Alders Farm Affordable Pines Lake 16 09 14

For the last few weeks we have been enjoying ourselves on Oaks Lake at Alders Farm. Today, however, saw us fishing the prolific Pines Lake. My favourite lake on the complex. Although, I have only ever won match on there, I have performed consistently over the years and feel at home there with a variety of methods changing throughout the year.
We only had 6 anglers booked onto the match and decided to peg only on one bank giving everyone a bit of room. Charlie had drawn peg 31 in the corner, Richard was on peg 3, myself on 4, Trevor on 6, Ken on 8 with Terry on peg 10.
I opted to fish 3 lines today, one at top three straight out, another at top two to 2o'clock and a margin rig to my left on a top two. Bait would be corn, both gelled and stinky, and expander down the edge. Feed would consist of 3 kilo's of corn and a couple of pints of 4mm fishery feed pellets. At the all in I fed a pot of pellet down the edge and threw a dozen grains of corn on both the other lines and started feeding 4 grains every 20 seconds on the top three line. I was soon into carp and around 3lb apiece was happy with the size of fish coming to the net. After an hour I had around 15 fish for close to 50lb and felt I was catching well for a good weight. I tried the top two right line after this initial burst and although was catching I was having to wait for a bite where on the top three line I would get an indication within a minute of the float settling.
Richard was catching well on paste on peg 3 and I could hear a lot of splashing from Trevor's peg. Although if you believed him he was only catching "twisters". Charlie was plodding away and sneaking a few maggot fish in from 31. Ken and Terry I could not see but word was Terry was catching a few on 10.
Hour two and three were fairly consistent, again putting around 15 fish in each hour for a total of around 140lb. Hour four I made the decision to come closer to a top two, in the hope of speeding up my catch rate and also to see if any larger fish were lurking just off the feed area. I also upped my feed rate to around a dozen grains every 20 seconds. I was getting a few fish with this new feeding regime but also getting a lot of foul hooked fish. A change of depth resulted in a few more fish but my catch rate had slowed considerably. I was also loosing fish off the hook, not foul hooked fish but hooked in the mouth and pulling out of fish whilst landing them. I felt I needed to do something to combat this and changed the hook from a B911 to PR36 and this helped solve the problem.
With around 180lb in the net going into hour five, I decided to have a quick look down the margin. I had been feeding 4mm pellet regularly throughout the first few hours and started to get a few fish from the left hand side on expander. But, these were smaller fish around 2lb each. Back out to the top two and with the change in hook pattern meaning lost fish were a thing of the past I was getting a good run together. Fish around the 3-4lb mark were soon boosting my weight. My last two hours I placed around 120lb in the net and felt that without those lost fish I could have framed.

Overall

1st Trevor Price           536-04

2nd Terry Lancaster    375-10

3rd Richard Brain        369-08

4th Charlie Lancaster  368-04

5th Keith Ashby          314-10

6th Ken                        218-04

A frustrating day for me, I got it wrong on two fronts, wrong choice of hook pattern, the difference between the two hook patterns were remarkable, I felt the B911 were too springy and flexing too much and indeed had two hooks pull out of shape during the match. Also I felt upping the feed was a wrong decision, I should have kept fish coming and not change my original feeding strategy. So two lessons learnt.



Alders Farm Affordable Open Oaks Lake 09 09 14

The Specimen Lake at Alders Farm (Oaks) has been fishing really well of late, not the massive weights normally associated with Alders Farm, but you still need a ton to frame, different styles catch and it can be won from anywhere.
I like the lake but it can be frustrating, a few weeks back I lost a "twenty" when the fish rolled over the hook-length. Yet in the same breath you can catch pound carp and skimmers all day long if you can keep them coming.
At the café it was nice to see 11 anglers on the match today with anglers travelling from London and Nottingham. I collected all the monies while Charlie Lancaster pegged it out on Trevor's instructions. Only two banks were in today with 8 on the café bank and 3 on the house bank. I had drawn peg 2 on the house bank with Charlie on 3 and Mick Wright, fresh from closing the gap in the MK Nugget stakes on the out and out flyer peg 1. He can seriously draw well.
I set up three lines, two either side of me on top two's(brambles hampered going any further, and a line on 2+2 to fish corn in 4ft of water. Bait was corn, 8mm Hard pellet and 6mm expanders. Feed were fishery micros and a kilo of 3G GB along with 3 kilo of corn.
I started off feeding 2 balls of GB onto 2+2 followed by a pot of Corn and half a pot of micros. Down both edges went 1/2 pots of micros, a ball of GB to the right and just a handful of corn to the left.
Before I had finished feeding my lines I could hear Mick playing his first fish, and thought I was going to get battered today, but slowly I started getting a few small carp to around 2lb with the odd skimmer thrown in for good measure. After an hour I reckoned on having around 15lb but was behind Mick and Colin opposite me. Hour two was slower with only around 10lb gracing the keepnet and nothing over a pound. Hour three and the peg seemed dead, despite trying both expanders and hard pellets. So I re-fed the line positively with another full pot of corn
A look down both edges produced no bites. This is a poor margin peg and although next to peg 1, a good margin peg, the fish never seemed to come round the corner close to the bank. So it was back to the 2+2 line. I added another section and added a foot to the length and fished just past my feed and this produced a few more fish, before the peg went quiet. The culprit was a large common carp around 20lb which plodded around and shed the hook as the landing net went towards it GRRRRR!!!! or words to that effect. Next drop in produced a carp around 3lb and I thought the bigger fish had at last turned up. How wrong I was. Stone dead. Again I re-fed the line with a ball of GB and another full pot of corn. Another 20 minutes down both edges again produced no bites so it was back out to where the fish were hopefully queued up. Another 10 minutes passed before my next bite from a 14lb mirror carp which swam towards me and up so was scooped with the minimum of fuss. A few more carp and skimmers around the 1 1/2lb mark came to double corn but nothing regular and my match just fizzled out. I knew Mick had beaten me again to close the gap to 12-8 but did not realise how close it was in the end. I had 79lb to Mick's 87lb, a few lost fish here and there would have seen me home, but then again we can all say that.
Oaks Lake had again fished well with 4 weights over a ton.

Overall

1st Colin Spencer         121-03

2nd Josh Blavins          117-02

3rd Ernie                      103-09

4th Trevor Price           100-00

5th Mick Wright            87-03

6th Charlie Lancaster    82-02

My next match is at Alders next Tuesday, as always you can read, the good, the bad and the diabolical days fishing I have here.





Road Trip South West

A random phone call from Pete Thompson inviting me to stay at his brother's house in Cullompton, Devon, could only mean one thing, a couple of days fishing. In the past we have fished a few waters around the area, including Stafford Moor, South Fields Farm, Goodiford Mill, Ki-Ora and Viaduct Fishery. All have been kind to us with regards to the fishing. Shame it is so far away really.
We had planned to go the weekend of the 6th and 7th but with me being able to book some holiday we were able to grab an extra day and leave on the 5th. Troy Hillyer was also coming along after juggling his workload.
A 6am start on the Friday saw us all loaded up and heading for Viaduct Fishery, hoping to fish Cary Lake and the big carp that reside there. However after a couple of hours driving we were pulling of the A303 into the local services at Amesbury for the Harvester "all you can eat" Breakfast.
With plenty of sustenance we soon back off and running.
Arriving at Viaduct we found out that Cary Lake was closed for a match so we settled into Lodge Lake. We had asked if we could have a knock up on the lake, which was agreed to, although carp had to be returned immediately and only silvers were retained. I decided I was not going to compete with both Pete and Troy on silvers, and with carp only counting as a pound weight, I could perhaps catch enough carp and a few silvers to make it interesting. I opted for two lines for silvers, one at top two straight out the other at top four. Both rigs were NG Mini Diamonds to .16 Stroft and a size 16 B911. Bait was expander on the top two line and corn at top four. I also set up a margin rig for carp. A NG Mini Diamond to .20 Stroft and a PR36 for corn on a top three.
At the "all in" I cupped in half a pot of micro onto each line and within 5 minutes was getting a few hand sized skimmers on the corn line. A switch to corn coated in GOT Baits Gel-It saw a couple of better skimmers but I was already behind Pete who was catching proper skimmers on expanders. A switch to the expander line saw a couple of small roach before a hungry carp took me for a run around. After 5 minutes the leviathan was succumbing to the power of the soft black elastic and headed into the landing net. At around 10lb it was a lovely fish to catch but was only worth a pound.
I carried on fishing and feeding the silver lines to no avail. With every put in Pete would come back with a decent stamp skimmer and odd carp. Mine were all too small. Troy was getting odd fish and again seemed a better stamp, so I decided to pick up my margin rig and have a go for some carp. The match was beyond me, time for some fun.
I had feed the line with some corn and micro's from the start and with a Gel-it grain of corn on I lowered the bait around a foot from the baited area. All too quickly the float dipped and Mr Carp was on. The red hydro soon had the fish wallowing in the landing net and at around 15lb a good fish. I followed this up with another 9 to end up with over 100lb of carp (11lb in the match) and 15lb of silvers. Troy had suffered a bit worse than me with 2 carp and 16lb of silvers for 18lb total whilst Pete had battered us. 54lb of silvers and 10 carp for around 90lb.
After settling into Pete's brother's house, we were soon up again and treating Tommy to a day at Goodiford Mill. Tommy is a pleasure angler and is just happy to catch fish, be it a one ounce roach or a 10lb carp. It was no surprise to hear that within ten minutes of our start that we were 10 fish behind him. Only small roach and skimmers but a fish is a fish. I wanted to practice the pellet waggler so picked a swim where I could comfortably cast and feed to around 40m. I also fed a margin line for later on. Troy was next to me and was just going to fish the margin before switching to the pellet waggler later in the day. Pete was targeting the silver fish in the lake and was trying to catch different species and a pound plus crucian carp.
I started off on the waggler fishing tight to the far bank trees. Pinging a few pellets every 10 seconds soon had them boiling on the surface as each pouch hit the water. After a few depth adjustments I was soon into fish, all around the 2lb mark and all falling to an 8mm coarse pellet on a hair rig. I was catching well and pinging just three pellets every cast and the float would go as soon as it hit the water, if not I would just twitch it around a foot and get a bite. After an hour I reckoned I had caught the twenty fish target and was happy with the set up and technique.
A move to the margin saw me catching straight away and it was really a fish a chuck before again the twenty fish target was reached. The fish on this line were around the 5lb mark and with over a ton easily completed I was back on the waggler line. Troy was catching a few on the waggler and it would be interesting to see how it fished with two of us going for the same fish. I found that feeding 3 pellets every 10 seconds saw fish competing for the hookbait, whereas Troy was feeding heavier and getting more line bites.With 3 hours gone I was getting a bit bored to be honest and needed something different to pass the time. Pete and Tommy were enthralled in their own head to head battle for amount of species with them tying on 9 apiece. Troy was still catching but was now catching by his feet on a top section in 6 inches of water and was in need of a change. We set about having an hour where we would not feed anything at all and see what could be caught. I opted to fish my margin rig at top two and slap an 8mm hard pellet. Troy opting to fish top three. In the hour challenge I managed another 27 fish for another 100lb on this tactic. Troy also managed 24 fish for another ton.
At the end of the day I reckoned on a good 350lb of fish with Troy having had about the same. Pete and Tommy drew their match 10-10 and were both happy with their days achievements, with Pete getting 3 crucians over the 1lb mark and an 18lb mirror on his last put in.
Back at the house it was our treat to take both Tommy and his wife out for a meal. A nice setting was chosen as it overlooked the River Exe.
Sunday saw us say our goodbyes before travelling to Wootton Bassett to fish Ivy House lakes for the first time. Unfortunately, we could not get on the match lake so had to settle in on the canal lake. We had been told there were plenty of silvers to go at with a few carp and tench. I decided to fish it the same as I would have fished a canal, a long time ago and not knowing any difference. I opted for 5 lines, one just down the margin shelf to my left, a left hand swim down the track, a right hand track line at 10m, a line just down the margin shelf on the far bank at 14.5m and a tight line across to the far bank. I fed the track lines heavily with 4mm sinkers dampened down with a pinch of corn in for good measure. The other lines were fed via a toss pot, again with 4mm sinkers. Bait was to be expanders, corn or GOT Ghost 6mm Soft Hookers and 6mm GOT Rippers.
Pete was first in to action with a carp around 2lb followed by a small perch from down the edge. I slowly worked my way across the canal with only one bite on a single grain of corn from the left hand track line. A look across to the margin shelf saw my fortunes change, with a run of small carp to 2lb and a few skimmers to a pound all falling to a 6mm expander. However I was soon searching the far bank reeds to further bites. By moving along the bank I would get a few fish including a foul hooked 8lb fish which took an age to land on light gear. A few more carp and tench followed before we decided to pack up and make our way home. I reckoned on having caught around 30lb of fish on a day where everyone else struggled for bites let alone fish.
Overall it was another good weekend with good company, both on the bank and off, the banter is always great and good fishing.