I had been in touch with a good friend, Mark Hathway and he pointed me in the right direction, I suspect it was for the open water pegs because my silver fishing resulted in a solitary skimmer, but more of that later.
Mick was driving and with a good 90 minute drive ahead we arranged for 0545 pickup.This should get us to the venue in plenty of time to sample the delights of the new on site cafe. However, like all best laid plans, as soon as we hit the M25 we came across messages stating delays on the QE2 bridge. Still we had no choice but to persevere on and hope it would clear by the time we got there. When we did, it held us up for around 35/40 minutes. Interestingly the signs stated "Salt Spreading". Lost on me, why would they be spreading salt on the motorway during the busy driving hours when the ground was laden with frost all around. My theory was we were being invaded by continental slugs and snails and it was a control measure.
When we did arrive it was rammed in the cafe, another match was going on, so a rather long queue formed in front of us. A bacon baguette for me and a sausage/bacon baguette for Mick followed by tea and coffee all on the hoof as the draw was already taking place.
At least I had a good draw, according to the locals 112. Now I have not seen the lake before but I do know that the pegs on the end of the spit's are normally good draws.Mine though was 15m to the far bank and a proper struggle to reach with a pole. The cold north easterly breeze was whipping up the waves, but was lovely when the wind dropped.
Looks closer but 15m to the protruding reeds.
I set up a couple of rigs to fish the peg, one a .5 MW Hi Viz margin, another at .3 if the wind died back a lot.
A heavier diamond in .75g if the wind got up more. Bait would be pellet on this line.
I also set up another line at 11m straight out in front at 10 and 2 o'clock, one would be fed with groundbait, maggot and chopped worm for skimmers and ide. The other would be a pellet line. Along my bank and my section, were Clive, Kyle John and Mark Fox. Behind me I had Chris Thomas, who had won the last round at Arrans.
Chris Thomas Peg 113, a lot closer than mine.
Tony W and Gino who were busy setting up tip rods to launch across to the empty pegs on the far bank. Josh and Terry completing their section.
Gino and John ready for the off
At the all in I cupped in some pellet across to the far bank and 2 o'clock line. A couple of lightly packed balls of GB with a few dead reds and some chopped worm. I started off on the 10 o'clock silver line, but nothing after 15 minutes. A switch to the pellet line and again nothing. Adding a few coloured sections I managed to push the rig out to 15m, fed and after a few minutes, a dip and my first fish was on, feeling it was foul hooked it soon tore off and broke the hooklength. A new hooklength and out again, 10 minutes gone and another fish on and off. Chris was catching well across in the little bay in front of him. Not a ripple there but I was struggling to hold the float still even overdepth. Still I felt the only way I was going to compete was to catch carp and to do that I needed to fish this long 15m line.
I cupped in a bit more pellet and even tried a big bunch of maggots and a whole dendrobena on the hook to see if this would improve matters, on another day it may have worked but not today.
Chopping and changing pellets saw a few bites finally connecting with my first fish around the 90 minute mark, a cracking mirror around 9lb. 10 minutes later, a 6lb common and I was thinking perhaps they had turned up and the rest of the match would see a procession of big carp come to the waiting net.How wrong I was.
No more bites on any of the lines, set up a margin rig which doubled as a shallow rig. Tried that, nothing.
After 2 hours I had a couple of small indications on the float and another 5 carp came to the net along with a solitary skimmer.
Chris had blitzed the match, a good peg and a good angler on it. Plus it was fishable, which helped him I am sure.
Chris with part of his catch
Before the match had started I had gone along to Gino and informed him to cast tight to the far bank, Tony had also been listening as he quickly set one up as well. Both ended up fishing the tip nearly all day and ended up second and third overall.
Gino with part of his tip caught haul.
Josh had also caught a few further along that bank so it seemed the fish wanted to be out of the wind as much as possible.Tony Roberts managed a creditable 30lb of silvers to show that in the hands of an expert, maggots can catch fish.
Overall
1st Chris Thomas 150lb 8oz Section
2nd Gino Exell 80lb 0oz
3rd Tony Watkins 62lb 0oz
4th Josh 56lb 8oz
5th Keith Ashby 49lb 12oz Section
6th Simon Watkins 44lb 0oz Section
Well done to all the section winners and overall frame
So I have started to show some respectability in the league, a long way off the lead but I will keep striving towards the top. I have taken back a MK Nugget from Mick, so it is now 2-1 in his favour.
My next match is Tuesday at Alders on my own and on Wednesday at Oakfield with Mick.
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