Emerald Pools, Sapphire Lake, PSV Match. 25/01/15

A first ever match for me on the Emerald Pools complex today, notably on the Sapphire Pool.
I haven't fished that lake ever either, but gleaned a bit of info form here and there.

With the weather set fair for the day most of us were expecting a few fish, but Friday saw the lakes in the area begin the day with ice-lids on, but these didn't last and melted away causing an influx of bitterly cold water. This water would likely still be affecting the fish's moods for sure.

We had around 16 booked in a couple of weeks back, but ended up with 10 of us fishing, it was still tight pegging due to the overflow of reeds in certain areas of the lake. These are going to be removed in March we were told. That'll be good as these reeds hold plenty of fish, but they are so dense that they don't venture out too often.

Back to the match, after a bit of a pegging affair we managed to get down to actually drawing our pegs. The golden peg was pulled out, peg 8 (on the day was the 2nd decked swim from the gate on the far road bank).
I waited until 3 pegs were left and plucked the ball labelled p7. I wasn't sure if it was good or bad, obviously most expected pegs 8, 10 (on island opposite bungalows) and 9 (a couple pegs before the bridge to the island). 10 was overall favourite as the water was being coloured up aplenty when it was being pegged!!.

A bit of banter flew towards Lee Waller who'd drawn peg 10 and was under pressure as we all expected him to walk away with an easy win. Peg 9 had Chris Szakacs on it and Alan Healey was on peg 8 (which I fancied to be honest).
I made my way to my peg and found I had Ryan Radford on peg 7 and Steve O'Toole on peg 6, both on my right.

Emerald Sapphire Pool. p7 (I think perma peg 10??)

My swim didn't look too bad, I had some marginal weed, a point of an island at 11m and some deep reeds on the left hand side of the swim, but they were very deep and I was unsure if the carp would venture out too much.

3 rigs were assembled today:
The 1st was for banded pellet towards the point of the island, but could be deepened by 4" as there was a channel between the island and the reeds.
The 2nd rig was for maggot, meat and expander and would do for anywhere else in the swim from topkit all the way to 11m as the depth was the same all over. I chose a topkit line to my left margin and at around 8m to the reeds.  It was hard to see where exactly the reeds were due to reflections and light levels.
Lastly I made a lighter rig that was for the same lines as the 2nd rig but had a 0.10 hooklength and a 18 hook rather than 0.12>16.

I had on my tray some damp micros, 4mm expanders, live maggots, casters and 6mm meat. I also had some 4 and 6mm pellets for in the band or if the carp were feeding well.
The all in was called and I began by the reeds toss-potting some maggots and a couple pieces of meat, I was also feeding the odd pinch of micros down the edge and casters in front as I expected a few roach to show here (they didn't, so no more on that).
After 30 minutes I only had a 1oz roach in the net, Ryan and Steve were biteless. Up on golden peg 8, Alan already had a few decent roach in the net and a carp or two.......I had to endure him catching consistently all day of all species of fish, it was an aquarium up there so fair play to him.

I kept plugging away and was soon attached to my 1st carp, I say soon, but it was around 90 minutes into the contest. the carp done me in the reeds, maybe foul hooked?
My first carp I landed came to meat by the reeds at 12pm, a few rudd followed before my edge swim gave me a small carp of 1lb. Ryan had a roach at this time and Steve O'Toole had a couple roach too.
I began flicking a few pellets and some caster towards the end of the island and went across with the pellet rig only to land a rudd of 6oz.
Another look by the reeds gave me my 3rd and 4th carp in as many drops before they vanished.n Alan was still bagging, Lee Waller and Chris Szakacs had caught a few fish too, the 3 predicted swims were doing the business, everyone else was struggling, Steve Burgess over on peg 4 (our peg 2) was getting a good run of silvers from the end of his island.

By 1:30pm I decided to shallow up my lighter rig and try and catch a few rudd as they'd been occasionally swirling at the casters fed toward the point of the island. After thirty minutes catching these fish I managed to bag a 1lb carp by the reeds on the same shallowed up rig, a false dawn as I couldn't catch any more carp shallow.

With an hour to go I was on 5 carp and a few silvers, I guessed Alan to be around or over the 100lb mark. Ryan and Steve O'Toole only had a few roach each.
I carried on for a few more rudd from various spots in the swim, but they were hard to fix to a certain spot, but the odd 4oz fish was in amongst the 2oz-ers.
I had my last carp with half an hour left, from the reeds on meat, maggots gave me a few baby roach and rudd.

The all out was shouted at around 3:30pm and Ryan, Steve O, Mike Wilson and Matt Challenger all had began to pack up their kit.
I packed my kit away as quick as possible and loaded the trolley before making my way round to watch the weigh in, the results were pretty much predicted before we weighed anyone, Alan was likely to win followed by Lee Waller then Chris S. But the silvers, by all accounts would be won by either Chris S or Steve Burgess as the pay-out was top 2 plus 1x Silvers pot.

We began with Lee, he put 54lb on the scales from the island peg. Chris Szakacs amassed almost 39lb (inc 7-11 of silvers) from opposite the aerator. Mark Radford didn't do too well from his little bay before Steve Burgess put a 9lb 7oz silvers winning catch on the board, he added a couple carp to that to giving 13lb+.
Matt Challenger had 13lb 1oz and Mike Wilson 5lb+. Steve O, and Ryan both tipped back between 1 and 2lb each. Next was me, my 6 carp gave me 12lb or so and my 5lb+ of mostly rudd topped up my weight to a shade over 18lb.
Alan was last to weigh and had obviously won, but he had less than I guessed, but 11lb of silvers was accompanied by 89lb of carp for a comfortable win and a nice days fishing by anyone's standards.

Results:
1st, Alan Healey, 99lb 9oz
2nd, Lee Waller, 54lb 3oz
3rd, Chris Szakacs, 38lb 15oz
4th Lee Willams, 18lb 2oz

1st Silvers (default), Steve Burgess 9lb 7oz.

Weigh Sheet.

So for 7 of us it was a tough day with the majority of carp up towards the far end, bungalows end, of the lake and also well into the reeds where they wouldn't come out from.
I couldn't get any rhythm going either for the silvers or carp and only caught out of the blue rather than by design. In hindsight, maybe targeting the rudd should have been my only option seeing Lee and Alan would have the top 2 overall pay-outs.
But I enjoyed it and will look forward to the next match on there, hopefully the reeds will be managed to sensible levels by then.

Next up is Harescombe next Sunday, a nice little jaunt, but plenty of bites (famous last words).

Until then. Take Care.

Lee