Well, it's fair to say the weather has been a bit rare lately! To be honest the weather is really doing my head in now, all the snow and frost, roll on spring! This weeks open was less a few of the numbers booked in, though I wish two of them had gone before we had cleared out enough swims for everyone, would have saved a bit of effort! My ice breaker was a not heavy enough for the ice so we used the boat, but some plank, despite me asking him not too, knackered it totally by trying to physically throw it through the ice. Still, I got a better one lined up now! At the draw all the pegs were in a line and all with some marginal cover to give everyone a chance of a few bites. I drew peg 67, the longest walk but it was an end peg, though I wasn't sure if it would be an advantage.
With the weather as it has been the only thing liable to show was the same small roach as a few weeks ago, and as the ice wasn't cleared far enough out as to where the carp were liable to be that's all I set up to go for. One rig simply to fish past the straggly reeds in the edge where the roach would most likely be. Proper scratching is not really my forte so the lightest rig I had to set up was using a Preston 9h elastic with a .09 hooklength to a size 20 hook, which also gave me a chance should I hook a small carp. Float was a 4x12 DC11 but I've replaced the cane tip with an easier to see plastic tip, the swim was about 4ft deep. I decided to see if groundbait would help going for the small fish so I had a small amount of Van den Eynde Supermatch mixed up. I'd wondered about the whip( a long time sice I used that!) but the amount of missed bites last time meant I wanted a shorter line, plus the chance of getting any bigger fish out on elastic.
At the whistle I cupped in a wallnut sized ball of groundbait with a few casters in it, then started with a single maggot just off the bottom. The session started slower than I expected it would, taking around fifteen minutes to get any indications. Once I started getting knocks I shallowed up a few inches as that's what seemed best the last time. All this did was to give a frustrating spell of around ten missed bites. At around 45 minutes in I had my first fish after going an inch over depth but by this this time I was already 7 or 8 fish behind the next peg. Odd fish followed but I couldn't get a rhythm of fish going and was getting frustrated by the missed bites.
After around two and a half hours the weather had warmed up significantly and I started to find a pattern of keeping fish coming. Moving the shot closer to the hook (bulk and droppers) seemed to have helped, then by feeding a small ball of groundbait and fishing around it would get bites. After a few fish they would move, occasionally going over the groundbait so it was just a matter of chasing them about. At the start I'd set myself a target of twelve fish an hour to get 1lb by the end, but in the last two hours I was doing double that comfortably and keeping pace with those near me who were fishing much lighter. Without unshipping I simply hooked the fish and pushed the no4 section behind me and lifted, swinging the fish strait to hand.
At the end I had over 100 fish for 1lb 13oz, 2oz behind first place. Everyone had caught, including an odd bonus fish, but none for me! I felt quite happy with the way I'd fished but odd spells on caster for a bonus fish had probably cost me a win, still, I was just practicing for next week in the winter league. I'm happy enough to know I can get a few of those little fish in the net next week should I draw on them, but the weather again looks to be unkind in the week ahead and next week is going to be a job to get a good result. Here's hoping to a good draw next week and a few fish!
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