Spring seems to finally have sprung at last, bringing out a few extra anglers (the solar powered ones!), so I have to admit with very near a full house it's fair to say there were a few pegs in the bag that I didn't want! True to form (on lake two anyway) my drawing arm let me down and I again found myself on a peg I didn't want. In fact, it's my least favourite peg on the whole lake!
Peg 53 is the narrowest of the island pegs and does occasionally throw up a big margin weight as it's in a corner - but always in late summer! You can touch the island with 13m of pole on the peg, and I had two rigs up to fish towards the island. The first was at about 12m in 3ft of water while the second was at two foot which I could push tighter over but also use shallow over the other lines. These rigs were both on .12 line with a 4x12 chianti on the deeper rig and a 4x10 PB2 on the shallow rig. A 16 B611 finished both rigs with Preston 13h elastic on the deeper rig and a slightly softer grey hydro on the other. A third rigs was set up to fish down the track. The peg gets slightly shallower to the left so the rig was at 10m at a slight angle to the right where there was a slight kink in the bottom. As far as the track goes it's shallow, even for the island pegs too with about 4ft of water the most I could find. Float was a 4x14 chianti with the same hook and line as the last rigs but using a 12 latex elastic. Last up was a margin rig for in to the corner, under some marginal tree cover. This was at 10m to my right in 3ft of water. Line was slightly stronger .14 dia but with the same hook as the other rigs. Lakky was Preston 13h. Bait-wise I had the usual maggot, caster, corn and hemp but also some micro pellet and some 4mm expanders.
On the whistle the far line got a small pinch of pellet and a few casters, the track line a small pinch of hemp and three grains of corn while the margin had a small pinch of hemp, pellet and a few grains of corn. Occasional fish could be seen cruising, which raised some slight hopes although it has to be said that me and the other angler who had drawn in the same area as last time (where we struggled on the last winter league on this lake) weren't exactly confident! And we were right as an hour and a half in four of us in a line were all bite less, although the anglers the other side of the island (in the sun) were all catching! Fortunately I couldn't see them but those that could were sick of watching them!
Eventually, two hours in I managed to catch a fish, albeit just a tiny roach on maggot on the shallowest rig pushed tight over. I could get get odd bites on maggot or caster on the shallowest rig, but was missing most of them, probably due to the size of the fish. I couldn't get a bite off either of the two other lines or on the deepest island rig. Odd carp were cruising about but most definitely not feeding.
With an hour and a half to go I did catch a carp of about 3lb, funnily enough they must have came up through the two pegs to my right as we all caught a carp in order, about the same time distance apart! I did foul hook and lose one about ten minutes later and that was about it, apart from odd roach on maggot. I did actually get a bite on double maggot in the margin, which produced a minnow! I honestly can't remember the last time I caught one of those...
After the whistle I tipped back and walked round to see how those that had been on fish had caught, and after walking past those of us that struggled it was noticeably warmer- I'd sat in a fleece all day, and even just after few seconds there I was roasting, so it's no wonder that the fish there were more inclined to eat! As per the last time the top four were all in a line with 44lb winning, a low 30lb weight second and two very close 28lb weights after that. Guess that shows that the fish that are willing to eat are still very close together . That said I did fish it wrong, wasting the first half of the match trying to make pellet, corn or caster work. At least three of the top four caught on maggot and the carp I had was on maggot too. I think had I fished the whole match on maggot, on the shallowest rig I may have had another carp or two(although the bits were a pain). There was more movement early on while I had a bit of the sun, that's for certain. As for the winter league next week, I just hope the draw bag is a bit kinder to me!
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