Clevedon Club Saturday Series - Plantation Match/Horseshoe lake - 13/7/13

A short blog today as there isn't much to write home about. The temps were high, by the time I got to the venue my car showed over 30 degrees....with no wind, great!!
I was fishing the 3rd of 4 matches for the Clevedon Saturday Series.

I arrived for the draw around 12pm, Paul Faiers was running it today as Adie was otherwise occupied, so a few of us took a walk round while the pegs were placed, we had 15 fishing, so 8 of the 16 pegs (1 peg was in just incase the no show arrived late - but he didn't), went on the island pegs and the rest around the outside.

There was loads of fish on the surface, not feeding fish, but carp that just wanted to play or sunbathe.
Pegs 1, 5, 6 10 and 12 were especially full, the fish were on the bar areas in most, but the depths can be only 2 inches deep on this, but average maybe a foot or so.

So into the hat goes my hand, out comes p10. Nice. I set the kit up well back from the swim as not to spook the fish, but the reality is that it made no difference.
I had Rod Wootton almost opposite, Nick Harvey to my right and Andy Hembrow to my left.

My peg. Halfway along the 1st bank.

3 rigs made, 1 margin, 1 shallow (mugging) and 1 for paste/meat at 6m. I was set up in 25 mins, so had plenty of time to watch the water...

I wont go into much detail about the match, but I only had 2 bites in 2.5hrs. Then landed 3 carp. I did lose 4 foulers as well. I couldn't buy a bite from the bar, only had 2 bites down to my left. My 3 carp came fishing shallow over the paste/meat line, there was loads of blowing each time I fed, which shows the fish were at least moving around/through the bait, but they were not really munching.

Throughout the match I tried allsorts of tactics, from dumping bait, to baby bits of paste, to fishing at various levels of the bar to meat shallow, but the lack of cover of any type possibly did not aid my fishing, I had the sun on me all day and struggled to see the float after 3pm.

So all in all difficult match, which it proved all over the lake, I guess my 3 fish may have gone 12lb as one was 6lb-ish, but I tipped back after the whistle. It was equally hard for Rod opposite me, but he had maybe 6 or 8 carp, a couple late fish boosting his net. But it was a difficult day.

Check out Chris Fox's - Chris Fox's blog for the results, but Mark Broomsgrove won and Andy Hembrow was second.

I think that my next match is up at Durleigh Reservoir next week. A place I ihave nit fished match style in a decade.

Cheers, take care.

Lee