Sunday March 13th, (W/L Rd 4)

Well, my moan last week about the weather seems to have worked! Granted, it's not t-shirt weather but at least things are heading in the right direction.


Walking round the lake before hand it was noticeable that the water had more colour to it than last week, that said, I still wanted a higher number draw and preferably in the 20's. By the time I reached the draw-bag every number up to 17 was gone (except 14) so I was fairly happy with what was left in the bag. When last weeks winning peg (25) came out I was happy, although I did bare in mind that just because it won last week doesn't mean the same will happen again.


As I was setting up groups of fish could be seen cruising about, and with the presence of carp I decided to abandon any silvers line. A deck rig for 16m in front to the island was first up, a 4x12 Preston Chianti to .14 line to a .125 hook-link and a 16 B611. This was in 3ft of water. The second rig I put up was to fish off the bottom for the cruising fish. A 4x10 Preston PB2 was initially set to fish six inches off the bottom. Terminal gear was the same as the other rig and both were matched to 13h Preston hollo on pull-bungs. I'd seen odd fish making their way along the edge so I set up a margin rig for 5m to my right. The far-bank deep rig was the perfect depth for here too but I also put up a stronger rig on .14 direct to a 20 Fox Series 2 hook and on Preston 15h Lakky. I wanted the option of the stronger rig as my previous experiences with the peg had showed me it has a habit of throwing up a lump or two!


On the whistle I fed the margin with a pinch of softened micro pellet with half a dozen casters and three grains of corn before baiting up with a grain of corn on the deck rig and shipping across. After spending ten minutes without a bite I started to drip in a few micro's via a small cad-pot on a regular basis, and swapped between corn and 4mm expander pellet. It took half an hour to get my first indication but it wasn't followed by anything else. On the three quarter of an hour mark I decided to try the shallow rig as I'd seen an odd sign of fish moving along the bank. Baiting up with a 9mm bread punch I laid the rig in-between the drifting debris about a meter to the left of the feed and after no more than thirty seconds the float was gone! Carp number one, a common of about 4lb was soon in the net. Explaining up until the two hour mark is easy as every drop produced the same and I never had to wait long for a bite, and never missed one either. In a "purple patch" of 75 minutes I'd put eight carp in the net for about 32lb in weight. That's not a bad start!


It came as no surprise to me that the fish started to become less accommodating after that spell and I had to start searching about the depths a bit more, and I started to miss odd bites too. This slower spell coincided with rain, but after a short while the rain started to feel warm. I decided to shallow up by a few inches and a mirror of about 5lb was the result before the fish seemed to back away. Not wanting to press things too hard I decided to have a quick try in the edge where I'd been flicking a few casters regularly, but I had no joy here. Going back across I hooked a fish that I had on for a minute or so before it came off. A fair part of the reason for this was the drifting rubbish it had picked up around the rig, although I'm not sure it wasn't foul-hooked too. The next carp I landed was foul-hooked in the pectoral fin, fishing a bit further along to the left.


Bites then went a bit iffy again, and the rain got heavier (or I noticed it more as I wasn't catching!) and I had to put a waterproof jacket on. I had a quick try on the deck rig over the bait but this gave me just a liner so I topped it up with a pinch of micro's and went back on the punch. It didn't take me long to get a bite, but my tenth fish wasn't what I expected - well, you don't catch many 2lb skimmers two foot deep on punch in March! The surface debris was easing now, along with the rain so I decided to spread the shot out now. A 3lb ghostie quickly fell before I missed two bites in a row so I shallowed up a touch again. This did the job and I was into a fish that felt a fair bit bigger than the others. After a good five minutes when I never even saw the end of my elastic the fish eventually showed signs of tiring. A quick bit of playing with the pull-bung once I'd got the better of it had a cracking looking common in the landing net which required a bit of a double handed heave to get the net up to my lap! I'd guess it went about 12lb and it looked every bit like it had never been caught before!

With two hours to go I started to miss bites, before connecting with one which produced a little baby carp of about 1lb - one of the newly added ones from the stock pond. I had a quick try on the deck again after as bites faded but both pellet and corn failed to produce. Back on the punch I tried just a bit further along the bank. While I was probably only hitting half the bites here (shallowing up more bites totally stopped) I found that I could keep odd fish coming. So much so that with an hour and a half left I found myself walking up to get another net! I do have a spare that I bring in the summer, but bare in mind that 32lb is the best weight off the lake this year and that I won this match last year with about 28lb I never imagined I'd need it!

I don't know if it was me going walkabout or just that the swim had faded away but bites were impossible to come by across after. With just over an hour to go a slight movement caught my eye in the edge so I baited the lighter rig with a large punch (I'd caught all my fish on it up to now so why not I thought!) It took about five minutes and then the float slipped away. The culprit was a mirror of about 6lb that I managed to mug before it even realised it was hooked. I topped it up with a few casters after and went back across. The last hour was hard graft to make bites, the first one coming after I'd deepened up again and was actually the first (and only) bite I had over the bait across, a lively silver and gold koi of about 3lb. I'd kept trying down the peg, putting the 17.5m section on but bizarrely the fish hadn't backed away from me and the last forty minutes gave me three more bites, all between the feed and where I had been catching. All on the punch and after I'd shallowed up again and pushed the rig tighter into the far bank, meaning I finished the match with twenty "proper" carp, and the one baby which went in the silvers net with my skimmer.

I have to admit had little clue what anyone else had caught, my pre-occupation and spending half the match with my hood up in the rain had seen to that! When the scales got to me the league leader was winning the match with 15lb, my bits went just over 3lb and my last five carp went 26lb. It was only when I went to lift the other net out I realised that there was a lot more in there than I thought, with two more weighs giving me a total of 96lb 1oz, just one fish short of a ton! If only I'd bought my own spare net...

In the end I was a comfortable first, with 18lb from the next peg being second, keeping me in second place in the league but closing the gap to two points with two rounds to go, and with the worst result to be dropped I'm in a good position, I've just got to keep it up!