Today I guested in Charlie Barnes' team, Charlies Angels, in place of Rich Coles. The match consisted of 11 anglers on each of the four lakes, obviously, one from each team. As it was a team match, I had spent some time tying up new rigs and preparing bait, its only fair to the other members of the team to make an effort.
Out of the four lakes, I didn't fancy number four, as it houses the least silvers and smallest carp, it really suits the 'hard pellet tight to the island' experts, of which, I'm certainly not. Absolutely no surprise then, when I was told, "you're on No 4, peg 72". I headed straight off, as I really didn't want to listen to all the differing advice, or the "thats a flyer" comments.
Peg 72 has the end of an island at approx 13m, but it might as well have been 30m away, because the wind was whistling down the lake, I could see then that it would be difficult to present a bait and I'd only brought a pole. To add pressure on me, vacant corner peg 71 didn't stay long, England International Des Shipp arrived, so no pressure to try and beat him off the next peg.
I had tried to cover all bases with the baits I'd brought, caster, dead maggot, live maggot, worm, hemp, devils spawn in various sizes, micro pellet, 4, 6 & 8mm hard pellet and 6 & 8mm meat. I decided that I'd fish a line with the micro pellet, this was at 6m, devils spawn & dead maggot to be the hook bait. The obvious line accross to the island and large bush protruding from it, I set up a depth and shallow rig for this line, with a 20 B960 and hair rig band for 6mm pellet. I also set up a MW dinky D to fish the margin, this had a 18 Xedion TXR7 on 0.16, just in case a bonus fish fancied the meat I intended to fish late in the margins.
As I thought, the wind was affecting presentation and the ability to hold much more than 6m, without it waving around like a magic wand on speed. I had bites from the off accross, but it was a couple of small skimmers that graced the net, rather than the weight building pasty carp. With one hour gone, I had the two skimmers and one small carp, not good, I was also getting a lesson in angling by Des, as he was catching fish quite steadily, although they weren't big.
Hour two saw a slight improvement, with a few small carp, although the annoying growth of small branches, both above and below the waterline, cost me a few fish, a disintegrated float and if Mike had a swear box, it would have been full, just with the four anglers I could see and hear. Hour three was difficult and Des had now dropped to only taking an occasional fish, although opposite, Rod Wootten started taking a fish every put in and Mike West broke his pole, so some entertainment.
With two hours to go, I had virtually given up on the long line to the island, also the 6m line, no bites on hard pellet and bitted out on dead maggot and devils spawn. Time to start feeding the margin a bit more heavily with caster and a few cubes of 6mm meat, the last hour and a half produced a few fish, including a 5lber, all falling to meat over caster. This was enough to give me third on the lake, behind Rod Wootten who weigh approx 45lb and Des who weighed 39lb, my efforts went 33.04. The team result wasn't fantastic, with Mike Nicholls matching my third on lake, but sadly, Steve Seager and Captain Charlie came back with 3rd from last & last on their lakes.
I didn't get the results, but I'm sure they will appear on Mike Nicholl's and Tony Rixon's blogs, needless to say, lake four won't be appearing in the overall placings........
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