Sunk at Sedges

This won't take long!

A trip back on a commercial, which of late I have struggled on no matter what the commercial fishery, and today was no exception.

I picked up Glenn (2 pots) Bailey and we were soon filled with breakfast and at the fishery selecting our nets. I'd once again taken most baits to cover silvers and carp and would decide what to go with depending on the peg. Everyone said you needed a draw at the top half of the lake (wind blows that way) pegs 6 to 10 and 11 to 16, with pegs 10 and 11 the carp flyers. Into the bucket and out comes peg 3, bugger, nobody could give me any hope other than sometimes the skimmers show there. Last 3 anglers to draw got Trigger 11, Glenn 10 and Tony 7....remember that!

A nice short walk to my peg (again) and it was flat calm at this stage with a few roach topping but not much else, carp were topping right up the other end. For company I had steve Segar on 4 and Clive Feddery on 2.

 I set up two rigs today, a 0.4g PB silvers 5 with 0.12 to 16 PR512 for soft pellet, and a 0.4g PB inter (bulbous) with 0.16 to 14 PR478 for meat. I decided to take a very cautious approach to begin with, toss potting in 4mm pellets at 14m to my left, and meat to the right. I did throw some meat in at 6m as I thought if there were no carp about the skimmers might sit over it. The match started slowly for me and my neighbours, and I reckon it took me 40 mins to catch my first skimmer on a soft pellet, followed by another small one 10 mins later. I dropped in on the long meat line and the float shot under before it settled, I landed a carp soon after that was nearly 8lb. The next hour was a little better for the skimmers and I was up to 6 skimmers now , this was a lot better than those around me, but then Clive had an early look on the margin and landed a 20lb 9oz mirror carp!!!!

The third hour produced a few more skimmers for me but then the peg went dead and out of desperation I cupped some groundbait with worms and micros in at 8m and let it settle. I went for a walk to see Glenn, and he was doing well with 10 carp, Bela on 8 had carp and skimmers as did Tony on 7 but he had a lot of skimmers. Back on my home for the day and the last 3 hours took ages to pass as I all I managed to land was a 6oz skimmer. I did pull out of a carp on the soft pellet rig and I pulled out of a carp on the last dob in on the meat line at 7m. However, was was really annoying was the gbait line, this just fizzed and fizzed and fizzed for the last hour, and the more gbait I put in the more it fizzed. No matter what hook bait I tried the float would not go under, saying that it did once on double worm, but I hit nothing. I assume it was carp as the fizzes came in big patches and you could watch them moving.

There endeth another poor day for me on a lake. As for Glenn he got the paste to work again and had 116lb for 2nd place beaten by the irrepressible Trigger opposite who had 123lb. Tony was 3rd with 94lb including 44lb of skimmers for top silvers, so top 3 anglers were the last to draw!

That's probably the worst day I have had on brick lake, and in the dim and distant past I won the first 4 matches I fished here, still your only as good (or bad, lol) as your last match! No fishing next weekend for me as, weather permitting I'm off to watch Eng v Aus in the cricket. At this very moment I'd rather look at a cricket pitch with covers on than my float sat there doing naff all on a lake.

Last thing to mention, my team fished the Div 1 national on the Trent and Mersey Rat Tip Canal, they were 42nd and nearly got relegated, Bathampton were I think 26th, with Shakespeare winning the event. Luckily I avoided fishing that match, see there'a always someone worse off, ;-)