Well, with the Christmas Festivities out of the way I was really looking forward to getting out of the house! Which is why, after a few warmer days I was disappointed to find upon arrival that both of the lakes were still frozen solid! And my ice breaker was at home....
With 19 people booked in the decision was taken to spread out the pegs over the two lakes, using the pegs that would be easier to free up. Six pegs went on to lake one and eleven pegs on lake two - the others went home, poofs!
Some carp were visible in the reeds pegs on the old lake, and only one peg was in there so that's the one everyone wanted, but I didn't get it! I instead drew peg 67 on the old lake, in what would be the open water, except it had about an inch and a quarter of ice over it! I decided that trying to break the ice far enough out to catch a carp was a no-no, as I'd need to break out to at least 13m to have a realistic chance. Although I thought some pegs still would produce a carp I decided the only real hope I had of catching was fishing for small roach at 4m, just past the very sparse stick ups in the edge. One rig was all I put up, a 4x12 DC11 float which I'd changed the tip to a plastic one. Mainline was .12 to a .10 hook link and a 20 B611, depth was just over 4ft. A soft 10 latex is still the softest lakky I had so that was used, and I hoped would give me half a chance with a carp if I should be fortunate to hook one.
With the delayed start (for ice breaking) the four hour match started very slow, with the first hour just giving me just 7 tiny roach. To cut a long story short it picked up a bit and by the end of the match I had finished on exactly 70 roach. During the day I found that it was better to fish a touch over depth (unusual for small roach I thought) and that it was best to feed just very small amounts of bait before fishing it out. Trying away from the bait would pick up odd fish again while I waited for them to settle. The biggest fish I had was one fish about 2oz (most were a lot smaller!) and my 70 fish went 1lb 14oz, beaten for first on the lake by 2oz! (3lb was by far the best on lake 1) If I hadn't have stopped twice to talk on the phone to a mate pike fishing, and had I had a lighter lakky I almost certainly would have won. I did have one bigger roach that I went to swing not realising the size and it fell of. At a good 4-5oz it would have won me the match, and had I been using a more suitable lakky I probably wouldn't have lost it... Must shuffle my lakky's round to make a top kit available for tiddler snatching should I need to again!
So, the year finished as I started it match fishing wise - snatching tiny roach through an ice hole!
Thinking back over the it's been a strange one for me really, on the plus side I won the individual winter league, and I also set a new open match record on lake one. On the negative side though I've had just as many 'should have done betters' as I had good days and I've perhaps struggled for the proper consistency that I've had in previous years. Looking back through my match record for the year tells me I've had 9 wins from 46 matches, which is as near as dammit one win in every five matches. Not too bad I suppose but a couple of the frame places could have been turned in to 1st's and a few times I've come home thinking I'd not done the peg justice. So my aims for next year are simple - to try and turn the should have done better days in to days where I feel I've done okay (or better) from the peg. Holding on to the winter league title would be nice too! I'll certainly try my hardest....
Last of all I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I'll see you all next year!
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