24/08/13 - Eden Vale

Weight - 20lb 7oz (12lb 5oz - silvers)
Catch - 10 Skimmers, 1 Tench, 1 Roach, 1 Perch, 1 Common Carp
Weather - Cool, cloudy start. Brighter & windy later
Match - West Tackle Open - 1st out of 20

I had nearly forgotten about this match until Mark reminded me. With 20 booked in we had pegs 1-24, along the road bank and down the left hand bank. I have only fished here a couple times and was looking forward to a day’s skimmer fishing on the pole, although Mark suggested I needed a feeder rod for the carp.

Peg 17 didn’t mean much to me, but it soon became apparent I had drawn one of the carp pegs opposite the island. Stuart White on p16 was so confident of carp he only set up 2 feeder rods. As for me I had gone with the expectation of skimmer fishing and drawing this peg confused matters, because I was in a potential match winning area where I needed to fish the feeder. Kev Hanson was the other side of me, so all 3 of us would be targeting the island.

Because I had brought bait for a day’s skimmer fishing, I decided to still feed a pole line, more as a backup rather than my principle swim. To my left was a big bush/tree which extended 6m over the water and it looked like it would hold a few carp, so I fed 8mm pellet to fish paste over the top.

On the drive down, it was noticeably cooler than of later with a NE breeze and just as the match started it started to rain. Fortunately it didn’t last too long, but I was glad I brought my fleece.

I was told you need to cast as tight as you dare to the island, but it was obvious that it was really shallow and snaggy with bits of debris sticking out of the water. There was also marker buoys, indicating the out of bound area for the boaters. So I cast to the right of the buoy, but hopefully close enough to the island to get bites, although I had also heard stories of anglers hooking 13 and landing none. The next 6hrs had the potential to get exciting.

After feeding the 13m pole line with groundbait and pellet, I spent the first hour on the method feeder, with pellet on the hook. I had a small tench and skimmer, but it was slow going. Stu also had a few skimmers and tench, but no carp as yet.

I kept the pole line topped up and first drop in produced a big skimmer on 4mm expander, followed by a hand size fish, but then nothing which was disappointing. An early look under the tree only produced little knocks from what I assume were small fish.

Since the pole line failed to produce and Stuart was catching skimmers on feeder, I decided to focus more time on the feeder rotating baits, between maggot, pellet and boilie. Maggot produced the most fish.

After 3 hours my rod was nearly dragged in using a yellow pop up, but that tell-tale wag suggested the fish was foul hooked near the rear end. All I will say it takes a great deal of skill to land an 8lber hooked in the tail. I’m not sure Stu agreed.

That carp now put me ahead of Stuart and reports suggested the lake was fishing very hard and I was leading. Steve was admitting to having a 12lb carp (which must have lost weight by the end of the match weighing only 9lb). The projected target winning weight of 50lb was now looking very doubtful.

As the match progressed the wind increased and bites were becoming less frequent. Another look on the pole produced a roach! I tried the dropping the feeder over the pole line to see whether those skimmers wanted a more stable bait, but nothing. A couple of looks under the tree on paste also failed to produce. Obviously the fish didn’t want to come in close today.

So it was a case of sticking it out on the feeder and just waiting for a bite and I added a couple more skimmers, but I also lost a couple as I felt the feeder snag/bump on the bottom. In the last hour Kev’s swim came alive, catching a small carp a few skimmers. It was noticeable that he was casting shorter than Stuart & I and we wondered whether the fish preferred to be in the deeper water.

By the all out I thought I had 16lb or so and really didn’t think I had enough to win. My skimmers weighed heavier than I thought, but even with 20lb, I expected Andy Fox to have won from peg 1. As it turned out Andy had lost a few carp, in what is a proper snag pit, so a surprise win on a day when the fish just shut up shop.

1^st 20- 7 – Ken Rayner – p17
2^nd 20- 0 – Andy Fox – p1
3^rd 19-12 – Dean Adams – p5
4^th 18- 3 – Kev Hanson – p18
5^th 18- 1 – Stuart White – p16
6^th 14- 0 – Mark Poppleton – p13

Silvers
1^st 19-12 – Dean Adams – p5
2^nd 18- 1 – Stuart White – p16
3^rd 13- 3 – Kev Hanson – p18

25/05/12 - Eden Vale

Weight - 23lb 13oz
Catch - 28 Skimmers, 10 Roach, 3 Hybrid, 1 Carp
Weather - Hot & sunny, gusty wind

An e-mail from Mark suggested a skimmer session at Eden Vale lake, which is a venue I have only fished once before a couple of years ago. Its a large natural lake situated on the outskirts of Westbury, which can be fished on a day ticket.

We settled on pegs 15 & 16 where it was 6ft at 13m. So 4 balls of groundbait, micros, 4mm pellet and corn was deposited. With the prospect of skimmers I set up 2 rigs. A 1g jean Francois with double bulk and a more conventional 0.5g HB chump. Bait was 4mm expander

Well the session didn't quite go according to plan. Mark soon switched to a half depth rig and caught most of his 52lb that way. Those skimmers just didn't want to be on the deck. I persevered with with the deck rig, mainly because I was being lazy and couldn't be bothered to setup another rig, however after a few couple of hours I got fed up of watching Mark, so switched to a shallow rig and caught, but I couldn't get the better 1lb+ skimmers, since most of mine were 6oz. I did however catch some cracking roach, the biggest weighing 1lb 2oz.

I had been feeding my margin with 6s and corn and managed a really nice looking linear mirror carp on double corn. I did lose another which felt bigger, but the hook pulled whilst trying to get it out of snag.