29/09/24 - Manor Farm - Ash Lake

Weight - 51lb 9oz (9lb 13oz - silvers)

Catch - 10 Carp, 2 F1s, 21 Skimmers

Weather - Cold start, mostly cloudy, rain later

Match - Tackle Den (17 fished) - 6th overall, 3rd in section

With 17 today, we had 10 on Windmill and 7 on Ash. At least it meant we would have more space than we had the last time we were here in June when we had 22 all on Windmill.

Being the bigger lake, Windmill was likely to produce the winner, but I wasn’t too disappointed to draw p15 on Ash. I had no idea whether it was a decent draw, but it looked OK. Plumbing up revealed 7ft of water from 8m and remained flat out to 13m. To be honest I didn’t fancy catching in that depth and found 2 areas left and right at 11.5m in 5ft of water. I also had a small, submerged bush to my right.

The match could be split into 3 parts. The first 2 hours I tried catching on 6mm p-nut pellet or 4mm bubblegum pellet, over 4mm bubblegum pellet, but only caught a couple of small skimmers. I also caught an F1 and a skimmer on the method, but I was going nowhere. In the meantime, Steve to my right was also struggling, but almost everyone else seemed to have caught a couple of carp or F1s.

As I couldn’t catch any carp or F1s, I really needed to put some fish in the net and hope for a late charge. Therefore, I decided to cup a ball of Uzit Natural Re-Act and GLM (mixed 2:1), with bubblegum micros and some dead reds at 11.5m. Double dead red maggot was best and by topping up every 2^nd fish with a nugget of feed via a toss pot, I managed to keep this line going for 90 mins or so, but with 2hrs remaining I really needed to catch some carp and F1s.

I had been pinging 4s to my left in 3ft of water and meat by the submerged bush. The meat swim was a bust, hooking 2 fish, but losing both as the hook pulled on 1 and I got broke by the other. Therefore, I set up a new swim to my right at 11.5m again pinging pellet in 3ft of water

By alternating left and right, fishing a hair rigged 6mm p-nut pellet, I caught some big F1s up to nearly 6lb, plus a couple carp. I knew I had the best last hour on the lake, but felt I needed another 30mins and that’s how it worked out missing out on winning the lake by 7lb.

1.   90-14 – Steve Chandler – Windmill Lake

2.    71-  2 – Cliff Dutton – Windmill

3.    58-13 – Matthew Gale – p5 Ash

4.    56-  6 – John Pearce – Windmill

5.    56-  4 – Bobby Moore – p18 Ash

6.    51-  9 – Ken Rayner – p15 Ash