This Sunday I found myself on lake one at Westside, in a practice match for the up coming second round of the winter league. Nobody really knew what to expect as the lake had hardly been fished in the last few weeks because of the weather. The last match was before Christmas and it was frozen then. With hardly anyone pleasure fishing it since then I expected it to be hard as the fish weren't used to to people being on the lake. Incidentally, those that pleasure fished lake two on Wednesday bagged up!
I really wanted to draw in the 20's as these are the most consistent pegs on the lake. I didn't get one but I was quite happy with peg 17 which I found myself on. With a fair bit of room around me I was sure I could nab a fish or five! The island in front is about 15m away then runs away into a very snaggy corner. My first target area was in front where you can see the dark area on the island, leaving me a slight area to let any fish back off into before experience of the peg tells me that a lot of vegetation is under the water. I had four and a half foot of water next to the island and had three rigs up for there. The first was for on the deck using a 4x12 Chianti, while I had rigs at three and a half and two and a half foot, both using 4x10 PB2's. Line on all three was .125 with size 18 hooks on all three. Lakkys were Preston 13h on the deeper of the two rigs and grey Hydro on the shallowest. Lastly I had a rig up for about 9m slightly to the right next to a weed bed. This had the same hooks and line as the other rigs, the float was a 4x14 Chianti in six foot of water and the lakky was a 10 latex. I did toy with putting the bomb rod up to chuck as tight to the snaggy bay as I dared but I've spent enough time staring as something that wont move as it is lately! Plus I didn't want to lose sets of gear either.
On the whistle I fed a small conker size ball of green swim stim with a few casters in it on the deep line while I decided to try across without feeding at first. On with a small grain of corn and after about five minutes the dotted down float vanished but I missed the bite! I didn't swear... much. No more followed so I went on to swapping between maggot and caster on the deck but half an hour in and nothing happened. I was just about to feed when I'm sure I had a slight liner. I took this as a time to try the deeper of the shallow rigs and after five minutes on this with a caster the float slipped away. On lifting I didn't feel the fish but then the rig drifted to the left and the lakky came out. That will be foul hooked then, and predictably it came off.
No more signs of fish followed so I cupped in three maggots and three casters across and went back on the the deck rig on caster. After a few minutes I went on to single red maggot and the float plinked under and a small roach found it's way in to the net. At least I hadn't blanked! Nothing else followed so I came up in the water on caster. Not long on this and the float plinked under again but my excitement was short lived when a tiny perch came in. With nothing else following and just over an hour gone I came on the the deep line but either maggot or caster failed to get me a bite so after quarter of an hour I found myself back across. I couldn't get a bite on the deck here so I started to drip in casters in three's via a toss-pot. I started to get a response with small (under an ounce) roach falling to caster on the deeper shallow rig, hard work at 15m when they hardly weigh! I tried pushing tighter to the island and going up the side a bit but this produced nothing.
With two hours gone word came round that only 1 carp had been caught and hardly anything else. A short try on the deep line again gave nothing so I put another small ball of crumb in and went back across. Here I could only get odd indications, and while some of them were liner like I think they were just small roach or perch messing with the bait. I decided to go back on the deck with corn and again after only a few minutes the float vanished but again I missed it. Lowering it in again and after a short wait it did the same again. This time I made contact with it, a fat little perch of about an ounce! My optimism started to fade away now as it had started to drizzle and the temperature had definitely started to drop.
With an hour and a half to go I tried the deep line but again had no joy so I decided to feed a dozen maggots on the line, after all I had nothing to lose. Going back across on the shallowest rig and pushing as near the vegetation up the side of the island as I dared I had a dumpy ten-to-the pound roach followed by a run of fat little perch but after for or five fish bites faded away and couldn't get a bite on any rig across. I came back in to the deep water on a single maggot and pulled the rig as tight to the weed as I dared. After a few minutes the float slid under and I have to admit I was expecting a small perch on the end but the four feet of latex out suggested otherwise! After a sluggish but careful fight a small common nudging three pound found it's way in to the net, hurrah! Unfortunately no more followed so I fed half a dozen maggots on the line and went across.
After finding nothing over and with less than an hour to go I decided to concentrate on the deep line. By fishing red maggot over depth I was catching dumpy little 'wasp' perch quite regular, although I did miss a very slow bite on caster. If I came up to dead depth I couldn't get a bite. I decided to risk putting in a marble size ball of crumb. Dropping in over it and I seemed to have scared off the perch, or maybe it was the lump that I foul hooked when I lifted the rig up! I didn't have it on for long as it made it's way into the weed and I could feel it on in the weed for a few seconds before any hope of getting it out were extinguished by the rig pinging upwards! The last spell of the match I just plugged away on wasp perch.
After the whistle while packing away word came round that the angler who I was told had one carp in the middle of the match had five (and lost as many), plus three or four others had caught late carp. They'd have to wait though as I was on the scales and had loads to pack away! My one carp was 2lb 15oz and I had 10oz of bits which was good enough for about 5th. A few ounces short of 30lb won where as second was just 6lb 2oz was second (one carp) and two of the three others that had one carp had fish that were bigger than mine.
Next weeks winter league is looking like a lottery at the moment now, with the weather forecast to be cold all week (it's snowing out as I write this) and as lottery's ain't kind to me (I've never even won a tenner on it) I shall not hold my breath!
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