Sunday 14 July 2024

13/07/24 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 65lb 8oz (19lb silvers)
Catch - 28 Skimmers, 1 Roach, 17 Carp, 1 F1
Weather - Cloudy and muggy
Match - Open (11 fished) - 1st in silvers, 4th overall

A return visit to the Old Match Lake at Ivy House, which I haven’t fished for a few months. To be honest it hasn’t been fishing well recently although recent results have been improving, although fishing the tea bag seems to be dominating again.

I drew p12 which isn’t my favourite area and with the 2 tea baggers (Allan Smith and Richard Rogers) drawing p1 & p2, an area which won the last match, the regulars felt we would be fishing for 3rd.

For me I wanted to play around with a new paste mix which revolves around the U-Zit GLM groundbait. On the all-in, I tried the method with fishery micros and 6mm wafter and immediately caught a small carp. A couple more followed before the swim died.

After 45mins I switched to a 3+2 line where I had been feeding 4s, fishing a hair rigged 4mm pellet and to be honest I was disappointed with the response, particularly as Simon Dukes on p10 already had a couple of carp and skimmers from his short line.

I did catch a small carp and couple of skimmers and decided to switch to the paste. Again, I caught a small carp and a couple more skimmers, but it didn’t feel right with what felt like more skimmers than carp in the peg, so I quickly set up a paste rig I have been using for F1s, i.e. 0.15 to 14 hook, rather than 0.19 to a 12 hook.

This was much better as I started to put skimmers up to 2lb in the net, staying on this line for much of the match. I occasionally tried the tea bag and 8mm pellet by the island to rest the swim, where I had been pinging 8s. This would produce 2 or 3 fish, but again they were on the small size.

At the halfway stage, news filtered down that the tea bag boys had already had 60lb each, so decided to stay on the skimmers.

Coming into the last hour the short line was fading, so I started feeding 4s off to my right at 3+2. I had also been feeding my margins, with corn, 4s and micros, which the roach loved so I just increased the feed.

I managed a couple of better carp on the tea bag before switching to my carp paste rig and this produced some proper carp from the new short swim. Finally, I managed a proper carp late down my left margin on double corn.

An enjoyable day and I’m pleased I stuck with the skimmers to win the silvers.

1.    118-  0 – Allan Smith – p1
2.    114-  8 – Richard Rogers – p2
3.      70-  0 – Dean Johnson – p7
4.      65-  8 – Ken Rayner – p12
Silvers
1.      19-  0 – Ken Rayner – p12
2.      14-  4 – Paul Baker – p5
3.      11-  8 – James Dave – p16