25/01/2014 Golden Pond Open

So it was off to Golden Pond for the second time ever and first time in a match, I picked John up nice and early (ish, I may have been 5 minutes late) and then to the fishery all of ten minutes away. We were welcomed by quite a sight as out of the seven or so anglers already there 5 of them were members of the Browning Andover MG squad. In attendance were Keith, Stu, Tommy Gerry and Les, plus John and I made 7 and this was more than half the total anglers for the day. As always there was a sausage bap and a brew and then the important business of taking the mickey out of each other started, in fact the banter was in full flow all day.

I drew peg 4 out of the bag and since the pegs are not permanently numbered I was halfway up the left hand bank from the clubhouse, next to the aerator. Normally this would not affect me but the last match had been won by dobbing bread under the aerator from the other bank, so that was swim number 1 sorted.

The second line I decided on to start was going to be at 11.5m at about 11 o’clock and then I plumbed up a line down the edge to fish a throwaway meat line, well that was the plan but things did not go well for me. I started dobbing at mid depth for an early carp but got no indications, neither did Keith pegged opposite who was fishing to the other side of the aerator. So after 15 minutes I was trying to catch a fantail over the top of my pellet line at 11.5m, I was feeding 3 grains of corn and 10 4mm pellet every time I had an indication, so I fed very rarely. 

After a couple of hours that had seen me loose a foul hooked carp and not a lot else I decided to start trickling a little caster and corn by the aerator, this resulted in a roach of nearly a pound and later I managed to add a fantail whilst exploring the swim with a pellet, but the fish did not seem to be on my side of the lake. I was watching Keith and John on the far bank duke it out , keith was catching decent carp down the edge on pellet and John  was taking big fantails on 4mm meat on a variety of lines.  I had also gone a quid with Stu and he was winning that battle from two pegs to my left with a brace of massive perch and a roach.

For me the all-out could not come fast enough, Stu weighed nearly 8lb with his Perch going 4lb and 3lb+, so I lost a quid there.

My 2 fish went 2lb, John had 25lb ( another quid) and Keith won the day with 33lb, in all it was a slow but enjoyable day and I will return for my revenge on the fish, although my plan has changed slightly now that I have fished the place under match conditions and I have a better understanding of how it fishes.  Next week is a double whammy with Withy and Viaduct, let’s hope that it doesn't get too cold. 

22/01/2014 AAF Bishops Cannings

So it was back to the canal for a group match, however, this time with a difference as I was part of a team, myself, Tony and Rocky had come together to make The Tidworth Tiddlers.  The breakfast was good, then after booking in it was a case of dishing out bait to all who required!  And then the draw, I was nearest so did the draw, and it put myself on A5, Tony on B1 and Rocky on C7, these numbers mean nothing as they did to me at the time but….

I was 2 pegs off the swing bridge in Bishops Canning, Tony was next to the bridge inn and Rocky was again next to the bridge in Horton, looks like I might be drawing again! We bomb burst off to our respective sections and I was met with the sight of John Dewberry, Chris Perry and Danny Jones all in the car park and the section had the swing bridge in the middle. I was looking straight away at 4^th or 5^th in the section as I was basically competing against 4 end pegs and also the bend in the high numbers is reknowned for the skimmers and hybrids that live there. Still I had a job to do so heres how I did it:

There had been a lot of talk about how coloured the canal was so I had set myself that I would be mostly squatt and worm fishing, this however, was my first mistake as there was about 10-12 inches of visibility and a lovely tinge to the canal. Seeing this I should have changed my plan but because my heart was not truly set on today I went back to an experimenting day.

I plumbed up a short line to fish bread on a new rig to me utilising a 0.3g MB Marnhull SB, this float is designed for skimmer fishing with bread and is fished with strung shot, in this case 24 no.13’s, to try and make the most of any flow and to help work the bait. It is really designed for rock hard northern canals, not the K&A, other than that it was no.3 elastic, a 0.10mm mainline and 0.07mm bottom to a 20 B511 as usual.

The next line was the across squatt line, now in the past I have tried to fish squatt at upto 14.5m but experience has now taught me that the furthest you would want to loose feed that tiny maggot is about 11.5m, so that is where I plumbed up my 0.3g MB Canal Diamond, 0.09 to 0.07 and a 22 B590 was set on no.2 elastic to prevent the fish from splashing in the shallower water. Also I decided to set up a waggler for this line as I do not get to practice it on the canal too often, I used my 10ft Commercial king Micro F1 waggler, with a small Black magic reel loaded with 0.14mm mainline. The rig itself was a 3bb balsa canal waggler shotted with a bulk around the float and 3 no. 11’s down the line, it was finished with a 0.07mm bottom and a size 22 Colmic B957 hook.

Finally I set up a worm rig to fish at 13m down the track of the canal to the right, this was a 0.3g Frenzee FP500 on 0.16mm mainline to a 0.12mm hooklength and a 16 B560, this was rigged on yellow reflex elastic through 1 section of my Z9.

So I was just about ready at the all in, even after walking up and down the bank moaning for thirty minutes and helping John in the next peg hide his platform,

Although he will say it’s his platform, John is actually being supported by 3ft of roach in his 4ft margin!!!!

Anyway at the all-in I fed half a cup of loose bread at 5m, 4 balls of groundbait laced with squatt, pinkie and caster at 11.5m and then 10 worms chopped quite fine with 30 caster down the canal at 13m.  I then shipped out on to the punch line and the float settled before burying, a quick strike saw plenty of no.3 elastic pour out of the pole tip and after a brief struggle a 5oz roach was in the net. Next put in the float settled and dipped, a 3oz roach and again and again but fish number 5 was about ½ an ounce. This was the start of my practice day as had decided that I wold not allow myself just to sit on tiny fish so I cupped in a quarter of a cup of loose bread again, and it worked with 2 more bread roach before the tiny fish arrived again. Over the first 40 minutes I fed 5 times but had caught 15-20 good sized bread roach and a couple of small hybrids all on my original line, but at this point the line died completely so before I went across I decided to try the worm line. This was a good call with 2 3-4oz roach coming to hand (well it was proper gear) and a small perch it was soon time to move on again and I went out on the pole over the sqautt line. Immediately I could tell that this was not right with numbers of tiny fish smashing my pinkie on the pole, so I made a decision to start feeding pinkie, cut out the squatt and also to try the waggler.

The waggler was a god send as I was able to explore all around the swim and pick up odd better fish, and although John next to me had been catching slowly but steadily all day at this point I was keeping up and possibly even a little in front, but then disaster. A Kayak, like the 3 before paddled down the canal except after this one had passed straight over the top of my far bank and track line, (impressive!!) I could not get a bite and it was the same for John to my right. I managed to coax a few fish to start feeding again by cutting out loose feed and feeding small hard balls of groundbait and then casting the waggler all around it, I was casting very regularly as most bites were coming on the drop or just as the float settled.

Coming into the last hour John hit another gear catching small fish quite quick off a new line he had just started so I decided that it was big or bust, I fed a backup cup of bread at 5m then put 4 balls of groundbait over at 11.5m followed by 50 worms and a quarter of a cup of caster on the track line. Going on the bread line I managed 3 fish before having to top up and then another 1, I tried throwing nuggets of bread at the float but that just proved how much I need to work on that!!  I went across on the wag, squatt and worm rigs alternating but apart from a couple of see through roach that was it and my match finished with a whimper.

John was admitting to 2KG, but I had that so he had to have had 3? I was confident of 2KG but was kicking myself for listening to other people and not deciding to assess the peg when I got to it. I should have just fished an aggressive bread and worm match, but hindsight is the best angler I know so it was over to the scales man.

This little lot was enough for 2.240Kg, it was between 70-90 fish and John had taken 157 but he only weighed 2.67Kg so he had done me by just over a pound but I was better at the guess for his weight, Danny Jones to my left had struggled for 710g but the best news was that the pegs that John and I thought would smash it did not produce and even Pez was left with only 1.7Kg from one off the end.  But the good news did not stop there as both Tony and Rocky had also picked up section seconds, with Rocky pipping Tony to 3^rd overall by a only 400g.  This did however have a down side:

This is Tony receiving his pound for doing me on weight, well done mucka I will have it back in a couple of weeks:-)  Golden pond at the weekend so that may be a fun bit of swash buckling, till then tight lines.

19/01/2014 Viaduct WL Rd 1

Today was the first round of the Viaduct WL, 95 of some of the best anglers in the south west descend across the whole complex on a random draw.  The team for the day was myself, Trev, Mick, Steve and Ivan and the draw saw me off to peg 8 on Spring.

If you are wondering why the picture is looking down to the right of the swim, it is because that is where I pointed my box whilst setting up as that is where I got told all the fish are. He plan was simple dob all the way down to the trees and hopefully sack up. The reality was a little different.

At the all-in I shipped down section by section with my dobbing rig that consisted of 0.20mm line straight through to a size 2 Tubertini 175, 16 solid elastic and a MW Pro Power Shallow 4 no 10. Hookbait was an 11m punch of bread and over the course of the first hour I had zero indications, so I set up a waggler rod and started to cast double maggot under the branches, this again was to no avail and at the end of the second hour I was starting to get a little emotional shall we say.

It was at this point that I had a little divine inspiration, (thanks Paul), and I quickly plumbed up a new rig to fish at 13m down to the right in line with one of the pilings where I found a small slope.  The rig was a MB WAC ‘O’ 0.2g on 0.18mm mainline and a 0.16mm Cenex bottom, again it was a 175 in size 2 to terminate the rig but I scaled down the elastic to a Blue Reflex.  I attached a small pot to the end of the section and shipped down to the spot with about 10 caster and 3 grains of corn for feed and a grain of corn on the hook, not a lot happened so I decided to see if I could get a Roach or Perch. I shipped down and fed with the same again but his time with double caster on the hook, I waited about a minute and the float dinked under, I was attached to Carp number 1 who went on a bee line for the trees to my right. I was able to turn it into open water with steady pressure and the fight was all but over, 14lb of pristine mirror in the onion sack and I was a happy bunny again.

The next bite saw me get the fish out of the snags and then it dropped off for no reason, number 3 ended up in the net but then that was it for indications on that line for 15 minutes so I decided to rest it for a while. This is where my throwaway line came in and I had been feeding a 5m meat line since the all in, I shipped the rig over the top, a 4 no.8 MW Carp Slim on 0.18-0.14 and a size 1 Tubertini 175, again on Blue Reflex. The sun was problematic and I decided that whilst the rig was there that I would get some grub in so I fed about 20 cubes of meat and no sooner that the third pinch hit the water than the float dipped, a quick lift saw the elastic tearing out and an unseen force made a run for the trees again.  Once again, steady pressure prevailed and I was soon slipping the net under another mid double carp, now I would love to say that in the last 2 hours I continued to catch but I can’t.  Despite rotating and resting swims I lost a foul hooker and another fish dropped off by the net from the long line (yes I had changed the hooklength) and I also managed a small roach to warrant putting the silvers net in.

That was it, Ken in peg 9 had had a bad day and I asked how the pegs to his left had fished, it turned out that it had been a grueller for most unless you were sat on peg 3, 4 and 5, Peg 5 having 140lb+.  My 3 carp and a 2oz Roach went 37lb 3oz:

This was enough for 3^rd in section, so a great start again to my league. I am on Campbell in a fortnight and that is real underwater bingo at the moment so fingers crossed for that, team on the day came 12^th out of the 19 with myself and Steve doing alright but the rest of the Guys struggling to get amongst the fish. Full section results can be seen here: http://silverfoxangling.blogspot.co.uk/

Golden Pond pole try out. 15/01/2014

It is sometimes a hard life being in the army, so as I was driving out of camp at half twelve on my 'sporty' I was happy that this was not one of those times.  I decided today to try 2 new things out, a venue, Golden Pond fishery and a pole My Zitan Ultra Power that I bought as a margin pole.

As I arrived at the fishery I was surprised to see that I would be on my own so I took 20 minutes to have a good walk around and decided where to plonk the box for the next couple of hours.  I decided on a peg about halfway up the bank away from the car park and took three trips to get all my kit there without a barrow.  I thought that it would be easier as the level was about 6 inches over the top of a couple of the platforms, so it was well up and easier to do a couple of trips.

I didn't take me long to set up as I decided on 2 lines,l one in open water with light gear to fish pellet and a margin line, but on plumbing up I discovered that the swim was a bit like a billiard table and the same depth almost everywhere, it only came up about 6 inches tight into the margin it also did not produce so that is the last I shall say about that line. I did however, find a slight depression at 13m to my right so that was where I was going to fish my pellet line. I set up a 14X11 MX F1 Slim 

with a small bulk and a couple of droppers, 0.16mm mainline to a0.10mm bottom and an 18 Tubertini 808.

Elastic was doubled 4, this provides a very soft elastic that will give you plenty of control as it won't stretch as far as hollow, it is also lighter than a hollow elastic which is always handy as it helps to improve pole control.

I decided to keep my bait simple for the day as well, with a few dampened 4mm pellet, some corn and a few 4mm and 6mm expanders.

So my day began quite slow and the first 20 minutes saw very little happening, I had fed 3 grains of corn and 20 pellet in the kinder cup at the start and had topped up once, i just got a couple of small indications on a corn hookbait before the float dinked under.  A few minutes later carp number 1 was in the net and he was soon followed by his twin again on corn.

This was when thing started to get a bit surreal and all of a sudden I was unable to hit the bites that I was getting and I was getting loads of slight indications that i was lifting at as they seemed like bites. However, the answer was soon found when I swapped to a 4mm pellet and tweaked the feeding a little, soon one of the culprits was in the net.

This was the start of a purple period where I landed 8 more goldfish including some fantails up to about a pound and a half, throughout this the pole behaved impeccably, in fact I could happily use it for a full match as long as I am not trying to fish further than 13m out, I had the other top kit set with a big heavy hollow through a power kit and this affected the performance noticeably. But that was expected, the sections are solid and I have no fears putting the strongest elastic through the top kits.

In conclusion I had a great couple of hours with 2 Common carp and about 10 goldfish to 1 1/2lb saw me landing double figures in about 2 and a half hours. The elastic performed brilliantly on all the fish and the ple was brilliant for the money. (Where were they 10 yrs ago when I was getting back into fishing?)

Till the next time tight lines.

11/01/2014 Willow Park Open, Middle Lake

This was my first return to Willow park for about six years so it was going to be interesting to see how it had changed, my day started well enough, I was up before the alarm, on the road early, managed to get a brekkie on the way and tipped up with plenty of time to walk around the well-stocked shop and enjoy a coffee from the really nice café, I also ordered my lunch to get delivered to my peg mid match.

The draw took place and I pulled out peg 7, as I walked out I was asked if I had packed a flask? I was hoping that he was joking but I had only heard bad things about the lakes on a whole so we would see.

As you can see from the picture the peg had a number of features to aim at and I set up a pellt rig to fish 14.5m under the tree and in open water, a small feeder, a shallow wag (after the previous days practice with Tony) and an in close rig that I fished meat at 5m to the left and corm at 14.5m into the corner.

Long story short the best bite I got was when my sandwich turned up mid match, I managed to lose a roach on the wag within 5 minutes of the start, then a skimmer on the tip halfway through the match. I did land a roach and small skimmer on dead maggot on the tip but that was my day, 8oz. I only weighed in as they gave me the board.

Peg 6 won it with 12lb mostly taken in 2 fish in the last half hour, it was a shame as the facilities are great but until the fishing improves I do not know if I will return.  Sorry Willow Park, I did see some fish splashing in front of pegs 3-5 but they did not come out.

To cap my day off my phone packed in that evening so I have probably lost all my pictures that I took!! Arrgghhhh

Viaduct Cost Cutter, 09/01/2014

Back to Viaduct for another cost cutter, this time there were 12 of us so we were all sat around Campbell Lake. Banter abound at the draw I fancied peg 116 as it seemed to be the flyer and I was very happy when I put my hand into the bag and pulled out peg 116.

I got to my peg and was very happy to see numbers of fish showing in the gap between myself and thew guy on peg 118 so I decided that to make the most of a good draw and concentrate on carp on the wag and bomb, so I set up my black viper 11ft feeder for the job again as it had been working so well doing it on Cary with the bigger fish. This was terminated in a 0.18mm hooklength and a size 12 Guru QM1, I set it up with a ½ ounce bomb to try and reduce the amount of disturbance to the fish already in the swim. I also pulled my Champions Choice Super light waggler out of the bag with 0.14mm mainline and a 0.12mm bottom to a size 18 hook. I plumbed around the swim as soon as I got to the peg to give the fish a chance to settle before the all in and was happy with 4 ½ foot just about everywhere I looked. I set the waggler up 12 inches off the bottom and then walked up the bank to abuse Tony on Peg 110 for twenty minutes, I also spent a while chatting to the guys on 118 and 119 and it was soon time to start.

The all in was called and I cast my waggler into the open water and started to count, it didn’t take long but the missed bite was not a good start, in fact it took me another minute or so to hook my first fish, a roach of about an ounce. This happened a few more times over the next half an hour and even Rich (onefeed) on 115 was getting amongst them, this did not bode well as I have usually found that if you are picking up roach ‘dobbing’ then there are not many carp around and my fears were confirmed when peg 119 caught a carp just before a couple of them showed tight to the bank.

I decided that a change of plan was needed so I got off my box and broke out my meat waggler rod, whilst I was setting the depth and attaching a float I pinged out the bomb with a bit of punched meat, and after a while it twitched and went round. Carp number 1 was soon in the net even though I had lassoed a rig that it was trailing from its mouth, well it’s better to be lucky than good!  That was it for the tip so back out on the wag to try and put some roach together, but they were too small at ½ to an ounce each.

It was about now when the guys on 112 and 114 started catching down the edge so not being shy in coming forward I was off the box again setting up a margin rig for down to my right towards an overhanging tree. Now some of you might be saying why I didn’t set it up at the start but I thought that it was going to be better for me in the open water, and I had not seen much come out of the edge on the lake for a while. Once it was plumbed up I fed a quarter of a cup of corn and caster down the edge and went back on the wag and mag for another few roach.

The next 2 hours passed without incident, I tried all of my swims rotating through and cast the bomb as close to peg 118 as I dare as he had taken a few carp by now casting straight in front of himself. Twenty minutes from the end I was on the meat wag and missed a quick bite, enthusiasm doubled I concentrated on it again for the last twenty minutes and managed to snag a carp in the mouth with about 15 minutes to go. That was the end of the action though and I was left hoping that it was enough to save me from losing a quid to Tony as I had heard that he had been catching a few good perch and skimmers.

The scales came around and the guy on 118 had 50lb all on the bomb, to be fair he only set up one rod, I had about 15lb, with my carp going 14lb and 20 odd roach for a pound and a half, Rich on 115 had ounces and chucked back, he had caught roach on the wag but could not find a carp, then peg 114 had 60lb of edge caught fish????  Tony on 110 had managed to scrape out 7lb of perch from the stump to his left so my pound was safe. It had not been a brilliant day but it did prove a few things to me.

I am due a practice with Tony tomorrow and then Willow park on Saturday, let’s see what that brings.

8/1/2014 Orchard Midweek open

It is coming to the end of my mammoth stretch of leave, so with the wife safely at work, I decided to find a few matches for the last few days of holiday and it all started at Orchard Lakes in New Milton.  I have been here before and this place is a bagging mecca in the summer with 200lb needed to get in the frame on most days, however, in the winter it can be a completely different proposition.  I need not have worried although I was a little disappointed at only 4 of us on the match but with 10,12,14,16 was a fair match, I came out of the bag last with peg 16 in my hand.

One of the massive plus points of Orchard is the fact that you can drive to 60% of the pegs on the match lake, the other is that every peg has an island within easy reach. Looking at the swim I decided on a two pronged approach of a track line and a far bank line that I put to the left of the reeds under the tree at about 14m. Rigs were easy they were both 0.16mm Main line to 0.1/0,12mm bottoms and 18 Tubertini 808’s, the float for across was a 10X11 MW Pear and the track was a 0.3g MW Pinger, elastics were a pink reflex for across and double 5 for the deeper water. On plumbing up I had a bit of a shock with here only being 2ft across but I tried a trick that I picked up this week which was to leave the float in the swim for a couple of minutes to try and judge if there were any fish in that area, the answer was yes as the float dipped a couple of times so I was happy to fish water that seemed so shallow.  The track turned out to be about 5feet deep and it would be a good comparison for where the fish wanted to be.

Before the all-in I also quickly set up my 10ft F1 waggler rod with a 3bb insert waggler to try and mug a few fish on during any quiet spells as I had seem a lot of fish splashing up the channel in front of my peg, that had a 0.12mm hooklength to a size 18 Tubertini 808.  So the all-in was called and I shipped straight across to the gap over with a small frenzee pot of 2mm and 4mm pellet mixed with a 4mm exp on the hook, I only had to wait 30 seconds and the first fish was on its way to the bank, it was a small roach but it was a start so I continued.

I was catching quite well but the stamp of fish was smaller than I remembered with them coming in at 8-12oz on average, but by changing the feed patterns and coming upto 8 inches off the bottom I was able to keep in touch with the fish and improve the size. I rested the swim by looking down the track, this was a nonstarter so I pinged the waggler over and managed 5 slightly bigger fish in short order before I cast up the reeds and lost the lot. I decided not to set it up again but it proved a point that I may have to look more in to another day.

The last hour was my best with me kinder cupping in 20, 4mm pellet and dropping a pellet through the feed to see the float bury most put ins, I did loose too many fish and I lost a rig in the small tree to my left when the wind picked up at one point. But by keeping my feed tight and working hard I had managed to get a fish most put ins.  The all out was called and Daryl came around with the scales, my three nets equalled 63lb which was not bad for January and as the scales followed around 14 had about 20lb, 12 had 37lb (Inc 26lb of silvers) and then there was Wacky on the end peg flyer with 41lb (63lb 1oz as he told me) so I managed my first win of 2014.

Thanks to Shaine and the team at Orchard and I will be seeing you again now I know how close it is.

05/01/2014 Withy Silvers match

Another weekend and it has been looking as though I will need to start building an ARK soon, but as usual the alarm went off at dark o’clock, I ate, loaded and defrosted the van and pointed it in the direction of Witherington Farm for a silvers only match.  We all met up in the café for a breakfast and discussed the day ahead and with the weather forecast predicting more rain and strong winds a simple plan was concocted to try a couple of things out.  The draw was conducted with the eight of us destined to go and sit around Cottage lake as it was the only one on its own, and I drew peg 1.

 As we walked out of the café there were a load of the Eastleigh anglers cutting about in the car park, we were lucky as they had called their match off as they could not safely drive to the snake!  Anyway my plan was to try sitting it out on the tip, I set up my ever faithful Force bomb rod with a small drennan cage feeder on a running rig, 0.12mm bottom and a size 18 hook for double dead maggot. I also set up a light waggler but this only got thrown around for 10 minutes and then was not seen for the rest of the match.

Well my day was a non-starter really, two goldfish that didn’t count in the first hour, then to try and alleviate small indications I set up my 8ft F1 wand with a tiny method feeder and chucked that on the same line for another goldfish. I then dropped a turn shorter and managed a skimmer and two roach over the next hour and a half before losing the plot and going to the shop to get some food.  Before I left however I put in 5 feeders laced with dead maggot.

On my return I took some shots of how high the water was:

On my return I managed two skimmers and a perch in quick succession before another lull, so I fed 4 more feeders with 30 minutes to go and received a few liners so out went the method and I managed another skimmer in the last 10 minutes. Wow that had been a hard day looking at this view:

My 3lb 3oz was enough for not last, I took a quid off Pez that he managed to run off before paying??!! Well done to Mick Craddock for winning off of peg 9 catching just shy of 10lb of skimmers on wag and pole.  The question is would the tip have worked there? As it was I got harried by John and Kev both with pole caught small fish weights of 5-6lb. Viaduct again later this week so here’s to hoping for a return to form.

Viaduct Costcutter 02/01/2014

It was back down to viaduct fishery again this week for the cost cutter with Tony once again, and this time we had a certain Mr Bond in support. Tony and I thought that we had booked in for this match as we were leaving the week before but as we turned up it appeared that there had been a mix up, and we were booked in for Saturday instead.  This was quickly rectified but there was now the situation that there were pleasure anglers on Cary that would be fishing in the middle of a match, not ideal as they can use pellet wereas we could not. But off we went for the draw, Myself Jim and Tony all went a side quid and the boys drew first, Tony on 85 Cary (flyer) Jim on 114 Campbell that is an average peg at this time of year but should have been worth a few carp and some silvers. Me well I drew 77 that put me 2 pegs away from where I was last week on the other side of the aerator.

I decided on an easy day so I set up a my 11ft Black Viper feeder for the bomb, and my 13ft Champions Choice 13ft super waggler to fish a waggler around the swim.  I started on the all in by casting around the swim for 40 minutes with 3 maggots on a size 16 to 0.16mm bottom, this gave me one bite off a small roach that dropped off as I was swinging it to hand, so I cast popped up bread to the aerator for 15 minutes and at this point I realised that I may be in trouble. I had 2 pleasure anglers opposite me, the one on my left had two rods out baited with king prawn. He was also feeding pellet by the pouch full and this was working for him as every 40 minutes or so one of his alarms would go off and he would play in a carp.  I tried to move my bomb to the edge of where he was feeding (poaching) but I could not get an indication so I decided to try and catch some silvers for one thing and I started to feed meat at about 20m in front of my peg towards the tall tree.

My silvers plan was to fish a small cage feeder about halfway across the lake, and as soon as my groundbait was ready I gave it a few casts, over the next hour I managed a perch or 3oz and a Ruffe.  I also missed a couple of ratly bites but the skimmers that I was after were conspicuous by their absence, it was at this point that I decided to concentrate on mugging a carp as the lakes were obviously fishing slow and not many  people were catching at all.

I cast bread out to the aerator again and this time after 3 minutes I had a wrap round ( the wrong type of bite on bread) as I lifted the fish felt funny and I quickly realised that I had foul hooked a carp in the tail, still 10 minutes later I was putting the net under 15lb of confused mirror. Honour satisfied I started to cast around the swim with a variety of baits on the bomb and meat on the wag but to no avail until the last hour.

I decided to have a look on the line that I had been feeding for the last 3 hours and over the last hour I managed to catch 2 skimmers and another foul hooked carp. So that was it, because  I had Jimmy sat behind me he was easy to keep tabs on and had managed 3 carp and a couple of silvers for 19lb, my two carp went 26lb and my silvers were 3lb for 29lb odd and then Tony on peg 85 threw back a slack handful of silvers for a DNW. At least I had won the quid side bets if nothing else.  Back at the shop it soon became clear how close the day had been with the guy in the peg to my right managing to catch 3 carp for 33lb picking up 5^th, and 60 odd pound weights taking first and second.  I learnt a lesson, as all I needed was one more pull for 4^th or 5^th so I needed another line to try and catch a fish from and I think that a lightly fed 3ft margin line might have been the way, but I will never know.