I was fishing in the Inter Corps Championship on the sunday and since this is one of my main events every year
I thought a little practice session was in order so I booked
in for the open the day before the main event. As I arrived I was struck by how tidy and
how the while place was laid out, the café was brilliant, the food was out of
this world and the tackle shop was huge and really well stocked with everything
you would need. For more information please check out their website and if you
ever get the chance visit them: http://www.westwoodlakes.co.uk.
Back to the fishing and there were only
eight of us booked into the open on Skylark lake, including myself and 3
members of the Artillery’s Corps team, so they decided to hold a rover…
brilliant when you don’t know the peg numbers of the lake. I was helped no end though by Baz (RAF team)
and Spike (LIncs County and Ex RAF) and all the chat was about pegs 8-10, 33ish
and any peg with a bit of room. The draw took place and I pulled out number 1
so instantly picked peg 9 and ran to my flyer.
Upon getting to my peg, having parked right
behind it I found an aerator 7m to my left and due to the strengthening wind I
decided that would be the longest length of pole I would get out today. I
plumbed up a paste and corn rig to fish 2+2 in front away from the aerator a)
to give me somewhere to try if it was hard and b) as I had been warned that the
fish were big and mental so I gave it a bit of room between where I was fishing
and the metal ware around the aerator legs. My third rig was a margin rig to
fish just down to my left at 2+1 here I found a funny double shelf so decided
to fish at the base of the first shelf in about 18 inches of water, maggot and
groundbait was the plan for here.
I was ready well before the all in so went
to the shop for more bait hoping for a good day and had a chat for a while, they
pointed out that it should be a good day as the next guy to my left was 6 pegs
away and it was 8 to my right, loads of room. It was time to get settled and on
returning to my peg it was time to start so I fed a quarter of a pot of hemp
and 6mm pellet on my 2+2 line and went straight over it. I got off to a slow start and to be honest it
was a bit of a struggle, I think I may have been too positive from the start
but after a couple of hours I thought I had about 30lb in my net and started
loose feeding 6mm pellet quite heavily. This was when the fish started to swirl
so I got off my box and quickly set up a shallow rig to try on the same line,
the difference was instant and over the next hour I managed 40lb of fish into
my second keepnet. The problem was that
the fish were waning and getting smaller and I went from 4lb carp to 1lb F1’s
over 15 minutes, to give it a rest I tried down the edge and was frustrated by
not a lot if indications apart from a tiny skimmer so with nothing to lose I
potted in 4 pots of groundbait, hemp and maggot from a height and gave the
shallow line another 10 minutes.
Over that 10 minute period I managed
another F1 so it was time for the edge, with 20 minutes to go I had 3 carp in 3
put ins down the margin and it went quiet again straight away, I fed 4 more
pots of groundbait and tried for another fish shallow that was unsuccessful and
then went down the edge for the last few minutes in which I managed 3 barbel to
about 2lb. The all out was called and I knew it would be close, the guy at the
end of the lake to my left had caught a few across (where he had the wind in
his face) and also had a few down the edge late and spike on the other bank had
caught steadily down his edges all day, although he had lost a few.
I was the second weight on the board and
managed 96lb and a bit, the guy to my left weighed 99lb and Spike managed just
over the ton for the win, I was happy with third but rued a couple of decisions
that could have seen me catch a few more fish as I only really needed one more
for the win.
Things I would have done different are that
I would have set up a method to go across with and also I would have been able
to drop it on the 5m line as well to overcome the strong breeze. I might have
felt my way into the match more rather than big potting but all the info I had
said go for it and I did.
Never mind there was always tomorrow.
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