01/10/23 - Lavington - Merretts

Weight - 47lb 6oz

Catch - 4 Carp

Weather - Muggy and drizzle to start, sunny later

Match - John Lowe Memorial (13 fished) - 4th overall

Today’s club match was a memorial match for John Lowe who was an active member of the club and sadly died a few months ago following a motorcycle accident.

The match was held on Merretts rather than Ellis, as it was John’s favourite lake and 13 anglers turned up including John’s cousins.

P13 put me on the end peg at the top end of the lake by the inlet channel. Initially I was quite happy with the draw, however I was a little restricted with Tim Lynch on p15 opposite.

I decided to focus on fishing 8mm meat soaked in Uzit A-krill cloud, fed with 2mm p-nut pellet. On the all-in, 2 swims were fed left & right, at 3+2 in 5ft of water.

I hooked 1 fish to my right after 45mins which I pulled out of. 45mins later I netted a carp from the left swim, followed by 2 more over the next hour and was hopeful a few more fish would turn up. However, in the last 2 hrs it just died and I just felt the fish had moved out of this end of the lake, as Tim also stopped catching, whilst anglers further down were catching.

Due to the left hand tree I couldn’t fish the left margin, which meant I only had the right margin to target. A lot of groundwork has been completed on the lake recently to strengthen the bank and as a consequence the margins plumbed up horribly. I managed to find a flatish spot about a metre off the bank where I fed some meat and mircos.

With no bites or any signs of fish, I fed more heavily including with groundbait. I hooked 1 carp which I pulled out of, but nothing else and there were no signs of any fish.

I eventually caught my last carp 10mins from time on my top kit next to my keepnets, where I dumped some meat & micros.

So, a hard day’s fishing, but it wasn’t really about that. At the end of the match there was a presentation by Johns 2 daughters to the top 3 and £330 was raised for John’s favourite charity.

1.    85-  3 – Paul Fryer – p5

2.    75-  3 – Kev Hillsden – p9

3.    63-10 – Tom Ince – p23 (4 fish)

4.    47-  6 – Ken Rayner – p13

5.    42-  2 – Banger – p7