The 11th of Feb, day after my birthday and Steve Sewell's actual birthday, was the date for the 4th round, an open draw and them rotation for these last 3 matches. I was hoping for Lake 3 really and the same sequence as the 1st three matches. I was still in the knock-out but I never knew whom I was faced with, but it turned out to be Tony Rixon, thankfully I never knew until Ken posted the results on Facebook after the event.
Being in the K/O would sort of dictate the fact that I would ideally be fishing for carp, as my league position deemed that I was unlikely to finish in the overall standings in a position to pick up. I was doing ok in the Silvers, but only 1 overall payout for this and Tony doing really well, plus Ken Rayner, Gary O'Shea and venue owner Mike Duckett in and around the upper regions of the standings put me in a misty-mind-set of deciding which way to go....
Anyway peg 34 on the Speci Lake (lake 1) would be my peg for the match, a decent peg at times but hasn't really kick-started in this series with 32 and 33 (corners) being more likely to throw up the winning weight. Peg 28 also was dominating the silvers fishing on this lake recently. Steve Sewell was on that.
The same rigs as last time out on this lake were assembled. But the wind was bloody awful and even at times during the day 7m was hard enough to hold and fishing across to the island nigh on impossible. I had Rod Wootton on peg 33 to my left and Rob Watts a couple pegs to my right on 36.
 |
| Landsend Peg 34, Speci Lake. |
I had a couple little perch and a roach in the initial 45 minutes but nobody had caught much at all.
I then hooked a carp and after a good tussle I luckily got it in on the no.4-6 laccy. It was around 7lb.
Not much happened for the next few hours, I lost a couple foul hooked fish, one at the net, the other somewhere towards the point of the island, both on the silvers line in front, I didn't have a bite all day over micros.
I did try fishing across at times, but really was pointless in the wind, so much so I followed Rod's lead and went and got a tip rod, especially as Stu Barnett on peg 31 had a few on his. Actually I don't think Rod had a bite for 5hrs and 30mins when he had a 5lb carp up in the water along his end bank, after the wind dropped.
Anyway my little groundbait feeder took a liking to the trees on the island a couple times but a couple little fish were bullied out by my 2nd and last carp of the day with an hour to go, that one also was around 7lb.
Rob on peg 36 had landed 2, but one was a proper lump of double figures he said. Further along they struggled. Steve Sewell on p28 had been busy catching roach on and off all day. Stu on peg 31 had done decent on the tip and Martin Pettifer on peg 32 had struggled until the last 30 minutes when I think he had 3 decent carp on the pole. I was looking at 4th or 5th on the lake and naff-all in the silvers stakes.
As it turned out I was 4th on the lake, not the worst result. Pegs 31, 32 and 36 were the top 3 and indeed Steve picked up the silvers envelope from peg 28.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The match this past weekend was the 5th round and I was due to be on the Match Lake (lake 2).
Now I fancied peg 22, that peg has been great for silvers in recent weeks with bags to over 20lb, that'd be a great day. Next on my list would be peg 15, yes 13 and 11 have been and probably are better pegs at the moment (1st and 2nd on the Saturday match), but I like peg 15.
Well I drew near the end of the queue and found peg 15 in my hand, realistically that meant silvers were out of the window, especially with decent silvers angler Mark Leader (covering for Jack Billett) on peg 22. So carp it was then.
 |
| Landsend p15, Match Lake |
For company I had Martin Pettifer on peg 18 and Pete Nurse on peg 13. Rod Wootton had drawn his 5th corner in 5 matches in this league over on peg 11. Hmmmm....
I set up a silvers rig for around 9m in front, but this only gave me a single roach and a single 1oz perch all day, but then I never gave it a whole load of effort.
I had a meat rig for 7m to my left around 2m off the margin and this same rig would also suffice for the same distance in front and slightly to the right. The left side I fed dead maggots and meat, the line in front-ish was fed with meat and micros.
A rig for dobbing maggots off bottom between 12" and 3ft deep was on the roost, used all over the peg. Lastly a rig to fish on the deck at 14m off in the 11 o'clock direction. I would feed mostly via a toss-pot unless the fish told me otherwise.
I had a few expanders but my main choices of bait were meat and maggots (live and dead).
Well I started off all quiet and it seemed the fish were not interested in feeding for myself, Rod and Pete. It was maybe 45 minutes before I had my 1st fish, a small roach, a couple more followed all on the 14m line and on the drop. I had foul hooked a couple,, trashing 2 rigs, before one snagged me about 5m out into the lake in front of peg 14. I lost the whole rig (retrieved after the match with offending snag). Then I landed my 1st carp after around 90 minutes, a 3lb fish caught at 14m. Then a few more foul hooked fish came and went, It was bloomin hard going, but the other end of the lake was more productive by a long way as fish seemed to be getting caught with more regularity.
Pete on peg 13 took 3hrs to get his 1st fish, on the lead, before the following 45 mins gave him perhaps another 6 or 7 on the pole, some foul hooked (and landed) and some in the mouth. Then he didn't have anything after that spurt of fish, so in 6hrs he had 45 minutes of fishing. Similarly Rod on peg 11 had a similar thing, only his fish came after Pete's bites stopped.
Back to my match, I managed my 2nd carp (and a few 1oz roach) on my dobbing rig set 12" deep, but the carp didn't want to really feed. I probably could have caught a roach every drop in if I set up a shallow maggot rig for the roach, but the were, or seemed, to be 1oz sort of stamp and at 14m it didn't make sense.
I did manage a couple F1's on the 14m line and a couple 3oz-5oz roach from there, these better stamp fish came after toss-potting full pots of maggots and lowering through the feed. But I felt the carp were not responding to this.
With about an hour to go I had a look down to my left on the meat, missed a couple bites, but did land one carp of 3lb or so. A 2nd carp (and my 4th) came from the same spot and was a decent 7lb ghostie, my clicker was on 19lb, miles behind those off to my right and also behind Pete. I was unsure of pegs 7 and 11.
A look on the meat line in front gave me a bright golden carp of 3lb. That was my last carp landed, though I had a couple foul hookers come off.
On the all-out I was in the process of playing a fish from the meat line in front and a welcome 2lb ide went into the keepnet. My silvers clicker showed 9lb (ide, 2x F1 and some roach and perch). My 5 carp had 22lb on the clicker.
I packed up and waited for the scales and my clickers were close with my 2 nets combined giving me 32lb 15oz (carp were 23lb 9oz, silvers 9lb 6oz).
I followed the scales to see that Mark Leader won the match with 63lb from peg 22 and somehow I had won the lake's silvers. So an envelope, which was a bonus. Section wise I was 6th, so a poor result. But as happened in the last round on that lake, the fish showed in better numbers at the opposite end of the lake to where I was pegged.
The last round is next Sunday.
Until then, take care.
Lee
No comments:
Post a Comment