I have spent a few days away last weekend and this at West Bay, my family spent all week there and I took them and brought them back. As I was coming back Saturday I was quite happy to fish a local match on Sunday, would have gone to Windmill probably, but saw Mike promoting this match at Westerleigh and thought why not as I have never fished it. I spoke to Glenn Bailey who gave me some idea of the the approaches and depths of the two lakes, I made up some rigs, tied hooks and even put some new Preston Dural Slip elastic in my top sets. I had plenty of bait as I had got some Sonubait Pro feed pellets in 4mm and 6mm which will cover most of my commercial needs. Also got a new Preston Hardcase Polesafe which is the business.
Sunday morning and grabbed a quick McDonalds to keep me going for the day and got to the fishery 30 minutes before the offical draw time. The match was split into two with each lake effectively being its own match. I was told that the old lake was deep with a central bar and had mainly small carp in it, the new lake with 3 or 4 islands had some F1's and carp with some big carp up to 15lb. I got drawn peg 9 on the new lake, it looked nice with two islands in front of me, but the locals told me it is not always the best. The water in my lake was very dirty, whilst the other lake was clear.
The picture below shows the island that was in front of me.
Rig wise I set up a mugging rig for any cruisers, but that never happened. A couple of 4x10 rigs one for banded pellet by the island points in about 2 feet of water max, another for the RH margin for meat. A 4x12 for fishing meat down the shelf in about 3 1/2 feet. With the match starting at 10:15 I was ready on time, opposite me was Lee Massey on peg 5, and on 7 and 9 were local anglers Marcus and Brad. Knowing the venue is not stuffed full of fish I started off cautiously, feeding 4mm pellet by toss pot on the point of the island in front of me at 14m, and off to the far left island at 14.5m. I put a 6mm pellet in the band for starters and tried both islands. It was not a great start for me to be honest, I did get an early 3lb carp out which was fouled, and an F1, but I lost 4 or 5 fish. The second hour was not much better, a carp properly hooked, a few more F1's and more lost fish. Lee had a decent 2nd hour and was well ahead of me. The third hour was shite and at the halfway stage I had 9lb on my clicker and was well down on my lake. Lee had done well on pellet, he was fishing the same depth as me but to find that he was was a metre off the island, where as I was much closer. I did see a big carp up to my left that I tried to mug, the float shot under and I hooked it, but after a few minutes I saw it was hooked in the tail, and at nearly 15lb eventually I pulled out of it as it took me for a ride. The lake switched off for a bit, and Lee struggled for a while.
My head told me to try something different, and I changed to maggots, potting maggots in to the left island point and 2 maggots on the hook. It was a good move and I hooked two carp straight away, both were hooked in the mouth, but both came off and the maggot had gone over the point on both. This was not going to be my day, I had now pulled out of about 10 fish, bloody frustrating. I kept going on the maggot and was rewarded with an hour of bites, with a few carp and F1's and at last a bit of decent fishing and not losing anything. Of course this died off, as seemed the norm on the lake, get a couple of fish then nothing. I saw a boil in my RH margin and went down there with meat, I had 2 F1's in quick succession, that was it, did get another later but no more. I had also fed meat way off to my left at 13m hoping for some late decent carp, I had 1 bite here first try and an F1, then no more.
The match finished at 4:15 and I knew I had not done any good today. Lee had clicked 60lb, and I had clicked 33lb. Brad on 11 said he had 25lb, but I knew he had more than me.
Lee did win my lake with 52lb 12oz, he just beat Paul Barnfield who was on favoured peg 2 with 50lb, and peg had 38lb. Brad got 3rd on our lake with 45lb. Silvers was 5lb 12oz. My net went 29lb.
On the old lake Glenn won with 50lb, some on pellet, some on paste and some on maggot! Dave Haines had 12lb of mostly skimmers to win the silvers on there. To get the full results and peg by peg run down check out Mike Nicholls blog.
That was a bit of a tough day for me. Can't remember the last time I lost so many fish, had enough on the hook to win the match, but need to hook them in the mouth! Nice to finally fish here, it is tough at the moment, maybe with some more warm weather it will improve. Glad I went and gave it a go.
Not looking like I will be fishing next weekend, and need to see what I can get booked onto for the future.
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