I was looking forward to being on the new lake at Westside this week, and I think, if pushed, I'd say it was my favourite lake of the two. With spawning out of the way it had fished well in last weeks blind pairs. The only thing that slightly tempered my expectation was that the match was a sell-out, meaning in some areas the pegging would be a bit tight.
I fancied an early draw (from 3-13), even though those pegs haven't been in the best form. The reason was simple - the pegging wouldn't change there from the normal numbers, with the extra pegs filling in the gaps in the higher numbers. When I went in to the bag I didn't get my wished for low number with 17 coming out in my hand. It wasn't the worst peg to be honest, and it has had decent form of late, mostly fishing down the edge. On those days it didn't have the corner peg to the right in (the edge that had produced) or peg 18 to the left in. So, a peg with reasonable form, but not the space that it'd had previous!
My optimism was raised a notch on getting to the peg as there were a few fish moving. A typical three rigs for the day were set up. The island here is deep against it, for the most part it's 4ft right tight - not ideal for summer fishing! From having the peg before I knew that down the peg a little at 16m (where a small tree growing out is visible in the picture) there is a very small shelf to fish, probably where some of the bank has slid in at some point! I found 14in of water on this, on an area probably not much bigger than my laptop screen. A .1gr Nick Gilbert Ghandi was on .17 mainline with a .15 hook-link and with an 18 Fox Series 2 on the end. Lakky was Preston 15h. The other two rigs were a .4gr NG Decker to fish in 6ft of water at 5m, this had the same terminal gear as the far-bank but the lakky was black Hydro on a pull-bung. Last up was a .2gr NG XTM, fished in about 2.5ft of water at 6m to my right. Slightly scaled up here, with .19 mainline to a .17 hook-link. the hook was a 16 Fox Series 2 and the lakky Preston 17h.
On the whistle I elected to go a bit cautious with the extra pegs in, feeding just a pinch of hemp and corn at 5m, and the same down the edge but with a few cubes of meat too. Nothing was fed across until I went over, and that had just six 6mm pellets fed via a toss-pot. My first drop in with half a worm gave me a 2oz rudd. I kept dripping in a few pellets and was getting knocks but it was nudging the half-hour mark before I put my first carp in the net, a common of about 3lb. The peg to my right in the corner also had one carp at this point, but about four times bigger! The peg to my left also had a koi of about 8lb - looked like I was pest controller for the day! I had a bite instantly on the next drop, but that fish came off after a few seconds. Strangely, on swinging my rig out the loop on the mainline had broken leaving the hook-link to pull off! Very puzzling as the rig had only just been made the day before.
Losing the fish slowed the peg somewhat, and while odd fish cruised past they were very spooky. I was falling behind the pegs either side with the corner peg putting a 6lb'er in the net, and the peg to my left having a brace of smaller carp on top of that koi. On the ninety minute mark I decided to up the feed across, and gave it a palm-full of pellets via the cupping kit. It was probably a combination of that, and the rest while I had a bite less go at 5m that helped, as dropping back across I had two fish in quick succession, both about 3lb. No bites after led me to top-up again with the cup, and another fish followed soon after. A short wait from there saw carp number five in the net and put me up on numbers to those around me, but with much smaller fish.
As tends to happen after a flurry like that the swim slowed a little, so I picked up the catty and started pinging a few pellets across, something I find that tends to work in bringing the fish back. I had a brief try on both the other swims after seeing a fish down the edge, but I never had an indication from either. Going back across saw me nobble another two carp in a flurry that saw the peg to my left also catch two fish, and the corner peg to my right put another fish approaching double figures in the net.
With not quite two hours to go the area that we were sitting in seemed to go devoid of fish, as all signs melted away. In a bid to make something happen I knocked-up a little bit of fishmeal crumb, as I've tended to find small carp love groundbait! I put half a cup of loose crumb across, and lowering the bait on top of it got me a fish instantly! Again only a 3lb'er, but they tally up in weight! About twenty minutes after that a real baby carp of about a pound followed but indications had totally dried up again. I could see peg 13 catching across on the method, and it seemed that the fish I'd had in front of me had drifted round the point of the island, as I could see movement there.
With an hour to go I was running out of ideas so it was time for plan 'Z'! I had some dead red maggots that have been in and out of my bait freezer for a while now, so I decided to use them! I gave the far side half a cup of them, and left it a few minutes while I tried the fruitless other lines. With no joy there I put a whole dendrobeana on the hook and lowered it in across. The float sat for about thirty seconds before slipping away giving me a common of about 4lb, my biggest and last fish of the day! Like the pegs around me the rest of the match was spent biteless.
When the scales reached me 41lb was top weight, from one of the early pegs that I'd fancied! The speci-hunter in the corner put his fish on the scales and totalled 29lb 5oz, just four fish! I just pipped him with 30lb 6oz and the peg to my left fell just short with 29lb 12oz! In fact, until the second from last person to weigh in I was sitting second on top of a pile of four 29lb weights, a 28lb and 26lb. Then somebody plonked 31lb 2oz on the scales leaving me to settle for third!
I have to say I've never seen so many double figure fish weighed in on a match on the venue - I saw six weighed in before I weighed, and a couple went on the scales after me! I had the most in number of carp but all the small ones, but you can only catch what's in front of you. Quite a few of the big fish came late on to people fishing in the deep water, but further out than my 2+2 line that I fed. Perhaps I'd have been better off feeding that line further out and just sitting on it late on? That said, the only two times I've had that peg in the past I did catch at 12m in the deep water, but they were only small fish again, so perhaps it just wasn't to be? Still, there's always next week!
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