07/01/24 - Ivy House - Willow

Weight - 8lb 15oz

Catch - 5 F1, 13 Roach, 6 Skimmers, 2 Perch

Weather - Cold. Cloudy with sunny periods. Northerly breeze.

Match - Winter League - rd 5 (48 fished) - 3rd in section

The penultimate round of the Winter League and my turn for Willow Lake. With the weather turning colder I really fancied drawing the deeper pegs, 23, 33 or 34, however ended up on p20. Not ideal, but not the worst and the last 5 matches on Willow I have been on either p19 or p20, so I knew the contours of the swim.

I had the point of an island to target and on the pole line, it was shallower to my right and about 4ft out in front.

Starting on the straight lead and corn to the point of the island hoping for an early carp and after 30mins I didn’t have a bite.

Switching to the pole at 14m, feeding a nugget of groundbait (50:50 mix of uzit bubblegum & crushed expander) with a few micros, fishing a 4mm expander I soon caught a couple of blade skimmers and a F1. However, I was bumping a few small fish and switched to a maggot rig with .10 bottom and 20 hook, attached to a 5 elastic, fishing a single maggot I continued catching including a few more F1s.

Of the anglers I could see, with the exception of Neil opposite on p27 who had caught a couple of proper carp, I was doing OK.

After a couple of hours I tried my short line which I had fed with groundbait and kept topped up with maggot, but all I caught were tiny roach, so didn’t waste too much time on this as I felt I needed to catch some proper fish.

The 2^nd half of the match was more of a struggle, I set up 2 new swims, one positively fed with groundbait and the other negatively fed. I had hardly had anything over the positive swim and only a few more silvers and another F1 over the negative swim at 16m.

By this time the light was terrible with the ripple, the sun was in my eyes, and it was getting colder. I tried a mini method with groundbait and dead maggot towards the rope, but no bites. Back on the 16m line I tried varying my feed, hoping for a few more F1s, but only caught a few more roach and blade skimmers. As I was catching very little, I tried for a carp towards the point of the island in the last 30 mins where I had been pinging 6s and corn all match, but no bites.

In the end Neil on p27 easily won the section with 5 carp for 41lb, Jason on p23 had a late carp to add to his F1s to claim 2^nd beating me by less than 2lb. It was tough going on this lake with Mark to my left on p19 weighing 5oz and Jamie on p21 weighing 4lb, so I was pleased to get 3^rd.

1.    70-  0 – Joff Rogers – p1 (Old Match Lake)

2.    50-  4 – Steve Waters – p10 (OML)

3.    50-  0 – Matt Hamilton – p50 (Kingfisher)

4.    44-12 – Carl Mulford – p10 (Heron)

5.    43-  8 – Dwayne Seed – p21 (Heron)

6.    41-  9 – Neil Morgan – p27 (Willow)