Westerleigh Float only summer League

 A few weeks ago Tony Rixon asked me if I could stand in for him on this league, and as it happened I could. I was away from Monday on holiday in Nice and got back late Friday. Never been before but had a great time there and went to Monaco where the preparations for the Grand Prix were underway.

Back to the fishing, I knew I was going to be on Shipps lake with a lot of good anglers but was hoping I could get a good result for Tony. Into the drawbag and I pulled out peg 13, it’s the near end corner of the lake and not really what I fancied. However, Ricky Mills was kind enough to give me a run down on how he recently caught 76lb from here, the main thing was be patient waiting for the fish!

The view from my peg, an island which I could reach with 16m and a swinging pellet rig.

Left hand margin, where I would end up fishing towards peg 12.

Right hand margin, very over grown and not allowed to do any gardening so couldn’t get in tight.

I started fishing meat at 13m in the deep water, not had a bite here. Had fed meat top set plus one and tried here for nothing. Tried mugging the very odd fish I saw but they were not interested. Tried slapping a pellet about not a sign, tried swinging a pellet to the island and not a bite..

Four hours in and I had a roach on my short meat line to save the blank. I had been feeding pellets up towards a bush by peg 12 and finally I saw a couple of carp here. I had 2 carp by using my swinging pellet rig (keeping the pole away) but the fish drifted away. I had been feeding dead maggots in my RH margin which was my banker and had a carp here with 90 minutes to go. I can’t say I had a great finish, it was tricky, but a lot better than the first 4 hours. I took another carp from by peg 12 and 4 more from the RH margin. I did lose 3 foulers which was annoying. 

Well match over and I knew I wasn’t going to be getting any money as Towner on peg 1 had told me during the match that Nick Sanders on peg 6, Ron Hardiman on 5 and Paul Elmer on 3 had all caught well mainly mugging. There were clearly a lot of fish up there.

I ended up weighing 47lb 7oz which put me 5th in the 10 peg section, beaten by the aforementioned three anglers and Towner who had 68lb on peg 1. Well done to Nick winning our lake with a great 145lb.

It was a stifling hot day and for most of it I was in the sun, so I was glad of a bit of shade at the pub and a couple cold beers.