Withy TO4 031211

I was on Selwood again as ‘Someone had to’ but I was more than happy with this as the more time I can spend on the lake the better I will know it. John came back from the draw with peg 15, this was one of my preferred pegs but due to the weather I felt as though I would not be able to fish it how I would want. The peg gave me an island at 17.5m but due to pegs 14 and 16 both being in that was about it, so I decided to fish a skimmer line at an easy to fish distance, a corn line as close to the island as I could reach with my pole and a 5m line. My skimmer line was set on Pink Reflex elastic and comprised of a 4X14 float on 0.16mm mainline to a 0.12mm bottom and an 18, 808. This was plumbed up from 9 to 14.5m all across my swim and I managed to find a shallow depression at 11.5m just to the left of my swim; this was earmarked for my skimmer line. I found the same depth at 5m and at 16m so the same rig was used for both, a 4X14 Drennan Carp 2 on 0.18mm Cenex mainline to a 0.14mm bottom and terminated in an 18 B911, this was set on yellow Reflex elastic as I was hoping for mainly carp on this rig. As I had a bit of time before the all in I also pulled a bomb rod out of the bag just in case, this was a 10ft Force Commercial Bomb with a Black Magic 030 loaded with 0.22mm slow sink match line, a simple running rig incorporating a snap link swivel to attach a variety of hooklengths and a 3/4oz Hybrid distance pear lead.

My bait was simple enough, some hemp, corn, 6mm and 8mm meat, dead maggot, expanders and mixed softened 3 and 4mm carp pellet. At the all in I fed a small ball of pellet on my 11.5m line, a quarter cup of hemp and some corn on my 5m line then a pinch of hemp and corn on the 16m line which is where I started, due to the strengthening wind I decided to do all my feeding through a dedicated cupping kit rather than have kinder cups on the end of my top kits. I did not get so much as an indication on any of my lines for around 2 hours and a strengthening wind saw me abandon my 16m line so to try and snag a bite I started using a tiny pellet cone on the bomb and cast it close to the island, this gave me a small carp but then nothing else followed.

After 4 ½ hours I had caught 1 small carp and as I was rotating through my swims for the last time when I looked on my 14.5m line the float went under with a skimmer on the end, this was closely followed by 5 more of his mates before they disappeared again. The all out was called and I had ended up with 1 carp and 6 skimmers for 8lb odd and enough for 5^th in a section of 10. I had been beaten by predominantly skimmer weights by guys fishing dead maggot over pellet (one for the memory bank) but peg 11 again won the lake with 5 fish for 20lb odd. If I could have done it again I would have fished a small method feeder to the island with dead red to try and snag a few more fish rather that concentrating on big baits for the lumpy carp. Always next month!!