First of all I have to apologise for not updating this last week, I did fish, but with the amount of rain we had the lake fished diabolical and there was not a lot to write about!
For the third week in a row we were on lake 1. Hand in the bag and out came peg 5. I was happy enough with it, I've done well off it in the past and it has a decent margin that when it fishes it throws up some good weights. First rig up was for the far bank at 16m, fishing just into a small bay in the island. The water had a decent colour so I wasn't concerned about it being only about 20in deep, and the slope leading up to this was very steep and awkward to fish on. Float was a .1gr DC6 and line was .16 to an 18 Fox Series 2. Elastic was Preston 15h. The rig for the margin was in a little over 2ft of water to my left at about 5m. The rig was on .18 line direct to a 16 Fox Series 2. Float was a .2gr DC5 and lakky was purple hydro. Lastly I put up a polyball rig to push right into the far bank. This was on .18 to purple hydro.
On the whistle the far bank was fed with a pinch of pellet while the margin got a pot of hemp, meat and corn. Across on a 6mm expander and it took less than a minute to get a bite. The fish roared along to my right and promptly snapped the line. Not a good start! The rig was replaced with one on .18 line and I went back out. Again not long before a bite and soon enough a 3lb common was in the net. At this point I could already see two other people catching. I topped up with a toss-pot but the fish didn't seem interested so I topped up with a larger amount of pellet with the pot. Again a bite was quick in coming and another common of a similar size to the first made it's way in. The next drop gave me a skimmer of about 2lb so I again topped up with the bigger pot. The first hour finished with four carp and the skimmer, each fish needing a decent amount of pellets to bring a bite.
The second hour again continued as the first did. Not big fish, averaging about 3lb but with one bigger fish of about 6lb. I could still see two others catching steadily so while I was happy with the progress I needed to keep the fish coming. Finishing that hour on 9 carp I then lost a foulhooker so I topped up and dropped into the margin (which I had been topping up with half a pot every 30min) No joy came of this so I went back across. Carp number 10 was quick to arrive and the next bite gave a brown goldfish of about 8oz with a massive fan tail! The swim started to fade now, as had the others who were catching. With there still being signs of fish in the swim I decided to top up the swim again with a toss-pot and pellets, using a small amount of groundbait to hold the pellets in. On the second drop a small common of about 2lb was the result, quickly followed by another identical one before the swim started to fade again.
The next half hour or so passed without a bite, even in the margins. I decided to try pushing the poly ball right into the far bank to see what this would yield. This gave one bite quickly and resulted in a better fish of about 5lb but nothing more. At this point other people I could see had started to get odd fish again and I was sure they were not far from having what I had. I decided to push the rig a touch further up the bank. After re-plumbing and shallowing up a tad I fed half a pot of pellet and had a quick drop in the edge. This was again strangely fruitless so I decided to up the feed here to whole pots in an attempt to make something happen.
The change across had the desired effect and three more carp quickly followed. Not big fish, only 2-3lb fish before it again faded out. The margin was still strangely quiet, not even a liner or knock from small fish. I decided to drop back down a bit on the far side and after a wait of about five minutes a bite gave a better fish of 4lb+. The last hour gave a few more fish. I had to wait longer for the bites and only got them feeding small amounts with the toss-pot. I'd get one fish further up the bank before having to drop down for the next bite, just being patient and working and waiting. While I wasn't catching as fast as at the start the fish were bigger and I finshed the match with 20 carp, the last one hooked a minute or so before the whistle. The second from last fish was a proper munter of probably near 12lb!
I packed up feeling happy with the days effort. I'd had to work hard for the last few fish but apart from the first fish I hooked and the foulhooker I never lost any more fish, and I hardly missed a bite too. It was a good day all round and one of those rare days when the things you try work (apart from in the margins where I never had a bite)
As I'd drawn the scales I got to see what everyone had caught. The next peg had 58lb, while the rest of the lake had fished well with a 70lb weight and a weight of 56lb, plus another 40lb weight. My fish went 84lb 4oz in total, beating the previous best open weight of 81lb so a new lake record was set too. A good tonic after the disaster of last week!
Next week is back on Lake Two after three matches in a row on Lake One so it's a change of scenery! Check
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