This weeks open was again on the old lake as there had been a club booking on the new lake on the Saturday. I don't know how they fared but it was a cracking day on the Saturday, which led to me feeling not the best first thing due to an impromptu bar-be-que! Still, helping with the on-going tree removal around and between the lakes for an hour before the draw soon saw the night before's excess worn off!
I really wanted a draw in the open water on the lake but didn't get my wish an ended up sat of peg 57 which is right round the back of the island. In years past it's been the area you want in late summer / early autumn, but it's current form has been pretty poor in all honesty. Still, I had a bit of room so I set about making the best of it! The gardening theme carried on for a bit as I had ten minutes cutting bankside vegetation to allow me to get tight to the edge, and I also trimmed the reedy-like things that were overhanging in to the peg. Not only does it make it look tidy, but it stops you grabbing one when reaching for the net or a section - they can give nasty cuts much like a paper cut! I learnt that the hard way!
After making the peg nice and comfortable it was time for the rigs. I had three up for the day - one for the far bank, on for 5m and a margin rig. The far bank was plumbed up until I found a nice clear area with about 16in of depth. Float was a .1gr NG XTM on .17 line to a .15 hooklink and a size 16 hook, the lakky was Preston 15h. The 5m rig was a .3gr NG Decker in about 5ft of water. Lines and hooks were the same as the far bank rig, but the lakky was Preston 13h. Last up was a margin line for the edge to my left, about 6m away. Gear was slightly stepped up here, with .19 to .17, with a .2gr NG XTM used in the 2ft of water I had here. Lakky was Preston 17h.
With the match under way I fed the 5m line with half a medium pot of hemp and corn before going across on an 8mm banded pellet with just half-a-dozen 6mm pellets in a Cad-Pot. It took about ten minutes before I had odd signs of a fish, and shortly after my first carp was in the net. Only a small common of about 2lb, but a fish still! I carried on dripping in a few pellets with the pot, and the signs of life started to pick up.
It wasn't until the half hour mark when my next fish fell, a slightly bigger fish of about 3lb. This triggered a little bit of a flurry and by the hour mark I had five carp. The biggest about 5lb, but the rest the more usual 3lb. As tends to happen after the flurry the swim faded a bit. I was still getting knocks but it seemed they were from the small carp as I could see no signs of fish across. My thoughts were proved correct when I had a small common of about 6oz, and then on the ninety minute mark a small mirror of about 12oz.
I decided that to try and bring the proper fish back I'd use the catty to feed rather than the pot, hoping the noise would encourage the fish. Upping the feed tends to make the small fish problem worse! Hopes that this was the trick were raised when my sixth proper carp fell - a mirror about 4lb, but after that I only added a small 6oz common in the next half hour or so.
With the half way point in the match approaching I fed the margin, but after last weeks bits problem it didn't get a lot - a third of a pot of corn with a few bits of meat in. I dropped in on the 5m line which I'd been feeding by hand, but ten minutes here gave me just a liner. I had a brief foray across again, but a small 4oz common was the only result. I gave the 5m line a bit of a hit with a pinch of hemp and corn via the pot, before dropping in the margins.
Two cubes of meat in the edge got a pretty quick response, but again it was one of those little palm sized commons. I put a pot on the pole and topped the swim up with a pinch of corn, and had double corn on the hook. I missed the first bite, but not the second. It wasn't the margin pig I wanted, but it was another 3lb in the net. Two more followed in pretty quick succession, but then the bites stopped. I topped it up with a decent pinch of corn and left it alone.
Dropping in at 5m I started to get a response, but after a flurry of three fish quickly it slowed up. They were perhaps a little bigger than the margin fish mind. The last part of the match was spent rotating between the margins and 5m. I never managed to line up a run of fish, but after every rest the 5m line would give me a proper carp, and sometimes two. The margins gave me only one more 3lb'er, and a few more little baby carp! I did lose a good fish from the 5m line, which led me a merry dance before snagging me on a bramble hanging from the island. It may have been foul hooked, from the swirls it was much bigger than any fish I'd landed.
I finished the match with seventeen or eighteen proper carp and the ones in the bits net, but didn't really know how I'd done as I could only see three other anglers. Two of those tipped back just one fish a piece, and the next peg to my right had at best half of what I'd had. I packed away and met the scales just as the first peg was being weighed in, and they put 47lb on the scales. I knew I had that, but others were telling me that pegs 70 and 72 had caught well. When the scales got to me I totalled 63lb and a few ounces, while next door just scraped 30lb. In the end pegs 70 and 72 totalled 49lb and 53lb respectively to make the frame places close, but I finished 10lb clear for what is my first win off that peg!
I'm sure next week is on the new lake after a couple of weeks away from it - it'll be nice to fish it rather than just cut down tree's around it!
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