Today it was just the nine of us fishing against each other on Match Lake, we had a leisurely 9:30 draw which was good news for me I was struggling with, let me say, loose bowels! There was a lot of talk at the draw about what pegs would good and what would be bad, but fish have fins and we are often proved wrong lol. Anyway I got myself an island chuck in the form of peg 45, and had Gordon next peg again on 44, with Woody on the bottom bank 47 a peg he has done well from before. The parade of anglers set off for the lake, or should I say caravan of anglers..
As I began setting up I was off back to the Lodge to get to the toilet, this set me back setting up and I was a little rushed. I put up a 4x12 rig for 13m and pellet, a couple of margin rigs and the straight lead for the island. I put off setting up a pellet wag as I thought this might be more hassle than it was worth and was short of time. No silvers prize today, just the top 4 being paid out, nice and friendly.
I have done well on this lake before by starting short and did the same today, but sadly it was not to be with just a couple of small skimmers and a tiny tench. Woody got off to a flyer short on the paste but it soon died for him. I went out to 11m and tried again fishing hard pellet, it was slightly better but no great, another tench couple of F1's and a carp. Gordon was struggling like me, but to his right Gary B was getting the odd big carp on paste. I really could not get the pole going and as I could see fish showing next to the island where I had been feeding 8mm pellets I picked up the lead rod. It was a bit tricky casting as the island forms a point here and I really needed to fish either side of it I felt, accurate casting was a must. It was a bit slow but then I started to get a few regular pulls from small carp. Woody was on the pellet wag and getting carp on that, we both had fish boiling in our peg.
I was getting a lot of liners before I would finally get a pull round, and was thinking I really should have been on a wag, but every time I thought of setting it up I would get a fish, plus Woody was about 4 wagglers down due to catching the island a few times. Eventually I lost the rig when a carp swam into a snag, I decided to quickly set up a pellet wag on my 9 foot Preston mini plus lead rod lol! It was a decent move as I had a few on it, but then things went weird. I couldn't get a bite, but on at least four occasions when I went to reel in I had a carp on foul hooked. I tried different depths and hook baits but to no avail.
My margins never yielded a bite, and my match was fading away, Woody was catching odd fish in his margin, Gary was still catching on paste, and Martin was catching in his margin on 40. I nicked a few fish on the pole but was never catching well and was falling behind I was sure, Gordon next door had struggled all match and we just couldn't seem to get carp on the pole line.
Match over and I was regretting not having the wag and lead set up, I am sure changing between the two would have added a few more carp and F1's.
The top 4 who picked up money were:-
1st Gary Bowden 140lb 11oz, carp to 14lb on paste
2nd Woody 108lb 6oz
3rd Martin Rayet 96lb 13oz
4th Me 95lb
I only just beat Glenn by about 1 1/2lb so it was tight other than Gary, 2nd place was there for the taking for me, but still had some fun on the lead and wag. The lake fished well and the top 4 had caught on different methods.
We visited the Globe for a good meal and a few beers, we were off to Avalon the next day so I didn't want a late night.
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