Teams of 3, Round 4. Shiplate. 30-10-16

Quick blog today, A) because I caught naff all and B) because I caught naff all......

Got to the venue for the earlier draw now the clocks have gone back, Capt. Tom had to do the draw and I was positive with what I hoped he would be bringing back. My preference being to be on Main Lake or maybe Hawthorn. Westpool.....nah thanks. Tom told me to grab a catch shot of poss.....
No suck luck, he drew himself Hawthorn peg 9, not a bad peg at all with the boards across.
Titch had peg 6 on the Main Lake, not the best peg but should be worth a few fish but with peg 1 and 7 preferred, section 3rd would be a good result.
I had Westpool peg 7. Not good. Peg 8 is always a good peg as peg 9 isn't used, peg 6 is in so I had an angler each side, capable guys in the form of Mark Wynne on peg 8 and venue expert Julian Pinkett on peg 6. I also had Mark Radford (p4) and Steve Howell (p2) in my mini-section....mega tough to do well from the only peg in the section with no space.

Peg 7, Shiplate Westpool

Bait was simply Bait-Tech pellets in various forms, 2mm and 4mm feed (plus a few 6mm for the band) and Xpands in 4 and 6mm versions. Some 6mm chopped Bait-Tech Polony meat and some naturals in the form of maggots, worms and casters.
A few rigs, I wont go into detail about as of the half a dozen pole rigs and the small method feeder I only caught on 2 rigs....

The all in was called.....60 minutes later I had a small roach then a small 2lb carp from across in 12" of water on maggot.
An hour later I had my 2nd carp from the same line, oh I did lose a couple foul hookers in the preceding spell.
15 minutes later I had a couple little fish from my silvers line down the middle of the lake then a 12oz chub from across.....And that was my lot for the day.
I watched Mark Wynne catch pretty regular for the first 3hrs before slowing down, but he looked to at least won our mini-section with around mid-50lb.
Julian on peg 6 was struggling and ended with 3 small carp, but he did catch a good few chub and other assorted silvers in the 2nd half of the match and ended up with 12lb I think I heard. I tried to get them to feed but only seemed to bump baby 1/2oz roach.
Further down on the early pegs, Mark Radford and Peanut had done ok. So I expected to be last in the section, this was confirmed at the weigh in. I had 7lb and ounces for last on the lake.
I did try all sorts of things to catch, the fish were present at times, but were obviously tricky to hook.

The lake and section was indeed won by Mark. His team also won the day with Dave White getting a section second on the main lake and Dave Romain won his with over 100lb from peg 2 or 3 on Hawthorns.
Tom won his section and Titch did get 3rd in section from his peg, so team wise for us on the day we done average.

Next up for me, well I ain't got a clue to be honest, I think my next match may well be on Hawthorns in the next round of this series in a couple of weeks time.

Take care and have fun.
Lee

Pawlett Match, Shiplate Hawthorn and Westpool. 16-10-16

Hoping not to continue my now current habit of drawing pegs which I really don't fancy, so it was off to Shiplate today, only finding out last night that we didn't have the Main Lake, I was hoping for a nice day fishing for the non-carp species on the big lake......ah well. Onwards.

24 or so of us fishing today, 14 on Hawthorn and the rest over on Westpool. I wanted to be on any peg on Hawthorn from 3 to 10, these pegs have had a new breeze on them and I definitely fancied those pegs to be the most consistent. I didn't want Westpool as it had been patchy and didn't want to walk around there.

A chatter and natter with a few, and it was onto the draw. I hung back, like I usually do, and plucked peg 15 on Hawthorn. Nice enough peg, but not convinced it'd produce the good, especially with me sat at the helm....
I made my way to the peg and found I had Mr Paul Berry for company on peg 14, not that I could see him, he had Steve Fouracre next to him, so no doubt a little bit of cursing will be heard!!

Looking left from P15 Shiplate Hawthorn......bait fed ducks!!

Peg 15, Hawthorn.......looks fishy.....wasn't fishy!!

I went about sorting my kit and bait.
A shallow rig for pellets (unused in anger)
A depth banded pellet rig (unused in anger)
A banded pellet rig for a few areas across (fishless)
A rig for the left margin using meat over hemp
A silvers rig for 9m using casters and worms
A meat rig for topkit+1 slightly left

I should end my blog now as not much happened for me and I couldn't see what was occurring on the lake.
Anyways, the all-in was called and I began on the short meat line hoping for an early fish. 15 minutes later nothing had happened, 20 minutes on the pellet across line and still nothing happened. All I knew was Paul had a carp and 4 skimmers in that period and Steve had lost a couple carp and had a few skimmers.

I went out to 9m with my silvers rig and waited a while before I had a chub of 6oz, this was quickly followed by a couple crucians and another skimmer.....then nothing for a long while. I did foul hook a couple carp and missed a couple bites on meat, but my swim didn't look too active in terms of fish being present.
At the halfway stage I had yet to catch a carp, Paul hadn't had any more fish after his little burst at the start of the match.

A look down my left edge saw me hook a 1lb carp in the tail, it was landed....yay. But it was a false dawn as nothing more happened so it was back on the silvers rig, which again not much happened, it was another 20 minutes before I had a 4oz eel and a 1lb skimmer.
I was hoping the carp turn up in the last 90 minutes or hour as they often do, but hope was all that was likely.
A couple more foul hooked carp, but with no particular area standing out, at least to find an area to target. So I plodded along and not much was happening by all accounts, but rumour had it the pegs below peg 10 had been catching a few pretty regular, like I expected.

Into the last 60 minutes and I began to see a little more life in the peg and I managed a couple 6oz roach off the silvers line, plus another lost carp from here on the light kit.
I did manage 2 carp, one from the left margin, one from the short meat line and as the all out was called I was getting few liners and bubbled on the edge and short lines.

So not a great day, but I enjoyed it oddly, scratching around for bites may well help me out in the Teams-of-3 in a couple weeks
Paul Berry hadn't put any more fish in his nets, Steve had a good last 40 minutes and had added around 18lb to his tally fishing expanders across.
The scales arrived and Jamie Parkhouse had won Westpool from peg 15, which was the Golden Peg, so a nice win was on the cards.
I put 8lb 5oz on the scales for my 3 carp, my silvers weighed 7lb 12oz, giving me 16lb 1oz.
Mr Berry's solo carp was an ounce less than my 3 and he had 1lb 12oz of silvers for a 10lb total.

I didn't follow the scales and went and loaded the car, the other end of my lake were doing ok with 30 and 40lb nets reasonably common, though a few dnw's and a couple low weights were recorded.
The top silvers weight was a really nice 21lb for Derek Beards from Westpool peg 11.
Overall winner was Jamie from p15 on Westpool with 77lb 12oz, Eric Fouracre (H2) had 49lb 4oz and Brian Gatiss was 3rd with 44lb 11oz (H7)

Weights....

Not sure where I will be fishing over the coming week and next weekend.
So have a good week and stay safe,
Lee