Sunday and the Thatchers Gold had a slight affect on me and a few of the lodgers, but not so bad. I drove Gary and Geoff to the Premier Inn in Street for breakfast and back again. Gordon and Martin R were off to fish Tony Rixon's float only at Landsend, the remainder would fish the open on Campbell.
With the carp showing well the day before in 110, 111 and 132 I fancied these pegs, but I went pulled out the opposite end with corner peg 119. Only 37lb of carp came from 119 the day before, but with the gentle wind blowing my way Steve Long thought my peg would be better today. There was to be no silvers fishing in my plan today, all out carp, this despite Woody drawing peg 110 for the second day running!
At the peg I had Nigel Easton on 121 who would fish for silvers, and Ian King on 118. I had three areas of the peg I initially planned to target, straight out in front at 13m, to the end bank on the straight lead, and top set plus 1 in the RH margin. There is a tree up the margin further but I didn't want to go there unless I really had too.
My only real dilemma setting up was whether to fish shallow or deep, some of the paste heads had struggled yesterday, but Woody had caught on the deck whereas Martin R had caught shallow, In the end I would start on paste as I couldn't see many fish in front of me. I fed wetted 4mm pellets at 13m and fished paste made from Thatchers Original groundbait, I also fed 8mm pellets over to the far bank. First drop on the paste and I missed a bite, next drop I hooked and landed a carp, next drop lost a fouler. After this signs of carp ended and I was a little surprised, I worked the line and tried to pull some carp in, but to no avail. Before the hour was out I was onto the straight lead much quicker than I anticipated, I had 2 carp in three casts, then had one which got to pallet 120 and snapped me, but after this had a couple of liners and that was it.
I spent the next two hours without a fish, meanwhile Ian on 118 had taken about 6 carp all from his left margin. I reluctantly pushed a rig up to the tree where I had fed some 6mm pellets, I did get 1 carp and lost a fouler, but that was it. Carp were crashing around the tree and I could see they were spawning, so they were unlikely to be interested in feeding. I tried the end bank on the lead again but just liners and no bites. I started feeding the short margin line with 6mm pellets and hoped this might come good. The only thing interested in my bait it seemed was this friendly duck!
With less than 2 hours to go I was pretty cheesed off, 4 carp for about 24lb in the net, Ian had dried up and then snapped his pole which messed him right up. Back on the lead and it was like a switched had been turned on when I had 7 carp in 7 casts to bring me back in contention as only woody on 110 was catching (others had done so early but had died). The lead slowed up though, and I urged myself to go into the margin, it is a deep margin and I used a 4x16 robust float with a 8mm hard pellet. Initially the float sat there, no liners or anything, but then a fast bite saw me attached to a carp. I had another next drop in and stayed on this line till the end of the match and had about 7 all told. The last 90 minutes were certainly great fishing. I had 148lb on my clicker and again no clue how I had done, but knew that Woody carried on catching and Gary Bowden also bagged up late on peg 129.
When the scales got to me Gary was leading with 135lb, Nigel took the silvers lead with 41lb on 121. My fish when tallied up weighed 146lb to put me into the lead, which I held until final man to weigh Woody put 193lb on the scales for two wins off the peg, well done.
The lake had fished better today with 80lb of skimmers wining the silvers off peg 115 by Phil Denslow.
Results board here.
Another good night was had in Somerton, with a great meal in the White Swan, though the pace was slowed considerably thank goodness!
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