Windmill Fishery Open

As blogs go this one will be short and lack detail, as today was a tough one, the best part of the day was the breakfast.

After walking around the lake briefly on Wednesday it seemed that the fish had spread around a bit, so worth giving the venue another go I thought. After a beautiful Saturday weather wise and a lovely walk with the wife at Haresfield Beacon, I was hoping for an equally lovely Sunday. Weather wise it was, fishing wise....

The draw gave me peg 25, a peg about 20m wide and is around 8 feet deep at 16m, it is an area that has been good of late, though I would have preferred peg 26 where at 16m it is only 3ft deep, Paul Staite was on that peg. To my right was Brian Shanks on peg 24. Early excuse I was the only angler with no empty peg on the venue. I set up a rig for the margin, one for top set+1 where it was about 7 foot and still on a slope. A rig to fish across as far as I could, a long line on on my top 4. Also a lead rod.

I fed some 6mm pellet across by catapult and decided to start on the lead to see if I got any liners as I hadn't seen a sign of any fish in my area. Paul next door lost a carp first chuck at 16m, and had one next. Joe McMahon on 22 and John Clarke on 6 were also into carp, and Ken Rayner had a few early carp. Me I had nothing other than a liner. Then had a couple more liners and thought that maybe the pole might be better. I tried the swinging rig and after a few attempts had a bite but nothing connected, then after about 50 mins finally got one. I was already a long way behind most people but Brian only had one too. That was the only fish I had on the swinging rig. About at least an hour later I mugged one, then 20 mins later mugged another. I never saw another carp after this. About 3 hours to go I had a carp on the lead, then nothing and all indications stopped.

Despite trying everything and new lines, a lone crucian in the margin and a lost carp from the same line was my lot. The lake had fished hard for most towards the end.

Young Joe won with 93lb, closely followed by John Osbourne on peg with 91lb. Only those two got paid out and so Geoff Francis was 3rd with 57lb and no coin. Silvers winner was Dave Wilmott on peg 13 with 11lb 8oz.

Poor day, but the weather was nice and I had a good laugh with those on the bank.