As per always when I've missed a weekends fishing I was absolutely gagging to get out on the bank! True to form I missed a good match last week on the Old Lake, with near 80lb winning and a host of other good weights, with 40lb+ being the average weight.
I was reasonably happy with my draw on the New Lake, peg 37 is a steady rather than a great peg but I've always done okay off of it the few times I've drawn it. With a fair bit of space I spent a fair bit of time plumbing along the far bank, hoping to be able to get more than one swim along the far bank. I was disappointed after about 10 minutes as I'd only found one fishable area, with the rest of the far bank having a lot of roots and stuff under the water. If it wasn't that the 'slope' was more like a cliff face and un-fishable. The one place I'd found clear I was happy with; I had two foot of water tight to the bank with a tree over the to give the fish cover. Rig for here was a .1gr DC6 to .18 line and an 18 Fox Series 2, lakky was a 15h preston hollo. The margin to my right was very up and down and a bit deeper than I'd like so I had just one margin rig up to fish to my left at 6m under an overhanging tree. I had just over 2ft of water tight to the bank on a nice slope so I was sure that it would produce. Gear for this was a .2gr DC5 to .18 line and a 16 Fox Series 2, lakky was purple hydro.
On the whistle the far bank had about twenty 4mm hard pellets cupped across while the margin got half a pot of hemp, corn and meat. It took me five minutes get a bite across on a 6mm expander, which I missed! Another missed bite next drop was followed by a common of about 3lb. At this time the peg to my right was netting their 2nd fish on paste in the deep water, and the peg to me left was also netting their first fish. A spell of missed bites led me to come up an inch of the bottom and this had the desired effect as the next 2 drops gave me two crucian/goldfish hybrids about 12oz each. The next drop was like someone had flipped a switch, and despite starting to top up via a toss-pot I couldn't get an indication. After the initial flurry the pegs either side had stopped getting any bites too.
About 30 minutes after my last bite I had a ghostie of about 3lb take a piece of corn on the drop, the first time I'd tried corn. No more joy, for me or anyone else led me to try topping up with small amounts of groundbait and pellet via the toss-pot. Odd knocks led me to think it was going to work but they quickly faded and I'm sure they were just small fish.
The next few hours went incredibly slow, with nobody near me even managing line bites, let alone any fish. Some of the anglers near me even started to pack up before 1pm as they hadn't had any bites! It just seemed dead. With an hour and a half to go I started to drip hemp across, for no reason other than to try something different! After a few minutes I missed a bite across on corn, but as soon as I lowered it back in the float went again! The excitement was short lived as a tench of about 8oz was quickly in the net! No more bites followed until on the hour mark when, as I went to lift and drop my rig I foulhooked a fish! after a merry dance a mirror of about 4lb was in the net, hooked in the pectoral fin. After this I started to get occasional liners and in the next half an hour I lost two fish, both foul hooked. The peg to my right started to catch again on paste in the deep water. The last twenty minutes for me gave three proper bites, all on pellet, and three carp in the net. No liners at all strangely!
The scales arrived round quickly, showing that there wasn't that much to weigh! The top two weights were 50lb and 42lb, but the next weight was just 16lb. I knew the next peg would beat me as his fish were a lot bigger than mine and I was right as his 5 carp plus skimmers and crucians went 37lb where as my 6 carp and bits went 25lb 8oz, good enough for fourth on the day but comfortably behind the framing weights on what was a strange day. In hindsight I think I'd have been better fishing smaller baits, either micro pellets and 4mm expanders or probably even better, choppy and caster, simply because there seemed to be other fish as well as carp to be caught and maybe they would have given many more bites. What was also strange was that the margins didn't produce, infact, they haven't produced the last few times I've been on that lake. I may have to look at changing what I do there but nobody seems to have been catching in the edge, even with the water being coloured.
Hopefully next week we'll be on the Old Lake, which is fishing a lot more consistantly. There is an open today on there, I bet it's fishing well (late draw!) and that I fished the wrong day this weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment