With another very hot day forecast there was only one thing I was hoping for, and that was a peg in the shade. I was about halfway back in the draw queue and when I got to the famous coffee tin I was amazed to see nearly every peg drawn on the sunny bank. I was well happy when I pulled out 118 and a day in the shade was on, it’s also a nice peg with a bit of room as 117 is never used.
There’s an overhanging tree branch to my left where the day before Chris Ollis had 50lb of silvers.
There’s also an inviting looking margin which is behind the platform, I intended to fish this at top set plus one on my margin pole. Although Chris hadn’t caught a carp here yesterday.
As this was a cost cutter fishing for carp or silvers was ok as the payout is the same for both. After yesterday’s skimmer bonanza I was up for fishing for them again. I put up my faithful paste rig again for fishing under the tree and also at 11.5m, just a couple of inches difference in depth. A mugging / shallow rig was set up but not used, and a 4x14 edge float with 0.17 to 12 XSH. I had Glenn on my right on 119 which he didn’t fancy at all, Woody was on my left on 116. Adrian Jeffrey was back on this match and he had moved from one end bank to the other and was on 121.
I started the match on the paste under the tree, I had 3 quick skimmers and thought here we go, but that was the end of that. I’d already fed a pot of 4mm pellets out long so was soon out here fishing paste. The skimmers were feeding here and showing themselves by the fizzing. It wasn’t as good as yesterday, I missed lots of bites for some reason and it was frustrating at times, but I stuck with it. I was feeding very little trying to keep the carp at bay as I was happy catching skimmers but of course one or two carp put in an appearance. Glenn was really struggling to catch, and Woody didn’t have much either, but on 115 Gary Bowden was seemingly doing well catching carp and skimmers.
I guess it was about just gone halfway when the carp became more active and the skimmers moved off. I had no clue what was being caught further down the lake, but could see opposite was poor, so I changed tactics and upped the feed for carp. I caught a couple and then as the match went on I fed heavy by the tree with 4mm pellets and this brought the carp here too. It was those tricky to catch them, despite me not feeding regularly some carp were coming into the area shallow and knocking the line and the paste off. I did get a few carp here though.
About 90 minutes to go I fed the margin with a big pot of micro pellets, left it for 15 minutes then had 3 small carp from there on double worm. Two skimmers followed so I fed again and tried elsewhere. Five minutes before the all out I hooked a decent carp in the margin, after getting it out of the danger zone I took my time with it. But it came off whilst playing it in front of the nets, it snapped the hook length, guess I should have been on 0.19. That was the end of the match.
With the weighing in starting at 110 I had plenty of time to pack up, and as Glenn had already gone home I popped down to see the others. Woody said he had about 80lb, but Gary was admitting to 180lb and worried that his skimmers in one net might go over the 50lb limit! When the scales got to me I weighed my skimmers first, they went 44lb 7oz. Adding my carp to this, my total weight went 160lb 8oz. Woody had 93lb and was chip shopped when Gary plonked 197lb on the board, his skimmers went 47lb 4oz so he was safe and won the match overall.
I was second overall so another pick up, silvers was won with 79lb 8oz by Rob Eagle, all on casters.
Final night and a meal at the Globe followed by a few beers back at the Lodge. There had been some debate about snoring in the other Lodge, with Martin Rayet saying he couldn’t sleep if room mate Mark Tanner got to sleep before him. He resorted to drastic measures to get some sleep…..,
The holiday had gone very fast but was as enjoyable as ever. No more matches but one more day to catch on in the next post.
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