Fishing has taken a back seat for me for a few weeks. Mainly because I just couldn’t be bothered to get soaked and cold, and obviously the rivers are not match fishable. However, I’ve got the Angling Trust Winter League Final next Saturday and so I wanted a chance to use some new elastics and rigs and Westerleigh was just the ticket.
Most of my prep has been done for a few weeks and so Saturday it was nice to see a Rovers win 😃. Went to Emerson’s Wetherspoons for breakfast on Sunday where Martin Reyat, Freddie Wojtyla and Shaun Townsend also filled their bellies. Shaun likes to hide his breakfast beneath pepper 🤣.
There were 19 people fishing today so one lake would have 10 anglers and the other 9, this would be random depending on the last peg not drawn. I was happy to draw peg 11 on Shipps canal, a peg I’ve won off before in winter. However it would depend where the carp were shoaled, and top bagger Martin Reyat was on peg 5 with 6 not drawn and would be hard to beat if the carp were that end of the lake I thought.
I made three rigs today, a 4x10 for against the left hand island at 13m, a 4x12 for near the right hand island, and a 4x14 for fishing in the deep open water. All rigs had 16 SFL to 0.11 accu power. I was pinning my faith in maggots today and decided not to dob bread. On peg 12 was evergreen Mike Nicholls who would fish for silvers, on peg 10 was Chris who normally fishes with PSV he told me.
We started at 10:30 and I fed all my lines with maggots and started over by the left hand Island. It was just roach here, as was the other island, as was the deep water. Hmmm, kept toss potting in maggots to try to get the roach full. After an hour I managed to catch a 2lb F1 from the RH island but it was a one off. Chris had managed a couple on meat and I was thinking I had made a mistake not bringing any.
Halfway through the match and not much had been caught my end of the lake, I was probably best with three F1’s. Mat Tainton on 8 had a few carp and Martin after a terrible start was now getting the odd fish. About 2 hours to go the RH island swim came to life I caught 3 F1’s and 2 carp, plus I pulled out of 2 carp that I think were fouled.
It went quiet after this and I also managed to hook a branch and trash a rig.
Chris had a similar run but more carp, on meat but then his swim also went quiet. Try as I might I couldn’t catch in the deep water despite trying it all match. I did get an F1 from the LH island which was the only one there, and 5 mins before the all out I hooked another carp from the RH island which I landed before the all out.
With the top 2 and 1 silvers being paid on each lake I knew I was not going to pick up as Martin 76lb and Mat 54lb had both caught well. Chris had just under 30lb and then I had 43lb which was more than I thought as I think the F1’s were decent size. Mike took the lake silvers with 7lb.
Weigh sheets below…
Well done Matt Challenger on winning the other lake catching mainly on pellets.
It was nice to fish in dry conditions and a bit milder, but the wind was in my face blowing through the gap just to keep me cool lol. I hope the weather stays mild this week which will surely help the carp feed next weekend, fingers crossed!
