Monday 17 June 2024

Holiday Day 2 - Campbell Sunday Open

Sunday meant breakfast either in Glastonbury or DIY, I went for DIY. I had some cereal and Geoff Francis kindly gave me a second course of a bacon roll, yum. One person who had planned to go out for breakfast woke up a tad late to get there, probably as a result of the night before Natch. After yesterday's match I was keeping an open mind about what to do until I drew my peg which I hoped would be above the rope. Drawing arm let me down giving me 130, though Martin Preston did to a ton of 131 yesterday albeit most of that in the last 90 minutes. I thought that I might fish for the skimmers, although Nigel Barlett had struggled on my peg the day before.

When I got to the peg I realised I had a chuck to the aerator, and with Nigel on 112 fishing for silvers I would have that area of the lake to myself. I decided to set up a cage feeder (my version of the pva lol) and put micro and 4mm in it plugged off with a little Sonubaits Method Mix groundbait. I put up a margin rig for left and right and that was it! I was going Jack Stamp style today. My margin floats were some old Preston floats I have had for over 10 years, 4x16 pear shape jobs with long bristles and stems. I cut down the bristle and stem and was left with what I though was a nice margin float, well better than chucking in the Bin.



The angler to my right Ian Driscoll on 131 and Chris Fox on 132 both went all out for silvers, and on my left lodge mate Geoff Francis on the spit went for carp. First cast and landed the feeder right next to aerator, 5 minutes later and carp number 1 was hooked and landed. The wind got up a bit more today and it made it hard to see if the area I was fishing was fizzing, but when the wind did drop I could see it was fizzing. Trying various hookbaits (including peas) all I managed to catch in the next 4 hours was 5 skimmers. It was not good, and it appeared my feeder approach was a dud, and I heard that two anglers on the pva (Tony and Adrian Jeffery) were catching well. I just kept thinking the carp will turn up / switch on like they did for Martin Preston the day before, but that never happened, in fact all fizzing stopped and so did the liners. The only pleasant thing was the weather, Geoff and I sat in t shirts while those on the opposite bank in the shade and wind were wrapped up like winter, we did laugh at them!

I managed to catch a handful of carp in the margins, along with a couple of skimmers, but I wasn't at the races at all today. Geoff managed to get a few on his paste rig late and bashed me up with 65lb. I chucked back 50lb at most, pretty racked off by the day, although I could at least discount another method.

1st Tony Wittcomb 200lb peg 115 on the tea bag (pva), done well despite breaking a rod!

2nd Adrian Jeffrey 170lb peg 124 on the tea bag

3rd Martin Rayet 133lb peg 116 on the pole on peas!

Silvers and section went to Chris Fox on 132 with a great 74lb of skimmers and 100lb in total.


Back at the lodge we debated the day, and it was clear that the carp were really only feeding on the tea bag approach. Some of the lads went into the shop and purchased the equipment and started to make some bags. Me, well I could not be arsed to do it and would have to see if I could catch some silvers I guessed. However, tomorrow’s match was our Lodge team match on Lodge lake, and that was float only so no bags needed! Our friends the Canada geese family are always around looking for scraps.

We had our curry this evening, it made sense to do it on a Sunday as most of the other places stop serving food earlier on a Sunday. As ever a good meal, although mine was much hotter than I expected and made me drink a bottle of red wine quicker than normal.  

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