Sorry there haven't been any post for a couple of weeks but things got a tad difficult. First I had a date for an operation come up and not get cancelled, and that meant I had to self isolate for a week. Then last weekend after a long battle with cancer my Father in law Steve passed away. That was a hard time for all of the family and I was with him at the end. For my wife, her sister, their mother, the grandchildren, other family and friends it is of course a sad time. Steve was a life long Rovers fan, and had watched them for 70 years, he was just a very nice man and from day one he made me feel very welcome into his family. RIP Steve.
Having decided that on the bank holiday weekend I would go fishing on the Sunday I needed to find a match. My first thoughts were Hillview again, but I was told there was no match, so a message to Shaun Townsend revealed he was going to Ivy House and told me there were 4 pegs left on Heron lake. I'd never fished this lake before and so thought why not give it a go, I was well overdue visiting this venue again and got booked in. Shaun gave me some info, as did a couple of other anglers and I guessed I had a plan. Heron lake is currently stocked with lots of F1s and small carp, with no silvers at all in it.
I arrived at the fishery and was just behind Shaun's van as it happened, so I followed him once inside the gates and got to the car park by Heron lake. What a lovely looking lake!
It was good to see Andy Lloyd again and as ever he gave me a nice friendly welcome and was pleased to see me at his fishery, I could not believe how much it had changed since my last visit, simply awesome place. I paid Andy's wife Karen my pools money and bought some of the fishery pellets that you must use for feeding. It was good to see some familiar faces by the shop, Rod Wooten, Shaun and Paul Elmes, Vince and Ryan Shipp and Mike Etheridge. Some anglers were fishing Heron, others on another lake. When it came to my turn I pulled out peg 6, and I was told it was a good peg and had a lovely margin, Vince Shipp told me how he would fish the margin and that was good enough for me!
Before I got to my peg I read the fishery rules, of which there were a few but all that were fairly normal it seemed, and I grabbed two fishery keepnets and a landing net (typical I remembered my own nets today!) and went to my peg. It certainly looked nice with an island point out of reach of any pole, and the lovely long margin to my right.
Setting up I was not sure of the depths so put a deep rig on first and found it wasn't deep enough for top set plus two, but out at 13 to 14.5m it was a little shallower and was OK here. I used 4x12 rigs on everything I set up, right or not I don't know but that's what I did. 16 SFLB to 0.11 powerline for fishing pellet or corn, and 18 to 0,11 for fishing maggot. I plumbed up a margin line at top set plus two just by those first couple of reeds. I also has set up a method feeder rod for the island, but as it turned out I never used it.
The match started at 10:30, and like pretty much everyone else I started on a top set plus two feeding 4mm pellets and a pro expander on the hook. I had a bite and lost that fish, next drop I had a fouler which came off by the net, Jamie Dixey on peg 4 already had 4 in the net and I was off the pace already. I did manage to catch a few small carp here, but only had 1 F1, so either I was doing it wrong or the F1's were not here. Mike Etheridge to my left on peg 7 was struggling like me. All to soon the indications here stopped as they did for most, and I went out to 13m to see if there was anything here, two quick fish and 2 lost then dead. Jamie is fishing long, looks like 16m and is getting one a bung. I go to 14m and after a long wait get a couple more fish and then all quiet again. I was wondering what to do next, Mike was struggling like me but Jamie was giving me a severe hiding, I could see he was fishing pellets but I really wondered if going to 16m would make that much difference. Unfortunately fishing 16m would be really difficult as I had a big chicken cage behind me full of cluckers, yep I was really on Cluckers peg today lol!
I was contemplating chucking the feeder out, but I thought I was so far behind Jamie after 100 minutes I would never catch him up on this, so I decided to go in the margin, which I had fed a couple of times. I fed a little ball of Sonubaits Method mix and F1 gbait, and some maggots, and dropped in with double red maggot. I didn't have to wait that long to get a bite, and I had a few fish straight away but they were all small carp, where were the F1's? I guess in the first hour I tried to find my way in how best to feed, how often and how to put the rig in, and I was relying here on my own skills as I had no info, but to be fair I think we all have to work this out on the day when we fish. After an initial feed every other fish I went up to feeding every drop and this seemed at times to get bites quicker. Foulers or missed bites were a problem at times as the F1's made an appearance and I think this is just something you have to work through.
I was now thoroughly enjoying myself catch these fish that average out at about 1lb each. Jamie had gone from bagging to struggling, whilst I now continued to catch steady and was clawing back some of the deficit. The margin did slow up and I tried my left margin which produced just the odd fish, but gave the RH margin a little rest. I was thinking about going longer down the RH margin, but just as I did the fish came quicker again, I caught on both single and double red maggot. Just as I thought I was really closing in on Jamie he managed to get a run of F1's shallow, it didn't last but he put a dozen or more fish in the net very quickly. I counted my fish in the last 30 minutes and I caught 11 and it was a nice end to the match.
I hadn't clicked my fish today, but I was hoping I had around 80lb based on the catch rate I had for the last 4 hours of the match, I didn't know if Jamie had beat me by a lot, but he thought I had more. Scales were soon moving around the fishery as Andy and Karen got going. Dave "magic" Wilmott on peg 2 had 70lb, all caught short and in his margins. Jamie then had 84lb 14oz. My fish were just short of that and went 81lb exactly. Mike on my left had 50lb 10oz, he had a good run down his LH margin.
Winner today was Jamie Reed on peg 11 with 88lb, I believe he caught a lot of his fish shallow.
2nd Jamie Dixey 84lb 14oz
3rd was me with 81lb. That was last in the money :-)
I've put the full weigh sheet in below so you can see all the weights today. I am chuffed to bits to have framed on my first visit to this lake. Certainly I drew a good peg, but I feel the win was there for me with more experience, and I think the method feeder would have been better early on for a few fish. However, it's always good to go somewhere new and learn things, makes you think. After that initial poor couple of hours I have had bites all day, and that in my book is what I like about fishing. I sincerely hope this fishery goes from strength to strength, if effort equals reward then Andy and Karen will be very successful. I look forward to fishing here again and seeing how the fish grow on and this fishing develops.
No comments:
Post a Comment