Holiday Day 4 - Campbell Open

Back to M&M for breakfast before getting all the kit sorted and on the trolley for the Tuesday open on Campbell lake. One trolley had much interest from one of the resident gulls as it tried to eat the gbait in Gary's bucket.

There was a lot of wildlife around the lakes, including many birds, my highlight was seeing a Hobby one evening.

Before I went into the draw tin I was thinking  if I drew below the rope I would just fish for skimmers, and if I drew above the rope, well I might just fish for skimmers too. I then pulled out peg 121, that gave me a bit of a dilemma based upon recent results; Howard Webb struggled for 20lb of silvers on it, then Phil Hardwick had 120lb of carp on it on Sunday fishing shallow before it died. When I got to the peg I could see a few carp around, and so I thought I better start fishing for carp. Rigs set up were, swinging shallow rig, slapping rig, paste rig, margin rig and finally a 4x14 for silvers with 0.11 to 16 SFLB. My plan was catch those carp for as long as poss, then top up with skimmers, and catch carp in the margins late.. Well I can dream.

I began by slapping a hard pellet, no indications on this for 20 minutes despite carp being in the peg. Started to feed and swing a rig out, hooked one carp on this in 30 minutes which was a fouler. Nearly an hour in and nothing in the net, I noticed Geoff and Mark over on 115 and 116 had taken a couple of carp and skimmers on the pole, so I assumed on paste. I potted in some 4mm pellets and went in over on the paste, didn't take long to get a carp out, and soon after another. Once again, thinking I had got it sorted was not correct, and after this I managed to land a fouler and lose a couple more carp, and then started to get skimmers. I was missing a lot of the bites on paste, not sure if they are liners from the skimmers or they just drop the bait, so I tried the silver rig with corn. I had a couple of skimmers on this and then no more, tried worms and maggots and this seemed better, but the fish came in fits and starts, and I would still foul hook carp and somehow managed to land a couple of the foulers.

My margin only yielded a few roach and then a couple of skimmers late. Just before the match had ended my room mate Glenn came behind me (he hadn't fished today) and I was just telling him I had another difficult day never getting it right when I felt the top set go in my hand and had a carp on, but I lost it at the net lol. Match over, a better day for bites but knew I was not getting a pick up again, though as I was packing up I noticed some red elastic in the reeds. Pulling the elastic up on the end of it was my rig lost from Saturday, paste float and hook, I couldn't believe it.

My silvers today weighed 39lb, and carp 44lb. My 83lb meant I was the chip shop sausage as 119 had 128lb of carp from his margin, and 123 had 96lb of carp on lead and in margin. I was just thinking that I really did not know how to catch carp anymore!

1st Howard Webb 211lb peg 126  tea bags

2nd Woody  171lb peg 125 tea bag

3rd Gary 143lb peg 114  tea bag

Silvers was won for the second time by Tony from peg 112 with 69lb after a good next peg battle with Pete Ziemniak who had 67lb on 111.

Another day on Campbell and another day of not getting it right at all. Clearly to win with carp you had to fish the tea bag. However, with only more match on campbell being the cost cutter on Thursday I could not bring myself to shell out for the stuff for one match, so on Thursday I was fishing for silvers all match!

The evenings were a little chilly, Glenn felt cold inside the lodge 😂.