Happy New Year everyone! It has been a while since my last match (debacle at Hillview) as I didn't feel the enthusiasm to fish around the start of the New Year. I did manage to get out of the house on the 30th December but that was to visit Alexandra Palace in London to watch the World Darts Round 4, it was a great day out with my daughter Lucy and so glad we went. Had a nice view from a table.
During this week I had not been sure of where to fish this weekend, the weather really was not conducive to good fishing, heavy rain then frosts etc, and to be very honest Saturday morning I was still undecided where to go, or even if to bother. However, having been in the house for quite a while and the weather looking OK for Sunday I talked myself into fishing the Open at Windmill and sent a text message off to Gerry Welsh to book in. The previous weeks open had been won by Shaun Townsend with a ton, but this was after the mild weather, I was expecting a tough match and so kept an open mind on what to fish for (silvers or carp).
I was a bit tired waking up Sunday, this was due to staying up a bit late to watch a bit of England V Australia in the cricket. When I got up I was able to listen to the end of the cricket, and well done England on the draw, I had two of my tweets picked up by the BBC as they shared them on the BBC sports App, fame at last lol!
I arrived at the fishery after trying my hardest to avoid the potholes in the road (mission impossible) and there seemed to be a dozen anglers turned up so fair play to them. The draw was done a little early and as I was still loading my trolley, so I was very late into the draw bucket and pulled out peg 25. Straight away Gerry and Dave Haines said they fancied that peg, though Dave Wilmott told me he didn't. Peg 25 is the car park near end of the lake, it is deep here with margins about 5ft and 9ft in open water. I really didn't think the fish would be in the deep water today, so I never bothered to set up rigs for in front of me.
I had the end of the island opposite me, but having had this peg before I didn't fancy fishing there either as potentially 3 other anglers could chuck here.
This meant the only area of the peg I was going to target was down my left hand side margin where there are a lot of reeds growing out into the lake and an obvious fish holding area. The wind was off my back and the sun out and it would mean I would be able to fish here quite easily. In the picture you can see Nick Sanders on peg 1, he was not able to fish that far up his margin as the reeds by him come out a fair way.
I stuck a 4x12 rig on and plumbed up the margin starting at top set plus two, this was about 3 feet deep but with the colour I felt might be too close. Going a bit further along it was nearly 5 feet, and then out to 11.5m it was another 6 to 8 inches deeper again. As I was setting up I did see the reeds knock about here and further away, a good sign. With it being flat calm I settled on a 4x12 Preston F1 pellet float with 16 GPM to 0.13 power line. This was going to be used for dead depth and also fishing off the bottom. I set another rig up for the 3ft short margin, but that never produced.
The match began at 10am and I decided to feed nothing at all and try dobbing at 3 ft deep, after trying short I then went out to about 8m, no bites or indications here, then 11.5m and still no bites. Maybe I was too shallow, so I picked up the deep rig and took about 9" off the depth. Again 8m was no good but this time at 11.5m I had a bite on a corn skin and hooked a carp. I was on the red 11 hollo elastic and was able to steer the fish out of the swim easily, and soon netted a 3lb mirror, yay I hadn't blanked! I had two more similar sized fish in the first hour and lost a fouler, all from the 11.5m line, but I had a bit of a mare for 30 minutes after. I lost another fouler, had the line go behind the cad pot and got snapped on that one, then whilst playing a fish close to netting I lost it and had a pigs tail and no hook. I thought I was fishing poorly, but Dave Wilmott over on peg 3 was really having a bad time losing about 10 carp and landing 1 by this stage.
I checked my hook length that I had pre tied and all looked so put it on with confidence. I changed my hook bait to 3 maggots and was able to catch a few more carp, but then I had a couple of roach bites / fly off and it seemed the carp had left my 11.5 line. This was about 2 hours in, and now I fed some micros and F1 corn on this line and went out fishing dead depth with corn. I caught two carp on this and lost a fouler but then could not get a sign. With 90 minutes left and the carp only knocking the reeds much further away I got all my sections on and shipped out to about 15.5 metres with three maggots. First drop in and the float buried within seconds and I struck and pulled hard, nice 5lb carp, next drop in the same result. I wasn't fishing right against the reeds as I like to start a little away and then get closer if needed, and also it helps getting the fish out. I had a nice run of fish here, and clearly this was where they wanted to be. Steve Salter had come for a walk round the lake and watched me for the last 40 minutes. I had one carp that managed to get into a few reeds that were sticking out, but I got it out (little 3lb common), but this did slow things for a time. I had two carp in the last 10 minutes, and missed a bite with seconds left.
I had 75lb on my clicker and other than an angler on peg 10 catching I was sure I had beaten everyone else, some anglers had struggled to even get a bite! Typical winter fishing where you need to have some fish in front of you to catch them, I did today, to my right John Osbourne on 24 had 1 carp and 1 perch.
I was the last person to be weighed in, and when they told me that 42lb on peg 10 was the best weight I knew I had more than that. The scales recorded 74lb 14oz, so a good clicking performance as well ha! After some initial mirror carp it was then nearly all beautiful mirror carp, from 3lb to maybe 7lb.
As you can see from the sheet below it was a struggle for many, here are the money winners today..
1st Tim Ford 74lb 14oz
2nd Steve Upton 42lb 11oz peg 10
3rd Dave Willmott 32lb 15oz
Silvers... 1st John Williams 1lb 3oz, 2nd John Osbourne 3oz.... Apparently there were 21 cormorants on the lake this morning, could this be having an impact on the silvers weights?
Nice to be the lucky one today, I felt a bit rusty early on but think I got myself sorted out and fished better as the match went on. I wonder if I will go next Sunday, I would love to get on the river, but at the moment it is bank high, we will see.
