I had planned to fish Cider Farm today, but Tony Rixon was running an open at Landsend on lakes 3 and 4, and as I'm there next week for the float only series, and I have only fished lake 3 once and never on 4, I thought I'd give it go. I was given a lift to the venue by Phil (Fabio) Harding, and we fuelled up in Abbeys cafe. My first visit to this caf and it was very good, though I gave the large brekkie a miss as I was still feeling full from a load of BBQ food the night before.
Tony decided to put everyone on lake 3 as there was plenty of room for us all, I drew peg 51, one away from where I was last time on here. I was told that the near end pegs were the best, but I was 2/3 up the lake so nowhere near, Phil had drawn 42 and was in with a shout. To my right today I had Steve Kedge, and to my left chubby himself Tony Rixon. Tony and myself were pegged either end of the island and so had lots of space, and as there were odd fish visible I was feeling confident. I set up a depth rig for banded pellet a PB4 with 0.16 to a 16B960, a depth rig for corn /soft pellet (apart from the inside line the rest of the peg was the same depth), a paste rig for the inside and a shallow rig for across.
I had earmarked three spots to feed on the far bank, to the left of a bush, straight in front in a little cut back and round the corner of the island, these spots were all fed with 6 mm pellet. I then fed some wetted 4mm and corn at 9m to my left, and threw 6mm pellets to my inside line at 5m. I started on the 9m line hoping to prime the far bank feeding 6mms by catty. The 9m line was soon producing small fizzes but my soft pellet hookbait was not taken, and after 15 mins I tried a piece of corn and hooked a skimmer within seconds. Straight out again but no more bites on the corn and the fizz had stopped so I cupped in a little more feed. That brought the mini fizz back but other than a couple of quick dips no fish. After 45 mins I had to leave this line and go across, I tried the depth rig to see what was about. Trying the rig in all 3 fed areas resulted in one liner from a fish just below the surface. Out with the shallow rig and a 1lb crucian was netted, but that was it! There was the odd fish showing against the mud, but despite trying just 6 inches deep I had no bites but did foul hook one which I played for a good 5 mins before it pulled out.
Halfway through and I was stuck on just the two fish, Tony was blanking (read about it on his blog LOL) and Steve Kedge was on the caster. I did see a carp feeding on my inside line, I went in with the paste and had some twitches and pulls but no proper bites and with 5 mins the fish had Foxtrot Oscared! I managed my first carp about 2.5lb after 4 hours, this was on the depth rig across in the cut back, I also lost a fouler here. I had one skimmer from the bush and after that never had another bite here, in fact I never had another bite anywhere! I did laugh when Tony managed to hook a crucian his one and only fish as even that was fouled! I guess you can imagine how frustrated Tony was, as when he packed up early and Mike West hooked a carp next to him Tony threw Mike's Landing net out of his reach!
The match had been no fun for me, and certainly a lot less for Tony and I did ask him what he planned to write in his blog? I weighed 5lb 8oz, just so I could say I beat Tony, I doubt I beat anyone else who bothered to weigh! The other end of the lake had been better with the two end pegs (70 and 41) being 1st and 2nd, Rod Wootten (venue expert) had 70lb and Jason Radford 67lb. Dean Malin was 3rd with just 28lb from I think peg 56, end peg at other end to winners, and Phil came 4th on peg 42 with 27lb. Very poor weights for this time of year.
Well that's twice I've been on this lake and both times I've had bugger all, can't say this lake impresses me much as the same pegs did the damage last time. Hope I do not draw here again next week, I really hope to get some luck at the drawbag, surely a flyer will come my way soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment