24/09/23 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 43lb 14oz (9lb - silvers)

Catch - 11 Carp, 13 Skimmers

Weather - Wet start, mostly bright & breezy

Match - Tackle Den (18 fished) - 16th overall

It’s been 4 weeks since my last match, as I got married to Abi and had a lovely honeymoon in Kefalonia, so I was looking forward to catching a few.

Whilst away, Steve Musitano stepped in for me in the last round of Steve Martins Summer Series and I finished 3^rd overall, which was nice.

As I needed to pay my winter league fees, I decided to fish Tackle Dens match on the Old Match Lake and the island on Willow. Well, it would appear my drawing arm at Ivy House is still malfunctioning as I ended up on p6, a peg that is rarely used as you can see from the picture it’s a little overgrown and the current flyer p8 wasn’t put in.

With pegs 5 & 7 in either side I didn’t expect my margins to work and therefore I decided to focus on catching at 16m on pellet or on the tip into the gap between the islands.

Starting at 16m fishing a hair rigged 6mm,

tapping in Uzit pineapple pellet soaked 6s I hooked my first fish after 10mins which came off as I shipped back, as did the 2^nd! Fortunately, I netted the 3^rd carp, plus 2 tiny carp before the hour mark. However, I noticed a number of anglers netting fish and I was already falling behind.

The real disappointment was the swim by the island, as I tried the method and the tea bag but only caught 1 carp, yet Andy Bright to my right had most of his fish on the tea bag. A bit of head scratcher, I tried different set ups to improve matters without success.

To be honest, I wasn’t too concerned by the poor start as I know you can catch late either short or down the margins. Therefore, to put some fish in the net during the middle part of the match, I fed some Uzit Dark Expander with micros and 4s at 6m & 11m, and fished a 4mm expander soaked in Uzit P-Nut oil.

The 11m line was the best, catching mostly skimmers before catching 2 carp which killed the swim. With more carp being caught around the lake, I really needed a few more of my own.

I tried pinging pellet at 16m, but struggled to get a clean bite and the side wind wasn’t helping presentation. 

Fortunately, I had a few fish short on 6mm pellet in the last hour, which accounted for half my weight, but none of the big boys. As for my margins I hooked carp on 8mm pellet which came off, but nothing else which wasn’t a surprise.

So, a really disappointing match and now looking forward to some better draws.

1.    168-  6 – Steve Venn – p2

2.    166-  3 – Alistair Tilney – p22

3.    140-  8 – Jon Pearce – p10

4.    114-11 – Dave Keen – p20

5.    114-  2 – Andrew Black – p12