Monday, 5 June 2023

27/05/23 - Glebe - Pool 1

Weight - 42lb (37lb 8oz - silvers)
Catch - 43 Skimmers, 1 Crucian, 1 Tench, 1 Roach, 1 Perch, 1 Carp
Weather - Bright & sunny
Match - Ross Nursey Charity day 1 - 41st out of 52 (4th out of 6 section)

Today was the first day of the Ross Nursey charity weekend. Initially when I drew p24 on pool 1 I thought it would be Ok, although I had p30 in my section.

When I arrived at my peg it was flat, calm and bright, and the expectation was for a hard day, particularly as the fish had recently spawned.

I did try the feeder, but soon binned that off when the feeder or hooklength came back covered with weed 5 out of 6 casts which meant I focused on the pole.

I was told paste had been working, but after 30mins and no proper bites it was looking like a hard day was in prospect, even the odd fish I could see on the surface which I swung a pellet at couldn’t be tempted.

Looking around I wasn’t the only one struggling, so I decided to set up a skimmer rig just to get a few bites and hopefully catch a few carp late on.

Fishing at 3+2 with corn, feeding a small nugget of micros I started to catch skimmers up to 3lb over the next couple of hours, slowing building a decent weight of silvers.

As the day progressed a few more carp started to show on the surface, although I still couldn’t mug them, I decided to try caster. This produced more skimmers, but only 1 carp.

With an hour remaining, I felt if I could catch a couple of carp I might get 2nd in section, as it was obvious p30 would easily win, which he did with 179lb. Therefore, it was time to try the margins, which produced a few more skimmers on corn and nothing on paste. I really thought I would catch 1 or 2 carp, but they were proving really hard to tempt.

Come the weigh-in I realised in hindsight I should have stuck with catching skimmers. The angler to my left fished a similar match to me, but he stuck with the skimmers in the last hour weighing 40lb of silvers, plus 1 carp for 47-14 and the angler to my right had 48lb for 2nd in section.

I’m pretty confident had I stayed catching skimmers I would have had 50lb, but in reality, I didn’t expect to need skimmers to pick up in the section. Looking at the weigh sheets my section proved to be the hardest of the match and this was repeated in Sunday’s match with a number of DNW’s.

No comments: