Landsend Match Lake

Leighton Palmer was running an open match on Match Lake and I fancied this rather than take a place at Chilton Trinity. I'm wondering if I was right?

I arrived early and took the opportunity to walk around the lake, the first third of the lake had the wind blowing into it, the further up you went the flatter it got, so I fancied a draw from pegs 1 to 5 or 19 to 24. When the draw finally started (Leighton and crew arrived after the 9:30 draw time) Anton Page drew for Leighton and handed him peg 19, whilst Anton could only pull peg 10, not good. I pulled out corner peg 12 as far away from the wind as possible. I did not fancy it but I have seen it produce both silvers and carp in the past so wasn't giving up. Anton mentioned that we keep drawing next to each other, and that he hadn't yet beaten me off the next peg!

With peg 11 not in I had a bit of room, and I decided to have a soft pellet swim at 11.5 mtr at 10 o'clock in the open water (0.3 grm PB inter 0.14 to 16 B911), meat at 6mtr with the same rig as above, a pellet rig for the aerator at 14.5 mtr, and a margin rig both with 0.16 to 16 PR36. Oh and a caster rig for 3 mtrs. A lot of rigs and swims but not all fed to begin with!

On the whistle I was not quite ready, and by the time I filled my pot with meat Anton was already into a carp! I fed the meat and pellet lines with a pot and threw some casters in. I started on the pellet at 11.5 mtr and missed a bite first drop but then had no signs for 15 mins, I saw a few bubbles in the meat swim so dropped in with an 8mm cube, I hooked a decent bream but it came off as I reached for the landing net. It took me another 10 mins to get a bite here and I landed a carp of 2lb. An hour and half into the match I added a skimmer, but my two banker lines were not showing any signs of fish. Anton was miles in front of me as had taken 4 carp in the first 30 mins but he was now struggling. I came in on the caster line and caught a few perch from 1oz to 10oz, but this line died quickly and I only took another 3 perch of this line all day!

I was really struggling and I tried the margin, early than planned, where I had been loose feeding pellets, I didn't get a bite here, but did clear the swim of snags! I managed to foul hook a couple of skimmers, one each from the meat and pellet swims and that was the extent of the middle of my match. I had been feeding to the aerator with the catty and 6mm pellets all day and with 90 mins to go it started to bubble. I couldn't catch on the banded pellet rig, so I swapped to the soft pellet and caught a couple of skimmers and a carp. Then in the last hour I had 3 more carp and ide on this line and that was it. Although this last spell was better I was still waiting a long time for bites and I don't think the fish were there in numbers.

Anton threw back around 20lb (and so his jinx with me on the next peg continues) and I weighed 20lb of carp and 12lb of silvers for no where. As I thought the bottom pegs were much better than my end, and the match was all over at the draw today.

1st Leighton Palmer 98lb 70z peg 19 meat, mainly down the edge.
2nd Martin Rayett 87lb 3oz peg 3 meat across in 1ft of water.
3rd Rich.... 76lb 4oz peg 21
4th Alan Oram 55lb 14oz peg 24. Won the silvers with 19lb.

Only peg 1 down that end of the lake did not weigh, that was old Plip Plop, not sure what the Keynsham Angling boss did to avoid them lol!