A lot of the regular faces were fishing, from Jamie Parkhouse to John Fuidge through to the Clapps and match secretary Mark Hembery. It was also the mystery pairs, so no packing up early and heading for a cooling shower or a pint in a beer garden....
After the usual natter and general piss-taking, it was down to the draws, 4 golden pegs, 22, 27 and 33 on Tile along with peg 2 on Brick were drawn, only peg 27 was fancied to be honest. I really didn't fancy being on Tile, but should I draw on there then pegs 21, 25-27, 31 and 40 would be preferred. Pegs 7 to 10 on Brick please!! Though peg 1 did 220lb in the mid-week match.
I went into the basket halfway down, commenting to Phil Clapp I would like peg 10, never had it in a anything goes match, he didn't want it but promptly pulled it out.....oh cheers, I had the next ball....meh...peg 22!! not the best peg on the lake as it struggles to compete with 21 and those around peg 25ish on that bank.
I made my way to the peg with Steve Fouracre who was on peg 21, and the water looked full of fish near the surface, a muggers paradise, but the whole lake looked as such, but these fish know the time and we knew that come 10:30 they would be out towards the middle of gone altogether.
I had Chris Higgs to my left on peg 23.
It was baking already and most were moaning about the heat and I feared I never had enough drinks with me....ho hum. But I enjoy the sunny and warm times, we don't see much of it so a little discomfort is better than drowned kit which is an arse to dry.
An array of kit made up:
A lead rod with a long tail for slow sinking pellets, a method feeder rod, a pellet waggler.
A shallow silvers rig and full depth silvers rig with an intention of using casters, but I struggle to get the silvers on Tile and I didn't fancy it against Brick's head of skimmers. Both were a bit 'last resort' really.
A mugging/slapping rig using a DT Pellet Pinger on 0.18>0.12>18 B911 (later 0.14).
An edge rig using a DT Edger for meat over meat and caster to my right and meat over 4mm pellets on my left.
A DT RBS was set up for fishing topkit+1 with meat hookbait.
Simple on the bait front, 1.5pt of caster, some 8mm meat, some wetted micros for the method and some 4mm, 6mm and 8mm pellets. Oh and some Bait-Tech wafter pellets for a change of hookbait on the lead rods mostly.
At the all-in I went out to try and mug a fish or 2, most had already drifted away and even more looked like they had other things on their minds as they were swimming around quickly in bunches of 2 or 3.
Steve spooked one in trying to mug it right away and I followed suit by doing the same....no fish to be seen now!! But I had been flicking 6mm's at 14m and after less than 50 pellets I had a 6ft square Jacuzzi in front of me.
30 mins in and Steve had one on the lead fishing along the end bank, then a couple more.
I began to lift and drop at 14m in amongst the bubbles and I was soon into a fish, a nice 6lb mirror was soon netted, That was things done for me for the 1st hour.
 |
| Peg 22 at Sedges on Tile Lake |
A few more fish drifted in to the area and I managed to mug my 2nd fish of the day, an 8lb common I hooked at 5m in front. A 3rd soon ended up in the keepnet, but was a 3lb fish.
Chris was struggling and only had 1 carp and a couple skimmers on the feeder.
But Kev Crouch was getting a few on various running line tactics and was on around 10 after 2.5hrs.
Things slowed considerably, not that it was hectic, but things didn't look too fishy, it was a roasting day and I couldn't just gulp my drink down. I was catching the rays and my feet and knees had sort of began to burn. Holding the pole wasn't too pleasurable either, but if I kept it moving then it was fine.
The 3rd hour passed with only a few roach to show after a futile spell fishing casters shallow at 14m.
I did hook a fish mugging, but it tore off up the lake never to be stopped taking the best part of the rig in the process (the float....). It looked a good upper double. I laughed, Steve also laughed.
A quick look on the wag gave me nothing, but 3 fish on the method just off the island gave me a short-lived bit of hope, but looking around, it was only peg 31 (Mark Sweeting), Steve on 21 and Crouchy on peg 25 that were consistent in catching, but I couldn't see many others so I didn't really have a clue on how I was doing.
I changed from the long hooklength on the lead to a short one and lobbed it on the pole line, which was still getting bits of fizz. There were fish there, I would spook them lobbing the lead in, but I couldn't get a fish on the pole. It did work as 3 more fish followed in a short spell before that line died.
Into the remaining couple of hours and it began ok with another mugged fish, around 11lb so a nice addition. I was up to 50lb on the clicker, 10 carp. Steve was on around 80lb and Chris had began to hook the odd carp on pellet short and at depth.
A look on the meat line gave me a couple mad 3lbers and one foul hooker that I played for ages, a lump of a fish, but my impatience got the better of me and I snapped the hooklength pulling too hard. Schoolboy.
I had been feeding the 2 edges, my right edge gave me a skimmer, that's all, but my left side showed signs of fish with the odd tail pattern and I put a couple decent fish in the keepnet at around 8lb each from there. So at the all out my clicker showed 70lb (but I may have missed a fish I thought to myself) and that was 15 carp. 1 shallow, 4 mugged, 3 each on the lead and method, 2 on short meat and 2 from the left edge. But a couple of them were decent sized.
Steve was admitting to 105lb before his final fish. Chris had 4 or 5 I think. On the other bank I could see Mark Sweeting on peg 31 catching really well in the last hour and definitely looked good for a decent 130lb+.
I packed up my kit and loaded the car before the weigh-in. I was 2nd to weigh and after Steve's 110lb+ I managed a respectable 83lb or so. I was quite pleased with that despite my "what if's" or "if only.." thoughts. Kev Crouch had 120-something before I headed back to the car and then over to Brick Lake. It was said that Mr Clapp on Peg 10 had won that lake, that was true as he managed over 100lb ahead of Jamie Parkhouse on peg 9 who had 83lb+.
There were 2 other 100lb nets on Tile, Mark Sweeting with 140lb+ and Mark Hembery with 124lb. So I was 5th on the lake and 8th overall.
The top silvers was 40lb+ to Derek Beards on Brick, where there were generally better silvers nets.
Results:
1st, Mark Sweeting, peg 31. 143lb 5oz
2nd, Mark Hembery, peg 35. 124-10
3rd, Kev Crouch, peg 25. 117-12
Silvers went to Derek Beards, peg 4. 42lb 9oz
Sections went to Steve Fouracre (p21, 110lb 8oz) and Phil Clapp (p10, 109lb 13oz)
 |
| Brick's Weights |
 |
| Tile's Weights |
well she must have the desired effect as the first couple of balls she grabbed were pegs 31 and 10......and therefore no other spherical objects needed touching as those weights (Mark Sweeting and Phil Clapp's) combined were unbeatable. So a sort of anti-climax really....haha.
So next weekend is the next round of the Acorn Saturday Series and as for Sunday, no plans as of yet, but the weather looks a whole lot better for catching a few and not sweating your behind off....
Until then, happy Summer Solstice and enjoy Glasto to those heading there,
Lee
No comments:
Post a Comment