Like most of the country I woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of rain, and a bit more rain! I was a lot milder out than the last few mornings, no frost for a start! I wasn't sure how it would affect the fishing, as the fishery doesn't normally respond well to the rain, but it had livened up the carp in my pond, perhaps it would do the same to the carp in Westside!
For the second week in a row I drew one of the pegs that I wanted pre-draw (66), although one of the pegs round the back of the island (53) was apparently heaving with fish. First job at my peg was to put my brolly up (even though I hate sitting under it), fortunatly the wind was quite behind me and with the high tree's I was well sheltered from the gusty wind. The peg is quite wide, being a full 16m to the island, although it has the advantage of being the last peg on the end of the island before the open water swims. There is a small reedbed on the island but it's very shallow next to it. With the cooler temperatures the colour had dropped out slightly so I decided to fish on what was quite a steep slope in 3ft of water, about half a meter short of the island. Float was a 4x12 Preston somo that I'd adapted to take a 1.5mm plastic tip, on .16 diameter line to a 15B711 hook and matched to a 15h elastic. a similar rig was set up to fish tight to the bank to my left at about 6m under a small bush but using a 16 latex lakky. Setting the third rig up lead me to being late starting but was to fish at about 9m, just my side of the deepest water down the middle. Float was a .3gr DC5 float in about 5ft of water with the same line and hooks as before and was fished on a 14 latex lakky.
Five minutes late I fed a pinch of 3mm swim-stim pellets and a couple of grains of corn across, a pinch of hemp, caster and corn down the middle and the same in the margins. I'd elected not to feed caster across to try and avoid roach across. Starting on a 4mm pellet across I was suprised not to get any indicactions, not even from small fish. After 10 mins I started to get odd liners, then when the float burried a 4oz roach found it's way to the net, next drop was followed by a micro carp so I tried a piece of corn. Five minutes later all that was happening were liners so I decided to push the rig up the shelf slightly with instant response as mirror of around a pound fell to the trick, followed up by a brown goldfish slightly larger. The following drop produced a lot less indications, followed by me hooking a much better fish which came off after a few seconds. I'm quite certain it wasn't foul hooked, just not feeding properly.
The loss of that fish made the swim in-active so I started to feed a few grains of hemp and a few pellets every five or so mins through the toss pot and after a few drops odd 3oz roach started to show, then another brown goldfish, all to pellet, then after trying a grain of corn to try and get through the bits a 5lb common gave a lively scrap before finding it's way into the net just after an hour. This co-incided with a destinct darkening of the already grey sky as the rain got heavier and the temperature seemed to drop, as did the activity in my swim, however, the two other anglers I could see wearn't catching either. After a biteless half hour I tried both other swims but with no joy but I carried on topping them both up. After a while odd small fish started to appear across but I was missing a lot of bites due to the size before another small carp of around a pound found it's way in.
With two hours to go another try down the track gave an odd liner but just as I was about to give up on it the float went and a carp of around 2lb came in. The next two drops gave instant bites and a 3lb'er and another 'brownie' found their way in before it slowed up with 2 carp in amoungst alot of knocks in the next 20mins led me to rest the swim for 10 mins but with only a missed bite in the margin to show I went back down the track. A finniky bite again led me to try dotting the float down a bit more and adding a backshot to the rig as the wind had become a bit swirly now. This had the desired trick as after this I caught steadily for the rest of the match, with bites coming best fishing 2ft either side of my feed, even though there was no tow. This carried on for the rest of the match, feeding the same place and alternating either side of the feed to keep bites coming, and for the second week in a row I hooked my best fish just before the whistle and I needed over-time again to get it into the net, a common about 6lb. It even stopped raining 10 minutes before the end so we could pack up in the dry!
As the scales came round peg 53 had just over 50lb for top weight (it was solid then, never is when I draw it!) but I was confident of beating that, and my 8lb 15oz of bits and small carp followed by the 16 proper carp gave me a 66lb 10oz total and a second win on the bounce, a nice feeling! I must be heading for a fall soon then! I'll tell you about it next week.
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