Had the usual Wetherspoons breakfast, I was tempted by the cider on display but stayed stafe with the cranberry juice lol.
I arrived at the fishery in good time and was surprised to see a fairly empty car park. It seemed a lot of things had clashed for the regulars so only 8 anglers here today. Dave Haines pegged the match and put peg 1 to 14 in, so easy to park behind your peg. Peg 12 had won the last two matches and so that had to be the favourite peg with the wind blowing down that end. Paul Reed drew 12, and then I drew peg 1, bummer I thought, as far away from the fish as possible.
As I set up and looked at the peg I felt more confident, lots of room being an end peg, and an island chuck. It’s a deep area of the lake and can be good for fishing pole shallow, but I decided to fish shallow on the pellet waggler, two spots one by the island and one out past the bush on the point. Next a lead rod for the island, then three pole rigs, a deep margin, a shallow slipper and a paste rig. If you read my blog on paste fishing then you’ll know how I set it up.
Match started at 10:30, I fed a decent pot of soften 4mm Sonu pro feed pellets at 11.5m and dropped in with the paste rig. I fed 6mm pellets to the island and 8mm pellets further out to the bush, so two places to try the waggler. It was a slow start on the paste, no fizzes or signs of fish, but I caught a 3lb carp after 15 minutes. It was then a wait for bites but when one came it was a skimmer and I was happy with that. A couple more small carp and probably had 20lb after the first hour, Mat Challenger on peg 3 had a few early carp but seemed to be struggling after that.
Second hour and a couple of skimmers and a few more 3lb to 5lb carp, and was now at 42lb 2 hours in. Third hour and the small carp were showing more and the skimmers had enough and went elsewhere. I was simply feeding 4mm pellets in my Preston paste pot and was getting fizzing and quickly getting indications. The fourth hour saw a change in the size of my fish, with a run of 7lb to 10lb carp and my clicker was going up fast. The wind was blowing nastily and did make feeding the island tricky, and caused a few tangles on the paste rig.
I had a couple of visitors going into the last two hours, Kev Winstone and Leighton Palmer. I think my fishing suffered as I struggled to hold my pole whilst i laughed at their banter 😂 . After a great couple of hours the paste started to fade away, less bites, missing more bites and losing fish I hooked. The island was alive with carp feeding on my loosefeed 6mm pellets, and I couldn’t resist no more. I started on the pellet waggler with an 8mm pellet on a 16 KKM-B to 0.21 powerline. I’d forgotten to clip up so casting was a not great and then caught the grass, but pulled the pellet of it and the float buried! Tug of war commenced and I won this game. I hooked a few more but when a carp took me straight into the reeds and snapped the line I went back to the paste. It was not good with just 1 carp landed. Last 25 minutes I cast the lead over to the island and caught 4 carp and pulled out of two.
Match over, I checked my clicker, I had 176lb on it, but thought I might have over estimated on that. Bankside info had it that the angler on peg 14 had a big weight but the rest not much. Peg 14 was weighed first and had 165lb 14oz, mostly caught in close on pellet. I was hoping my clicking was not too much! I was last to weigh and I was either going to be first or second.
Fishery management were on hand to weigh me in, Kev Winstone was on the scales.
Dave Haines was on the board adding up.
My skimmers weighed first just over 14lb (top weight of silvers but no prize for them today). Then my 4 nets of carp went 176lb, exactly what I had clicked lol. With 190lb 13oz that meant I was the winner today. My best weight at this fishery and a very enjoyable day. I fished the paste exactly as I explained on my previous post, and fed around 2 pints of pellets.
The icing on the cake today was hearing my Thatchers teammates had managed to come first and second on the Stour, bringing them back into contention after a couple of bad rounds.
No fishing next weekend due to a work event at Truck Racing, got to get on the river soon though!
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