Firstly I'll start by apologising to everyone who checked here last week for a blog that never appeared - I had every intention of fishing when I wrote my last blog, but instead ended up at a barbeque in Milton Keynes!
On arriving at the lake the drizzle started but I had a walk around anyway. There wasn't really anywhere I didn't want to draw, and when my hand went in the bag and came out with 66 I was quite happy, being as it has good recent form, and I was a second off the peg a few weeks ago.
I had three lines of attack on the peg; a rig for tight across, one for 5m and one for the left hand margin at about 10m down the bank. The rigs were standard fayre and anyone who reads regularly will know them! Across was a NG Floats XTM in about 16in of water on .17 line to a 6in hook-length of .15 tied to an 18 Fox Series 2. Lakky on this was Preston 15h. The 5m line was in about 4.5ft of water, float was a .2gr Ng Decker. Line and hooks were the same as the previous rig, while lakky was black Hydro. Last up was a margin rig, a .2gr DC5 float in about 3ft of water. As per usual for the margins the gear was stepped up with line being .19 to .17 and a 16 Fox Series 2 and matched to purple Hydro.
On the whistle I fed about twenty pellets across via cup, and then half a cup of hemp and corn on the 5m line. I elected not to feed the margin yet as it's a line I've never caught that much off in the past, and also with the match being a later start than usual I wanted to keep some bait back just incase the fish moved in numbers in the early evening!
Going across on an expander pellet produced a small roach, and then the next drop the pellet was shredded by small fish. This led to me slipping a band on the hook and trying a hard pellet. I still got knocks from roach but at least I wasn't losing my bait quickly. I picked up the catapult and started to feed pellets across. At 16m across I was having to break the pole down twice, and didn't fancy a pot on the end! Also, I hoped the regular noise (easy to feed more often with the catty than a pot!) would draw some fish.
After about forty minutes the drizzle turned into rain and with no proper bites I decided to make an unusual decision for me and put my brolly up! I didn't fancy sitting in the rain (probably due to the late night before!). A switch to the close line didn't produce and nobody I could see had caught a carp. I rotated the lines and on the 2hr mark I decided to feed the margin line to give me somewhere else to drop in on, while carrying on feeding across with the catty.
Not long after feeding the margin I started to get signs of life on the 5m line and carried on on this line, dripping corn in by hand over it too. I missed the first bite on this line but the next three drops all produced carp quite quickly. Nothing big, all about 3lb. The swim started going strange and the I had lots of indications and no bites. After playing with the depths a fourth fish fell, a little bigger at perhaps 4lb. I started to see signs of fish across but dropping over all that happened was that I spooked a fish.
No more fish came for a while, with no signs of life at all in the edge. I changed to fishing meat on the 5m line which is something which I've often found works, but all that gained me was a missed bite. Eventually a fifth fish fell on the 5m line to corn, but no more bites came after. I started to up the feed on this line but that had a negative effect as indications slowed down, so I backed off on the bait, while still keeping it dripping in.
With two hours to go the catty-fed pellets seemed to have drawn a few fish across, so slipping a pellet in to the band I went over. This time the fish didn't spook and I found myself playing a fish. The next hour produced a steady run of fish. I put a small Cad-Pot on the pole in an attempt to tighten up the feed and get bites faster. All this done was produce more line bites so I took the pot off and carried on with the catty, which was so much easier in the rain too!
I got up to nine carp before losing the tenth when it ran behind a bramble rooted in the water. A new rig saw me carry on catching fish steady, and many of the bites didn't need me to lift! None of them were big, fish averaging 3lb. I was up to fourteen fish with half an hour to go when I lost another fish in the bramble, even the lakky was in the bramble, meaning I lost the whole rig (and a precious float!) in process. The next fish I lost when it went under my net! Something that wouldn't have happend had I not had my umberella up! To be honest it was in the way when playing fish but with the rain now lashing down I wasn't taking it down.
The two lost fish seemed to slow the swim a little and I finished on sixteen carp and then had to pack up in the peeing rain. I could see that a few people had caught late but I was ahead of everyone I could see. When the scales got to me top weight was 38lb, and my estimate of having just about 50lb was close when they totalled 50lb 10oz and good enough for the win, and a reward for spending the day out in probably the grottiest June day's fishing I've known! Infact, the fish felt warmer than I did....
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