6 Oct 2020 AAF Match at Lodden Lakes

 

Sorry for the delay, I have been out and about quite a bit this year and its about time I started doing these match blogs again, so I am going to start in October.

 

This was the AAF’s first visit to these lakes run by Gillingham Angling Club (http://www.gillinghamanglingclub.co.uk/) due to the ongoing Covid situation the draw was done by Zoom the night before and I was drawn onto peg 25.

 

This meant noting to me either so a few messages were sent around my friends who have fished the place in the past and I was told it would be feast or famine, aim for skimmers in the open water and Tench in the margins, so that was my plan sorted for the day.

 

Once I got to the swim the island turned out to be 14.5 meters away which is handy since that is all the pole I own nowadays, so that was a worm line hoping for a perch or something.  In my head I had the idea that a steady canal type match would be the way ahead, so I then found 2 areas in open water that were the same depth to target skimmers.  Next area was the bush to my right for a margin worm line and that was me all sorted.

 

On the all in I fed about 10 worms and a few casters against the island, 5 balls of groundbait to the left of the swim and one to the right,  thinking it was going to be hard I decided to try and catch a perch from the off and shipped out to the island.  I had a proper surprise when the float dipped within a minute and some elastic was getting pulled out by an angry fish trying to get into the snags. A few seconds later a hybrid of around a pound was in the net and it was the perfect start, I shipped out again only to catch my perch, and then the next put in another Hybrid of around a pound.  The day couldn’t have started any better.

 

The island line died so I fed a few worms and tried my negatively fed groundbait line, first put with the double bulk rig saw the float pop up after a couple of minutes and I was attached to a skimmer of about a pound, I could not believe the start I was having of an area I did not fancy.  I got to the end of the first hour with a few more small roach to show for my efforts and a combined weight of close to 4lb.

 

The wheels kind of came off for the next 3 hours but I managed to foul hook a bream off of my positive groundbait line, another couple of hybrids off the island and a stack of roach on a top kit pinging a few maggots at them.  I had found that the fish were responding to the worm that I had fed on the day but I had only brought half a kilo and I wanted to have half of that for the last hour.

 

At 1 hour and 10 minutes remaining I fed a worm rich ball of groundbait to the right, 2 to the left, 10 worms and some caster to the island and about the same under the bush to my right.  I shipped out to the island and hooked a hybrid within a minute, I rotated straight onto the negative groundbait line and had a skimmer, moved again to the positive line and had another skimmer  it was EPIC!!!!!!

 

But now was the time, I topped up the other lines again and shipped my 0.6g margin rig under the tree to my right, I was having to fish such a heavy float to drag the bait to the correct area with the minimal fuss as I was so far in the woodwork that I could barely lift my pole.  As the float settled, I had a liner immediately and then only a minute or so later the float dipped and all hell broke loose.  I was fishing Red Vespe due to proximity to the snags and after having to pull backwards to hit the bite I then had to power the elastic up quickly to keep the fish from getting into the trailing branches.  It worked and a couple of minutes later 3lb of angry green fighting machine was in the bottom of the landing net. I dropped straight back in over the top but nothing happened for a count of 100, so a quick top up and around the houses again.  With nothing but a few small roach forthcoming I was soon back under the tree. With about 20 minutes remaining I was landing my second Tench, this time a bit smaller at about 2lb and after another quick flurry of small fish the all out was soon getting called.

 

I had ended up with 10 skimmers and hybrids, 2 Tench and over 5lb of roach that had mostly come on a top kit to hand, this went 11Kilos exactly on the scales so 24lb 4oz in old money, not a bad day at the office as this was enough to win my section by a considerable margin, beat Greg in the natural Knockout when he weighed in over 20lb of skimmers and was enough for 4^th in the match.  All from a peg I really did not fancy, not that I had mentioned that much in the morning.  Thankyou to Greg for running the match and Gillingham Angling club for hosting us at short notice due to the river being flooded.

 

What would I do different:

Next time I go there I will take more worm and feel more positive as I believe there is more than 1 way to fish every peg there.

 

 

Rigs used:

 

Pole Double Bulk:

Elastic: Preston 7 Dura Hollow

Line: 0.13mm to 0.11mm Powerline

Hook: 16

Float: 0.8g Drennan Carp 2

 

Pole roach: (Also fished to hand)

Elastic: Yellow hydro

Line: 0.13mm to 0.11mm Powerline

Hook: 18 Preston SFM

Float: 0.3g Drennan AS3

 

Pole Margin:

Elastic: Red Vespe

Line: 0.19mm Powerline to 0.17mm Colmic Stream

Hook: 3 T175

Float: 0.6g Drennan Carp 3

 

Pole Island:

Elastic: Preston 13H through 1 section

Line: 0.19mm to 0.15mm Powerline

Hook: 2 T175

Float: 0.4g Drennan Carp 3