Summerhayes Open, Longs Lake, 28-12-14

15 of us fished this match today mostly made up of venue regulars plus myself and James Withers, whom I'd convinced to tag along (ooopps). John 'Lucky' Dursley and Scott Russell, whom had been doing really well dobbing bread recently on this venue, were also in attendance.

I arrived in plenty of time despite having to de-ice the car before leaving home, it wasn't too warm outside!! Though it got cooler as I got closer to the lakes.

Now I have never fished this lake, infact I have only fished the whole complex in it's present guise once and that was on Sellicks almost a year ago to the day.
I knew it was going to be hard and after taking a quick look at some spots on the lake, the pegs nearest the hut, pegs 33-37 looked the likeliest to produce fish, on the other hand, the pegs at the opposite end were somewhat clearer and would be tricky for sure. Hardly any silver fish movement was apparent, just the odd plip.......!!

After Withers got me a cuppa and a bit of a natter with a few guys, it was the draw time.
I was given the bucket to pick the golden peg, which meant that I had 1st dibs in the draw itself. Now most of you probably know that I would rather be near the end of the pack!! None the less I plucked peg 25 for the golden peg and followed this up with peg 14 for myself.
I didn't know where that was, but as it turned out it was the last peg on the far bank before you head along the motorway bank.
Arriving at my peg I saw that it was 17m to the island and I had a nice set of dead reeds to my left. The empty peg that is peg 15 was around 13m away.



P14's left margin, Longs Lake, Summerhayes
 



p14 Longs Lake, Summerhayes

 

For bait I had some damp micros a handful of expanders and some maggots, plus a couple slices of bread to use punch on the hook. I also mixed up some groundbait.
Tackle for the day consisted of a small method feeder, which other than 1 lob across while I had a drink, remained untouched.
4 pole rigs were attached to topkits, 2 on light gear for silvers at around 7m in front and in the 1 o'clock direction, both of the never gave me a fish and only 1 missed bite, so no more on them then.
The last couple of rigs were set up with the carp in mind, 1 rig to fish along my left hand margin and 1 rig for 13m in front and just off the side of the empty peg 15.

At the all in I cupped a nugget of groundbait in front of me and a few micros off to the right before starting off dobbing by the reeds and the empty peg.
Nothing happened for a couple hours, infact it took ages for a lot of people to catch anything, my 1st 2 fish were 1/2oz roach caught by the reeds.
It was soon 12:30pm and from what I could see pegs 16 and 20 hadn't caught, neither had James on peg 8, peg 5(?) also hadn't caught. Pegs 12 and 10 had both caught 1 or 2 carp each by dobbing across.

My 1st carp, all 5oz of it, came down by the reeds at 12:45, this was followed by two more netted and 2 lost (both left me scales) all in the space of 10 minutes. A quick look by empty peg 15 gave me another 1lb carp.

I kept plugging away, I was getting line bites and I'd occasionally prick one, probably not in the mouth. I did come off bottom but I didn't get any joy.
By this point it was 2pm and 1 or 2 guys had packed up, the chap on peg 16 had banked a few silvers and 3 or 4 carp, so had John Dursley on peg 20.
A look by the empty peg produced a 1lb carp and bumped another.

My 6th and final carp came at 3:10pm and was another squeaker. The 3:30pm all out couldn't come quick enough!! By this point James had left having not caught and I think only 8 or 9 of us had to weigh in.

I packed up and went and helped with scales duty, everyone knew peg 37 had been catching well all day and so it proved when 49lb was tipped onto the scales by Bill Hopping. This was only after peg 40 put 16lb on the board.
Then we had a few weights of under 5lb, though someone had a crucian boosted 2lb 12oz silvers weight, then we got down to John Dursley on peg 20, he amassed 1b 12oz of silver and topped up to just over 10lb with his 4 carp.
I was next to weigh as peg 16 didn't bother, my 6 carp and 1oz of roach gave me 8lb 15oz.....so obviously I had targeted the lumpiest fish in the lake!!
The next peg had 14lb before I left my duties and went to take my kit back to the car.

By the time I had loaded the car the weigh in had finished with Scott Russell putting 10 carp for just under 25lb on the board to take 2nd spot.

So the results were:
1st 49lb, p37, Bill Hopping
2nd 25lb(ish) from peg 1 was Scott Russell
3rd 16lb 5oz from peg 40 was Glynn Wickham

The top 2 silvers weights were 2lb 12oz and 1lb 12oz.

Overall, even though it was hard, I enjoyed that match. I will try not to leave it so long before my next visit.

Next up for me is Sedges Tile Lake on Sunday, though I do hope to get out on Thursday or Friday.....back to work tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Lee