I had 17th pick and I expected slim pickings. Most had picked Willow and I was surprised that p18 was still available. Having not drawn this peg before I decided to give it a go and it would be a useful practice for next week’s Winter League. The peg also offered some protection from the breeze.
As this lake has been fishing really hard recently, I set up a proper silvers rig with 0.09 bottom, size 20 hook and 5 elastic, something I haven’t done for some time. I also set up another silvers rig to fish 2mm expanders/maggot a few metres off the end bank, where it was slightly shallower.
On the all-in a ball of groundbait (Black Lake & Black
Intelligent) with pinkie & caster was cupped in at 14m and a pinch of
micros and caster at 14m along the end bank.
Whilst that settled, I cast the straight lead and double corn to the island. After 15mins without any indications I switched to the open water swim and started catching small roach straight away, then hand sized skimmers mostly on double pinkie, toss potting pinkie and caster.
Along the end bank I had 2 better skimmers (12oz – 1lb) almost immediately on 2mm expander, but that was it. In fact, this swim was disappointing. Even going 16m only produced a couple more skimmers and tiny roach.
Therefore, I spent most of time in the open water, topping up with a small ball of feed when needed and pinging caster over the top helped keep the fish coming.
After 3 hours I was up to 30 fish, however the 4th hour was really slow catching only 3 or 4 fish. A new swim was set up at 16m, with another ball of groundbait, pinkie and caster. After an initial slow start the skimmers returned until the end the match, plus a couple of roach over a short line.
Fortunately, very few of the big skimmers fed, which meant I won the silvers, ending my poor run at the venue. It also made a pleasant change fishing with light kit and plenty learned for next week.
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