With a rare weekend off from work I decided to book into the Open at Alders Farm. The match was restricted to 15 anglers as it was planned to be on the Specimen Lake. This lake is a strange one, full of small pastie sized carp and a good head of carp to high 30s although they rarely show in matches. Plenty of bream and proper skimmers means plenty of bites throughout.
We were greeted by another frost free morning with a slight breeze and a temperature of 2 degrees. It would get warmer as the day wore on but so would the wind speed increase.
I was looking for a peg on the house side. Anything from 1-5 with 1 and 2 being the better pegs. However with monies paid, I dipped my hand in and out came peg 14. This was not where I wanted to be. This end of the lake narrows to a point, Peg 15 is a good peg where a gentle lob to the far bank trees gets a few fish as well as fishing down the bank. My peg has a hole in the trees opposite and would need to be fish with a method or bomb. You have a steep bank behind you making shipping the pole back harder. I opted for a line at 11m due to this bank and although I felt this was too short a line was hopeful of catching a few fish if I could keep things tidy.I also set up a margin line at 11m to my left to have an odd look at throughout the day, although really did not expect to catch from it due to it being very shallow.
I started off potting in a large pot of 4mm fishery pellets topped off with around 20 grains of corn and about the same of 6mm expanders at 11m with another pot at 11m to my left. My rigs were a MW .4g diamond on .15 Colmic stream to a size 16 PR36. A NG Ghandi for down the edge dotted right down to .17 Colmic Stream to a size 14 PR36.
I started off on the bomb not wanting to spook any fish already in the vicinity, but with no bites or liners after half an hour I switched to a tiny method feeder with soaked pellets around the feeder. Still no bites or liners. A look on the pole line brought no fish and the sun's reflection on the water was starting to play havoc. I had a quick look down the edge with no bites. Back to the method and nothing so switched back to the bomb and nothing again. Back to the pole and after 2 hours I had my first bite, a skimmer around the 1lb mark on a 6mm expander. Then nothing, I tried toss-potting feed in regularly to try to induce bites, lifting and dropping, I had another 1lb + skimmer on stinky corn but I was not getting bites regularly. I had had two bites and two skimmers.
Elsewhere, it was strange, Andy on 15 was getting odd fish, not regularly but odd fish on the method into the trees. Charlie Lancaster seemed to be getting a few fish on 12 fishing the method to the island, John Beesley was getting odd small carp again to the island whereas Colin Fosdyke and Martin Greene were struggling for bites on both method and pole lines, Vic Nugent was getting a few small carp across to the small island but was a long chuck from peg 6, the pegs on the house bank were all catching small carp regularly.
It seemed that the fish had turned off, I could only get a bite whilst there was a ripple on the water and was having to wait for that bite. By 1400 I had 4 skimmers for around 5lb and needed a few carp. Andy was catching small carp but his fish were bigger than my skimmers. I kept plugging away on the pole line and this single minded approach started to pay off. I managed a carp around 2lb on my next put in and this was followed 15mins later by another around 6lb. I was only getting bites on 6mm expanders but could not get a bite on stinky corn. I had 6 bites and 6 fish so was happy with my hook to bite ratio. By the end of the match I still maintained this 100% record with 9 from 9. Andy had sneaked a carp with 5 minutes to go and I thought he would just pip me, but I was still happy with how I fished, could I have done anything different? perhaps I went a bit too gung ho at the start and killed the swim before I could gauge a response. Lesson learned.
Overall the house bank fished better.
1st Andy W 39-08 peg 1
2nd Trevor Price 39-03 peg 2
3rd Richard Brain 36-03 peg 4
4th Charlie Lancaster 24-12 peg 7
5th Andy T 24-10 peg 5
6th Andy Blackwell 23-13 peg 15
My weight of 22-05 placed me in 7th place, for which I was happy. I learnt a lesson from a difficult peg.
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