04/12/22 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 14lb 4oz

Catch - 8 Carp, 4 F1s

Weather - Heavy Cloud, cold north easterly wind

Match - Open (14 fished) - 13th overall

14 of us on Heron Lake and hopefully a few bites, although the colour had dropped out of the lake due to the recent cold weather.

I drew p17, which isn’t the best area, but I hoped it might be OK as I wouldn’t be sharing the corner of the island with p19.

Well, it was hard. After trying the lead and bread hoping for an early bonus without success I switched to fishing a single maggot over a nugget of groundbait & micros, and soon caught a few fish at the bottom of the far shelf.

At the halfway point I only had 9 fish in the net, but then the north easterly breeze strengthened a little blowing straight at me making presentation a little awkward, as well as making it feel really cold. I had nothing for the next 90mins, trying all areas of the peg. In the meantime, Dave Willmott was catching well on p20 fishing at 16m on maggot and Louise next to me on p16 (who decided today was a good day to come back fishing after 7 months off!) who was catching on the method to the island.

In the last hour I managed another 3 fish from the far shelf, but I was miles off the pace and continued my poor recent form at Ivy House.

In hindsight and speaking to those that caught I think I should have fed more maggot, but, I still wouldn’t have framed.

1. 67-  0 - Dave Willmott - p20

2. 61-  0 - Jamie Dixey - p10

3. 59-  4 - Rob Guppy - p2

4. 37-  8 - Gary Knight - p23