Well, Sundays of late seem to developed a theme- we gets lots of rain in the early hours! I have to admit to being somewhat tired on arrival in the morning after being woken up good and properly by a thunderstorm at 4.45am.
As usual I had a walk around before the draw and while there were a large group of fish cruising in front of peg 46, I fancied a draw around the island, in what had been the form pegs. What I drew instead was an in-between peg (48) on the end of the island. I was pretty happy with it to be honest as while it doesn't have the greatest form of late (nowhere near what the pegs on the back, where I spent all winter and now can't draw when you want them!) have, but all said it's decent later summer peg in my experience.
Plan for the peg was pretty simple, a 4x10 Preston durafloat was put up for fishing in about 18in of water next to the island at 13m. Terminal gear was .15 line direct to an 18 Fox Series 2 with Preston 15h lakky. A 2+2 rig was next up, with a .3gr diamond bodied float on .17 line to a .15 hook-link. Hook was the same as the previous rig and lakky was a shorter length of black hydro. Last rig up was for the margins, and you'll probably know the drill here! In 2ft of water in the left margin I used a .2gr DC5 on .18 line direct to a 16 Fox Series 2, with the lakky being purple hydro.
While I was setting up there were quite a few fish cruising around the point of the island so on the whistle I hardly fed the long line, giving it just six pellets (enough for a bite, hopefully!) while the margins had a whole medium pot of hemp, meat and corn. Lastly the 2+2 had half a pot of corn. My hopes of an instant bagging session went almost immediately when dropping in against the island a tiny roach mullered the pellet, a bad sign in my experiance on island pegs. The next couple of drops gave me another small roach and then a tiny carp so I decided to feed half a pot full of 6mm pellets to try and get the carp to get their heads down. Another small roach after led me to try a banded pellet instead and after a few knocks on this it had the desired effect as my first carp of the day fell, albeit a smallish fish of about 2lb. The next bite gave another small 1oz carp so I topped up with a toss-pot of pellet. I thought I'd got it sussed when the next bite gave me another carp of about 2lb but the roach returned after and no matter how I increased the feed it bought just roach. In fact, once the roach were back the more I fed the more the roach drove me mad!
I took this as the cue to drop in on the 2+2 line and a quick bite saw me connect with a fish that was on for a few seconds before it came adrift. After this the only bite I had was a small roach that fell to meat so I gave the line half a pot of corn and left it. I had a drop on the margins on meat but the amount of roach that knocked the meat about led me to top it up and leave it alone. A drop on the long line gave me just a small carp so I dropped in on the 2+2 line. After a couple of minutes I had a carp of about 3lb, and dropping the rig in again, followed by a few grains of corn got his (or hers) twin! Trying the same routine again didn't produce, and even the bubbles that had been present had gone.
I had a fruitless try on the other lines and with two hours to go my fifth carp fell to me slapping my margin rig in front of it as it nosed among some floating weed drifting about! No more followed, and despite occasional signs in the edge I could only get knocks from roach. With an hour to go I topped the margin swim up and dropped strait on top of the bait with double corn. After a few seconds a tail pattern appeared behind my float then it buried! Carp number six was about 4lb, but topping up with a whole toss-pot bought another carp quickly- all 3oz of it that took double corn! I gave the line half a pot and tried the 2+2 line again but with no joy. With just over half an hour to I dropped in the edge again but nothing fell, so thinking along the lines of "nothing ventured, nothing gained" I put a whole pot of bait, full to the brim in the edge. Carp seven quickly resulted, but topping up with the big toss-pot didn't have the desired result. Another whole pot went on and carp eight followed! So in again after a pot of bait and number nine followed, and then again for number ten! all about 4lb. With not much more than ninety seconds to go I just filled the toss-pot with hemp hoping for a quick bite, and it worked but the fish, which felt a bit bigger came off.
I have to say I was a bit disappointed in sussing it too late- I'd guessed that after the rain the fish wouldn't really be that hungry, especially as those cruising looked un-interested. The thing was the last few weeks they wanted grub and I didn't get it right. Maybe I should even gone down the worm route that worked for me on lake 1 last week. My ten carp went just over 34lb, but was only good enough for 5th behind a 50lb winning weight and three weights of 44lb, all weights that were probably achievable had I got it right. Best try better next week hadn't I!
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