Alders Farm Ash Lake 04 11 14

My first venture to Alders for a few weeks and I was biting at the bit to get amongst the resident carp and have a decent day where the float kept going under. However, the weather gods had decided a different day was to be had. I awoke to the first frost of the year, never a good sign, with a plan to rain between 2pm and 4pm.
I made my way through the daily commute and pulled into the fishery to be greeted by Lewis, the new fishery owner, who explained some of his plans for the future. Allowing youngsters on the fishery, improvements already made to the café and a far bit of TLC to the lakes and surrounding areas. It certainly all fits into his plan of having coaching days for both adults and youngsters, linking up with local schools and clubs who will thrive on the first hand knowledge available from the team at Alders.
As I said earlier I had not been to Alders for a while and the only information I could glean was from the recent winter league matches. It seemed to be a maggot/ground-bait combination or a pellet approach which was doing all the damage. But, I fancied a day on the corn and set my stall out accordingly. I was pegged on peg 21 on the dam wall and had 3ft at a top three and was confident I could get them going if they were there. I also set a couple of margin rigs up to fish the pallets either side, one with pellet, the other corn.
I had Madd for company on peg 23 who would be fishing pellet or maggot throughout. At the all in I potted a half pot of corn and pellet to my left and a full pot of pellet to the platform to my right. I threw a few grains of corn to the top three line and lowered a pineapple "gellited" corn with no immediate bites. After 5 minutes I was starting to get indications but they were minute twitches of the float. A few alterations to the shotting pattern and I was soon into my first fish, a common around 2lb. His brother soon followed and after an hour I had around 8 fish. Not the start I wanted but hopefully as the sun came up and warmed the water, things would improve. Hour two was also slow and by the end of the hour I was reaching for the margin rigs. One fish from the right hand edge, and I was back out to top three.
I could see Vic, who was celebrating his 57th birthday, or as he says 19 again and again, catching from peg 5 whilst Charlie was getting a few from peg 7. Madd was starting to get a few close to the platform on 24, after a slow start and Dell Smith on 26 was also amongst them. I must also say that the banter was second to none with nearly everyone contributing to a game of Popquiz at some stage of another and Terry Lancaster singing along to Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.
Hour three and four improved a little bringing my total to 45 fish and around a ton. I decided to have a proper look down the edge in the last hour, partly due to seeing a few tails in the pegs but also because I was going no where on the top three line. The first 10 minutes were quiet before the float dipped and a 5lb fish was in the net, I re-fed and again waited for 10 minutes before another 5lb fish. A couple more followed and I estimated I had around 150lb. I ended up just a little short on 143-11 for nowhere, but was glad to blow the cobwebs off and see the float go under.

Overall

1st Colin Spencer                337-0

2nd Dell Smith                    268-13

3rd Charlie Lancaster         213-14

4th Trevor Price                  210-0

5th Vic Nugent                   204-12

6th Terry Lancaster            188-06



Good to be back at Alders and I will be back next week as my shifts fall nicely.