PSV Match, Shiplate Main Lake, 2/10/16

A lovely sunny, reasonably mild day was the forecast as a bunch of the PSV guys fished on the Main Lake at the lovely Shiplate complex near Weston-Super-Mare, The air was nippy and it shows autumn has arrived. Lovely time of the year.
There was another match on Hawthorns which saw the car park reasonably full, plenty of chat, abuse and piss-taking was done and spirits were high.

We all paid, the draw was made, it was obvious which pegs would be wanted, 1 and 15 are flyers and should be thereabouts come the weigh-in, but peg 14 has been the hottest peg of recent times and would be a very good draw. The rest of the pegs are fair and can produce winning weights for sure.
I had the 3rd last ticket and drew peg 11, so I though I would have a day fishing for silvers.....hmmm!!
Peg 1 went to Adam Caswell, 15 to Alan Healey and 14 to Mr Steve Burgess.
With the way it is pegged the only peeps I could see were those on the opposite pegs, Pete Uzzell and Mark Radford on 3 and 5 respectively.

Shiplate p11 Main Lake

Shiplate Main Lake p11 lhs

I made my way to the peg and went about sorting my stuff. Groundbait mixed, micros wetted and expanders pumped. 3 tins of corn and some 6mm pellets finished off my bait tray. The lake was flat calm and there were a few silvers and the carp were mooching around in the upper layers, but they were not my target.
2 silvers rigs, one banded, one not. The banded would be for 11m in front (corn and 6mm pellets) and the other at 2+1 in front at the bottom of the near drop-off using expanders/micros/corn.
A rig for carp down the edge, but hoped not to use that, and a rig for off the end of the tree with carp the intended target, this wasn't used in vain.

At the all in I started on the short line, toss potting balls of micros and odd grain of corn, it was a while before I had a bite and inevitably it was a skimmer, one or 2 more followed, only fish up to 4oz. After an hour I hooked 2 carp on this line, both foul hooked and both lost.
A tench and a nice looking crucian were netted but things had slowed with the odd roach only coming to my short line.

So after 90 minutes I went long and starting getting the odd skimmer and roach, but nothing of the quality I expected and felt that I would need a few lumpier skimmers and a few tincas to win the silvers money. I kept pinging the odd pellet and potting in the odd pinch of micros and a few grains of corn.

Between 12:00 and 3pm I had really struggled and only probably put in a few roach and 1 little tench, I also lost a carp that vanished around 20yrds away to my right.
Elsewhere I expected John Bradford down on peg 9 to be winning the silvers, Steve Burgess looked to be winning the match overall. Opposite Pete only had a couple carp and a few silvers. Mark Radford was starting to put some skimmers and a few carp in his net as had Chris Szakacs on peg 7.
So at 3pm I potted in 5 cups of groundbait down my left edge and left it for 15 minutes before going in over the top with double corn. It worked and I had a carp in the net after a spirited battle had a 5lber in the net.

Over the following 40 minutes I had another 4 carp from the edge and lost another to the tree.
The last 15 minutes were fishless and the all out was called. I expected to have maybe 10lb of silvers and maybe 30lb of carp.
I packed up, loaded the trolley and went and watched the first few weigh ins, Alan had 42lb off peg 15, Steve Burges s had 70lb+ from peg 14 including a 12lb grass carp, Lee Waller had 16lb of silvers of which 13lb came in the last hour, I then had 12lb of silvers and 33lb of carp for 45lb and ounces.
I let the scales do their job before getting to see the results back at the car park.

Results:
1. Steve Burgess (14) 71-9
2. Adam Caswell (1) 57-7
3. Mark Radford (5) 49-0
4. Chris Szakacs (7) 47-15
5. Lee Williams (11) 45-8
6. Alan Healey (15) 42-6
7. Pete Uzzell (3) 22-9
8. Lee Waller (13) 15-12
9. John Bradford (9) 11-15

Silvers:
Lee Waller 15-12

So it fished a bit tricky with the sunshine and flat conditions, but in hindsight if I had taken some form of live bait like maggots or worms I am sure I would have had enough to win the silvers and I think that the pellets and corn approach wasn't really right.
Also if I had come in on the edge lines, or even fished shallow in some form then 2nd overall's weigh looks like it would have been gettable.

Not sure where or if I am fishing this week as on Saturday I am down at White Acres for the Winners Week Festival which will make a change and maybe get some F1s and different scenery.

Until next time....
Lee