Tuesday, 18 April 2023

15/04/23 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 45lb 2oz
Catch - 9 Carp, 5 Skimmers, 1 Roach
Weather - Sunny, with cloudy periods. Previous day was cold and rainy
Match - Open (12 fished) - 3rd overall

After yesterday’s cold and wet weather, today was expected to be hard and I will be glad when the weather finally warms up. I drew p2 which wasn’t the best, but I at least had a bit of space with p3 being vacant.

On the all-in I fed a small amount of micros and Tom Thick natural groundbait at 14m. Whilst that settled I tried a small method to the island without success and soon switched to the 14m line starting on a 4mm expander, but it wasn’t until I tried a single dead red I got a bite.

Except for Steve Waters on p16 no-one was catching. I had been toss-potting tiny nuggets of micros and groundbait, catching a couple of small skimmers but nothing else, so decided to pot in a little more bait with dead maggot and 10mins later I had another skimmer, soon followed by a carp, both on double dead reds.

Re-feeding I had another carp, however I couldn’t repeat the trick for a third time, despite trying a different area of the swim.

Steve on p16 was now mugging the odd fish as was Darren on p18. Unfortunately, due to so much ‘white’ water in front of me spotting fish was nearly impossible.

Back on the feeder I managed 2 carp and thought I was doing ok as other than the 2 opposite I couldn’t see much being caught, I just needed a good last hour or 2.

I had started feeding my margins with micros and corn at the halfway point, but never had a bite. As my 14m line had completely died I cupped in some 4s at 16m where it was slightly shallower fishing a hair rigged 4mm, toss potting and pinging 4s over the top.

I caught a couple of carp and felt a few fish may have finally got their heads down. Switching to feeding and fishing a 6mm pellet was better, adding another 3 fish.

With 20mins to go I was confident I would catch a couple more, however disaster struck when my 16m section snapped. Gutted. Not sure why it snapped, but ultimately it cost me 2nd place.

1.    90- 8 – Steve Waters – p16
2.    46- 4 – Darren – p18
3.    45- 2 – Ken Rayner – p2
4.    39- 8 – Jamie Dixey – p5
Silvers
1.    24- 0 – Matt Skyme – p9
2.    13- 0 – Pete Ziemniak – p1

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