8m to my right in 6ft of water feeding 6mm meat and micros and 12m where it was 7ft deep feeding micros, 4s and corn.

Starting at 8m, I was very surprised to hook a fish also immediately, but it took nearly an hour to net my next fish. Over the following hour, my 12m line produced a carp on 6mm (baninion janner) expander, before catching 3 carp down my left margin on corn in a 30mins spell.

My 8m line didn’t really get going and a couple of foul hooked fish suggest I was fishing too deep and feeding 6mm meat probably didn’t help. So, I setup another rig to fish the right margin which was a little deeper than the left, but this time just fed meat and a little micro, as my left margin had completely died, and I got the feeling I may have overfed it.

The new swim proved to be very productive fishing 8mm meat including a couple of double figure fish and I was left wishing the match was 6hrs, rather than 5.

In the end the day turned into a lovely bright day and a nice day’s fishing, despite the heavy downpour as we were packing up!

1.    114- 0 – Ken Rayner

2.      72- 0 – Andy Almond

3.      54- 0 – Martin Atkinson

 

 

 

22/10/22 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 109lb 3oz

Catch - 48 Carp, 47 F1s, 2 Gudgeon

Weather - Rain overnight, mostly sunny.

Match - Open (10 fished) - 4th overall

With a Silvers qualifier on the Old Match and Willow Lakes, it meant todays open was on Heron.

The water levels were still down, exposing the marginal shelf. However, with heavy overnight rain and more rain expected Andy said he hoped to be able to top up the lake by next weekend.

There were only 10 of us today and p22 for me. Following last night's rain, I wasn’t sure how it would fish, however there were plenty of fish topping and I hoped to catch a few fish shallow and down the margins.

At the start, I started at 2+2 fishing 4mm expander, initially feeding micros, but soon switched to 4s, catching mostly carp, some of

which were tiny. A switch to my shallow line at 10m fished a hair rigged 4mm over 4s only produced 1 small carp and margin again only produced more small carp. Therefore, I switched back to the short line to keep putting fish in the net.

After 90mins my short line was fading and there were now plenty of swirls over my 10m line, feeding 4s. To be honest I struggled to get the shallow line going, trying all 3 of my shallow rigs to work out the best depth to catch, I even tried banded dead maggot, but could only catch mostly small carp.

So 2hrs (of 5½) into the match I probably had 30lb. To make something happen I started feeding slop and this was a turning point of my match, catching those much-needed bigger F1s, mostly at 8in deep.

As a back-up I fed micros and corn down each margin, fishing corn. I didn’t catch as quickly as I hoped, but the fish I did catch were a better stamp carp and proved to be a useful back up line.

At one point I was catching really quickly over the shallow line, putting 35lb in the net in the last 75mins. In total I fed nearly 4pts of slop, needless to say it was a bit messy.

Overall, a disappointingly slow start which probably cost me the frame, but at least I worked it out – eventually.

1.    130-  1 – Mark Poppleton – p2

2.    127-  7 – Roy Booth – p10

3.    123-15 – Steve Waters – p13

4.    109-  3 – Ken Rayner – p22

16/10/22 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 46lb 7oz (3lb 8oz - silvers)

Catch - 9 Carp, 8 Skimmers

Weather - Bright & sunny

Match - Open (18 fished) - 10th overall

P16 today on the Old Match Lake, so not far from where I was yesterday, however it has fished completely different. As well as a few more anglers on the lake, the breeze had dropped and it was bright and sunny.

 
I had nothing at 16m tapping pellets or short and it took me 55mins to net my first fish on the feeder. Jamie was catching on p18 and Phil on p15 had a couple of fish on the lead & bread casting between the islands, but generally most were struggling.
 
I tried fishing for skimmers, using the same tactics as yesterday, but it became obvious they weren’t feeding properly in the flat bright conditions. At the halfway point, I lost a big carp on the skimmer rig which broke me and with only 3½lb of silvers I didn’t see the point of setting up a new rig.
 
Therefore, for the last 2½hrs I focused on the carp as a late run particularly down the margin could pull me up into frame.
 
Pinging pellets at 16m only produced 2 fish and the straight lead to the island only 1 carp. So as time went by, I concentrated on the short line with 4s & 6s and down the right margin fed with micros and corn. Unfortunately, the margin only produced 1x 10lber on double corn, leaving the short line to produce the bulk of my fish on 6mm hair rigged pellet, but it was slow going.  
 
Overall a tricky day for most
 
1.    117- 5 – Jamie Dixey – p18
2.    107- 1 – Jeff Rogers – p5
3.      65- 6 – Chris Cotteral – p7
4.      65- 1 – Ricky Spitieri – p9
5.      64- 2 – Stu Foale – p23
Silvers
1.      18- 5 – Ricky Mills – p19
2.      18- 0 – Sid Webb – p8
3.        9- 2 – Billy Ockwell – p12
4.        7- 3 – Jamie Dixey – p18

15/10/22 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 57lb 11oz (16lb 14oz - silvers)

Catch - 25 Skimmers, 12 Carp

Weather - Sunny with cloudy periods and blustery

Match - Open (17 fished) - 1st in silvers 

After a lovely break in Mauritius where I still managed to do some fishing catching baby groupers and bream on plastic jigs off a jetty by the hotel, I was looking forward to getting back to Ivy House. 

We were spread across the Old Match Lake and Kingfisher. I fancied Kingfisher as I hadn’t been on there for a while, however I ended up on p14 on the Old Match Lake, the least favourite area of the lake. However, with a spare peg either side I at least had plenty of space.

I started off looking for carp, but only caught 2 small ones after 45mins and with the better pegs catching made up my mind to try for silvers.

 
I initially started off cautiously feeding a nugget of micros/groundbait at 13m and caught almost immediately on 4mm expanders. I noticed Andy Weston on p16 catch a couple of skimmers over a big pot of groundbait. So, I followed suit, feeding a big pot of groundbait, micros and dead maggot off to my left at 14m out of the way.
 
Over the next couple of hours, I rotated between the left hand 14m line and the negatively fed 13m line, picking up a couple of carp in amongst the skimmers. The 13m line I just kept topped up with a nugget of micros/groundbait, whilst the left hand 14m was topped up whenever bites stopped, catching mostly on expanders using double dead reds as a backup.
 
The last hour was a little frustrating as the carp woke up and I couldn’t catch any more skimmers. However, an enjoyable day, feeding 3pts of groundbait and a pint of micros.
 

1.    99-  8 – Steve Brown – p41
2.    94-  7 – Danny Richards – p5
3.    90-  3 – Steve Waters – p18
4.    63-  5 – Jeff Rogers – p37
5.    62-10 – Baggy – p10
Silvers
1.    16-14 – Ken Rayner – p14
2.    10-  7 – Glyn Loveday – p44
3.      9-11 – Steve Waters – p18
4.      9-  0 – Andy Weston – p16
5.      8-  1 – Tim Hadland – p8