Today would see how the lake fishes with a lot more anglers on it, in the JJL match every peg bar one will be in and there will be good pegs and poorer ones. I was going with a similar plan to the Friday, fish corn on top four and hard 6mm pellet further out. The weather was planned to turn worse throughout the day with plenty of rain forecast.
Getting to the venue nice and early, ensuring the nets are dipped and collected ( I leave my keepnets on site). I ordered breakfast and loaded up the barrow ready for the walk up to the lake. Walking past both Ash and Oak lakes I noticed it was flat calm, whereas the wind was gently blowing left to right on Pines Lake, possibly as it was higher up. Breakfast done and a chat with fellow team mate Nick Pringle about the forthcoming match and the Friday JJL match. A few others were also using it as a practice match. With 17 anglers on the match it would be a good test of how it would fish on the day.
At the draw, I went in and peg 1, happy with that as it generally has a good edge to both left and right. Although the left more dominant edge is the wrong way round for me as it means holding the pole across my body.The right hand edge did look nice though. I set up a corn line at 5m, a long line at 11m to the right side for fishing 4mm and 6mm hard pellet., another 11m line to the left where I would feed micros and fish expanders. A shallow rig completed my set up.
At the all in I cupped in some feed onto my two long lines, a medium pot of micros to the left and 4mms to the right, both fishery pellets dampened down.On the near 5m line I simply threw a dozen grains of corn and around 20 4mm pellets.Going over it with a grain of corn and the float dips and fish on after approximately 30 seconds. Just the start I wanted. Back out and a few dips but nothing connecting, taking two inches off the rig and another carp.No more fish, which was slightly disappointing, but I would still feed it and come back to it later. Going to the 11m right hand line, again saw a couple of fish on the deck before it again went a bit iffy and proper bites harder to come by. A try on the 11m left line fed with micros, did not have a bite all match despite trying it a couple of times.
A move to the shallow rig feeding 4mm sinkers 3 or 4 at a time picked off 5 or 6 carp to around 4lb, before this line also died once the rain started. Going down the right hand edge to the reeds and feeding around a dozen 4mms and fishing a 6mm hard pellet saw my most productive spell. Around a dozen carp to 5lb, smashing and crashing through the reed beds and having to drag them out, even with tightened orange vespe.
I could see Nick struggling fish long and shallow on peg 24 but the angler on 25 was getting a few fish down the edge towards the corner and shallow, swapping between the two.Steve Johnson on 22 started off well fishing pellets short and moving along the edge later in the match. Over on peg 19 and 18 were having a peg to peg battle. Word was though that Mark Griffith was having a day to remember with plenty of fish coming to his long shallow and maggot top kit tactics. Richard Farrow and Lee's Cox and Wilsonwere all enjoying the rewards of pegs 5 to 8.
At the all out I felt I had got it nearly right, 94lb for nowhere. I had caught on pellet and felt I had wasted too much time on the deck, a far better approach would have been shallow for the start of the match followed by a pellet edge and a maggot line in front of my keepnets. Lesson learnt and will be prepared for the JJL match where 90lb would get good points.
Well done to Mark Griffith on the win with 215lb, well ahead of Lee Wilson's 165 and Rich Farrow's 159.
Next match is the Tuesday Costcutter at Alders Farm. Not sure which lake.
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