Sunday 9 April 2023

Windmill Fishery Open


Didn’t fish last weekend as I spent the weekend in North Devon with my wife, awful trip getting to our destination due to flooding, but had a great time after that. Work is quite stressful and busy at the moment, seeing me travel all over the country and up as far as Aberdeen. It’s not leaving me a lot of time to prepare for fishing or think about it, and I completely forgot to order any bait. Pellets and corn again then..

After watching the Gas win at home for the first time for a few months I was in a positive mood and had at least managed to tie some rigs and more hook lengths. Fishery manager Kev Winstone kindly picked me up at 8 am Sunday morning, we only live about 2 mins from each other. There was a full house of 21 anglers today meaning no empty pegs, and therefore I thought a draw in those areas where you might have a little more room would be best, and with the wind blowing into pegs 11 and 12 that might be a good draw. Having read Mike Nicholl’s blog it seemed that peg 5 was not the place to be. Kev got the draw started, I held the bag of discs and  Kev had Pedro draw his peg, he got 3 a good one normally as it has a lot of reeds opposite. Then Nick Saunders drew me peg 4, oh dear not been good. Mike was rather unhappy when he pulled out peg 5 again and told me we were both in for a poor day. When the draw was done I found a disc still in the bag, peg 22, and as it was a recorded draw we couldn’t understand why this was. However, soon realised Pedro had not realised he drew a peg for Kev, and he was sat on peg 3 lol. All sorted without a fuss.

Peg 4 is a wide one, 16m wouldn’t get me to the far bank here, but unless I saw signs of carp in the shallowest water I wouldn’t go tight over. 15m got me into 2 1/2 feet of water and I had a 4x10 carp shallow with 0.15 to 16 KKM B here. A similar rig for my left hand margin, and a 4x14 for 5m with a 0.11 to 18 SFLB. Also had a lead rod and a method rod readied.

We started at 10:30 and I cupped some micro and 4mm pellets at 5m and 15m. Started at 5m looking for any mug carp or skimmers, but never had a bite on pellet or corn. Over to 15m with a 6mm pellet in the band, the rig didn’t budge for 5 mins, but then a bite at last and a fair bit of 11 red hollo came out of the pole. A 5lb carp was landed, and I went back across and fed some more micros. Once again I had to wait a while for a bite, missed it but then was quickly in again. I thought I had another carp on, but up popped a 4 1/2lb bream hooked near the pectoral fin. By the end of the first hour I had 2 carp and the bream in the net.

Trying the 5m line to rest the long line was once again fruitless and no sign of any fish. Back across and I lost a fouler, had another carp and a 2lb skimmer. But this line then died, and I was not keen to sit for a long period of time with 16m of pole. Another try at 5m, nothing, then onto the lead for nothing, not even a liner. I guess after a couple of hours I had 20lb, Mike had a couple of pounds of silvers, Leighton Palmer on 6 had 1 fouled carp, and Kev was also struggling with 1 carp and 1 skimmer, but had lost a few foulers and floats. However, as we moved into the second half, my peg was seemingly devoid of any fish, just two carp on the lead each out of the blue and no bites on any other line. Kev had moved lines and fed worms and casters to get carp and skimmers. I did get a good bite on the lead but soon realised a fish Kev had hooked had gone through my line, and I had been playing his fish.

In the last hour Mike had 2 carp on a maggot feeder, Leighton had a great run of skimmers on the pole, and I had one more carp on the lead. Also had another of Kev’s fish hook my lead up, but Kev lost that one eventually. Think he needs to beef his elastic up lol.

Match over and it had gone just about how Mike said it would, and it seemed we were way off the pace. The top 3 anglers all came from the bottom end,..

Jason Pitman peg 12 153lb 14oz

Gerry Welsh peg 9. 103lb 12oz

Bill Knight peg 14  92lb 5oz

John Fuidge was first out the frame with 90lb on peg 23  and on 24 Mat Challenger was 5th with 68lb.

Silvers was won by Mat Tainton with 17lb 3oz of skimmers and roach, followed by Leighton (I’ve had no sleep) Palmer 13lb 3oz and then Kev with 12lb 15oz.

Full results sheet’s below. My last couple of matches here have not been great, could have drawn much better but also probably having casters and worm’s would have helped. Still it was a good day to be out and I enjoyed watching the birds whilst waiting for the tip to pull round lol. Mother duck has a brood of chicks.


 

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