I have to first apologise for the lack of picture, I actually totally forgot to take one and didn't realise until I was on the way home! Still, I drew peg 72, not my favourite peg on the lake as regular readers will know! Still, it looked good for a few fish and for the first time that I've ever drawn it peg 73 wasn't in, allowing me to fish further along to the margins to where the fish hold up. The swim has reeds both sides and these two were my main lines of attack, the reeds to my left are much thicker and hold more fish, but you can't get into the back of them where the fish hold! I put up my usual rigs for the reeds, fishing shallow against them, using 4x8 Preston Pink floats, which I like as they are in-line and don't catch in the reeds when a fish goes through them. Lakky was Preston 13h and line was .14 Garboline to a 16 B611 hook. With the warmer weather I also decided to put up a stronger rig up, using the same float and hook but using a stronger .16 line and 15h lakky. I did this as there are a lot of stick-ups under water away from the reeds. I also set up to fish at about 12m into the open water in about 5ft of water. Rig for this was a 4x14 Preston Chianti which I'd doctored to take a plastic tip. Line was .14 with a 16 B611 and a very soft 14 latex. I also put up a shallow rig set at about 2ft using a 4x10 PB2 float. Line was .14 with the hook the same as the others, lakky was 13h. Task for the day was simple as I was 5 points clear in the league (taking dropped scores into account), finish in the top four and win the league!
On the whistle I fed the 12m swim with a reasonable pinch of hemp and 8 grains of corn, then came into the margins. With the warmer water I decided to start on the heavy rig and double caster, trying to my left where a few fish could be seen in the reeds. After a few minutes fishing about 20 inches deep with nothing to show I shallowed up as fish could be seen higher in the water, but again with no joy. At this point the angler opposite had already had 2 carp in the open water. I set the rig at about 18 inches deep and went to my right in the margin. After a short time I had a bite and the amount of lakky and fight suggested a bigger fish than the 3lb'er that found it's way to the net, hooked in the cheek. No more bites followed so I tried single caster both left and right and shallower (about 12in) as many fish were starting to mill around in the sun, both in the reeds and in the open water. I topped up the 12m swim then tried back deeper again, around 18in deep to my right and a quick run of 3 fish about 3lb a piece on single caster which meant I finished the first hour on 4 carp.
No more fish followed so I went to the left which produced nothing until I shallowed up to around 14 inch, when I had a fish of about 2lb, followed by another about ten minutes later. An hour and a half in I topped up the long swim again, and although there were now a few big groups of fish cruising in the open I elected to stay in the margins and try and catch shallow there rather than loose feed over the deck line. With cloud forecast for later I was sure the fish would drop down out there and with two margin lines both with fish it didn't make sense to me to split what was out in the open. Back into the right hand margin on single caster gave me one quick fish then nothing else. Trying the left gave nothing until I tried shallower and another 2lb'er came to the net. Next drop I pricked a fish and this triggered the start of a barren spell in either margin, not to panic though as I was ahead of everyone else I could see. With fish still in both margins it was strange that fishing at any depth couldn't get a bite. Sod it, double red maggot on into the right hand side, expecting a roach and after only a few seconds I had my biggest fish of the day so far, a ghostie mirror of about 5lb. Next chuck gave a smaller fish of about a pound and a half and then a 3lb'er dead on the 2hr mark.
The next fish was a while coming, again from the left side on a caster. It was noticeable that I had to fish shallower to the dense reeds to my left to get a bite than to the straggly ones to my right. Another fish next drop then the fish seemed to move back into the reeds where you couldn't reach them. Switching back to the other margin, on double maggot again gave me two fish putting me on 13, then typically the next one came off! This moved the fish to where I couldn't reach them so a back into the other margin and another fish hooked then that came off too. That always seems to happen when I'm on 13! The loss of a few fish seemed to leave the margins lifeless, but as it had started to cloud over I tried the open water swim which I'd been religiously topping up every 45 minutes. A fish was hooked instantly though not that big, then that one came off just as I unshipped! Topping up with a few few grains of hemp and some corn via a toss-pot and that loss was forgotten as a run of 3 carp came quickly, although they were a bit smaller than the margin fish. The next bite after was missed as the fish went a bit iffy so I topped up with a reasonable pot of hemp and corn and came back to the margin.
I had two quick carp in the right hand margin before hooking something much bigger than any others I'd had so far. I'm not sure if it was foul-hooked as my rig broke after a few minutes. There had been some very big fish present in the margin and it may have been one of them. I cursed myself for not checking the rig as I'd felt it rubbing on the stick ups a few times but as I was using the stronger rig I just carried on; bad decision! with no more bites in the margin after putting on a fresh rig it was back out into the open water. A quick bite gave me what turned out to be my biggest fish of the day at about 7lb but the swim was slow then after. For a bit it was just a case of nabbing an odd fish with no runs of bites or patterns to follow. Nothing came from the left margin and the open water fish were noticeably smaller.
Going into the last hour ( due to the changing of the clocks and light evenings it was a 6hr match) the margin swim started to come back strong and a couple of quick fish meant that with an hour to go I had 25 carp and big hopes of beating my pb match weight of 82lb from the venue. Unfortunately this wasn't to be as I hooked a fish in the margin when not concentrating properly and it got stuck solid in the straggly reeds. I couldn't move it and the fish was splashing on the top and ping! of it came. This signalled the death of the margin swim, even trying further along the right margin which I'd resisted until now so as not to push the fish along to the next peg, and the open water swim had faded out with the re-emergence of the sun. Not a single bite followed until the last 10 minutes when I tried a metre behind where I'd fed out in the open and had another 2 carp before the whistle.
After the match I knew I'd done enough to win the league overall, and hopefully the match ( I couldn't see the pegs round the back of the island, but I could see the only angler who could beat me in the league and I easily had more) but was kicking myself as I could perhaps had my first 100lb match weight for a long while had it not been for me reaching for my phone and losing that fish when I was planning to empty the margin in the last hour! It was a shame as I felt that I had worked hard to keep fish coming during the day and ruined it with a lapse in concentration. Still, the flip side was that I'd actually won a league ( and the match, with 81lb 1oz, about 25lb was second ) as opposed to finishing 3rd as I always seemed to have in the past, normally losing out on weight!
With next weekend being a bank holiday I'll be fishing on good Friday and maybe the Monday. You can check back then to see how I struggle, as I inevitably will after winning!
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