Sunday 6th February

It'll be nice to not be looking at the weather forecast for the weekend without having my fingers crossed, that's for sure! Fortunately, the worst of the gales seemed to subside and with much of Westside fishery being sheltered it didn't look too bad this morning. Nobody really knew what to expect mind, as it was the first match on lake one since the ill-fated Christmas match. This lake really seemed to suffer this winter, with it freezing as the leaves dropped. Thankfully the owner kept breaking the ice every day and the colour has now gone to it's normal winter look instead of the blackness from the leaves, and with the milder weather I was looking forward to fishing a different lake!


With no recent match form to go by no-one really knew where would be the place to draw, but I was happy when I pulled out peg 29 as it's generally a good winter peg. The wind wasn't too bad, although it did swirl round in the tree's a bit. The awkward thing was the rafts of floating debris that had been blown off the tree's and were drifting left to right and then back. I had three rigs up, two for the island at 16.5m and one for 12m down the track at 1 o'clock just where it had started to shallow up. All the rigs had 16 B611's to .12 hook-links, with the track rig having a .4gr NG decker in near 7ft of water. Lakky on this was grey Hydro. The far bank rigs were a 4x12 chianti in just over 3ft of water (I'd plumbed right along the far bank and had a few areas set to try along he bank), while the second rig was a 4x10 PB2 set to fish a foot off the bottom. Lakky on both these rigs was Preston 13h. Lastly I also put up a bomb rod just in case the wind got bad.


On the whistle I few a small ball of crumb with half a dozen casters and three grains of corn in down the track. I then went across to the far bank with a grain of corn hoping to snare an early mug fish. Ten minutes later I had no mug fish! A cupped across a pinch of loose crumb and four casters dead in front, and then tried caster on the hook. After about half an hour I was just toying with the idea of putting a small pot on to feed across regularly when the peg to my right had a carp. Pot on and double maggot on the hook and I had my first bite, from a tiny perch! Next drop produced an equally tiny roach before a switch to caster gave me a chunky perch.


Just over an hour in and the swirling wind was awkward so I had a chuck on the bomb while I set up an identical deck rig with a longer line above it. I didn't give it too long on the bomb as the floating debris was a pain catching the line. Back on the pole and I had a definite liner so I switched to the shallow rig. I missed a bite on caster but no more followed so I had a drop on the track line on double maggot. The float had barely settled when a small roach nabbed the bait. Another next drop so I tried a grain of corn but ten minutes later with no indications it was time to go back across.


With two hours gone going and no bites across I slipped on a grain of corn, and after a few minutes a definite liner was followed by a bite that I knew I hit late, which led to me having a merry dance for a minute or so with a foul hooked fish before it came off. Switching baits gave no response, even away from where I'd fed so on the halfway mark I decided to try something different, picking up my shallow rig and baiting it with a 9mm piece of bread punch (from a home-made copy of the old image bread punches that I made 18 years ago!). I dropped this in about two meters down from where I'd fed. The float had only settled for a few seconds when it ducked under and I had my first carp from lake one for nearly four months! Not a big fish at about 3lb. The next half an hour produced three more the same size before I had a spell where I missed three bites in the next twenty minutes, so with an hour and a half or so to go I left the swim, not wanting to push it.

A brief spell down the track on corn gave me two liners but no other joy so I shallowed the rig up four inches and dropped back across on punch. I had two 3lb'ers in as many drops before I hooked a fish that felt much bigger but disaster struck when the fish went under a big raft of drifting debris. After a minute or so of playing it with a large twig on the line it came off. I was really expecting that to spook the fish but it didn't take long for another carp to fall, again about 3lb. I then had a spell of two missed bites again before carp number eight fell with forty minutes to go. With no bites for ten minutes in the hot-spot I dropped the rig a meter further down the swim and the float buried instantly with the biggest fish of the day, with a ghostie of about 5lb falling.


I had no more bites further down the swim and the last spell of the match was spent searching the swim trying to find a bite, and with ten minutes left the original hot-spot again produced a fish. I was hoping for one more but with about three minutes to go the wind, which had become increasingly swirly, caught the pole as I was lifting the rig and put me up the far bank! With the rig wrecked I didn't bother to go back out with so little time and started to pack up as word round the bank was nobody had more than three carp.


When the scales got to me 12lb was the top weight, but while the lake had fished hard for carp everyone had caught fish which wasn't bad considering it was the first match for two months on the lake! There was even a near 7lb weight of roach. My fish went 32lb 14oz for the win, something I can hopefully repeat in next weeks winter league second round!