Plantation Lake, Saturday Series, 19th November 2011

My second of this series, although its the third match. I had a decent fry up at home before setting off, no traffic, not one dawdling old bugger to hold me up, meant I was first there. I had a look round the lake, then saw match organiser and plastic thing aficionado Darren 'Noddy' Vowles pulled up. He advised me that all the fish were in one quarter of the lake and a draw of 38,39 and 1 - 8 would be necessary to do well. Great!! How likely given my cursed drawing arm, was I to draw one of the coveted pegs. And so it proved, my usual lack of prowess at the drawbag continued, peg 25, diagonally the opposite quarter of the lake, than the one that 'Noddy' the venue expert, prophesised all the fish to be in. Perhaps they'd moved.... unlikely given my luck, but you have to have some thread of optimisim before tackling up, or why bother?

I felt that with the mild, but autumnal weather, the carp would respond to maggot and caster, which should also ensure I caught silvers. I did have the partial lobotomy and set up a plastic thing, trying to remember what I've been read and told about fishing it. This had a 3" hooklength and a 18 with a micro band on a hair for 6mm pellet.

I then set up a 12' Normark Titan 2000, I can't find a better modern rod, with 3lb reel line, a 0.12 hooklength and a 18 Drennan Carp Maggot hook. This was to be my main line of attack, caster at 2/3 the way to the island, I dreamt of a steady run of skimmers, big roach and large stripeys, with an occasional carp. I also set up a couple of pole rigs, one to fish at 14m and another for the margin, which thankfully plumbed up within an 1" both left, right short and right long in front of peg 24.

I fed some groundbait and micro pellet at 14m on the all-in and caster at 20m+, with maggot in the LH margin and caster in the RH margin. I then tried the plastic thing, I had carefully clipped up with a 1oz bomb, the first cast was perfect - how easy is this plastic thing fishing..... Not that easy, next cast the plastic thing landed spot on, the micros that had been moulded to it, landed about 10 metres out. Try again, another perfect cast, next cast, straight into the island foliage. Then a cast that didn't hit the clip, another that saw the micros land yards away from the plastic thing again and finally two more perfect casts, without a bite. Enough was enough, that was put up the bank and thats where it stayed, how is that enjoyable?

I had brought some devils spawn and dropped a 4mm specimen of it over the gbait and micro, I had 2 skimmers in four put ins and that was the end of the action on that bait. The dream of a nice mixed bag on the waggler didn't take long to turn into a nightmare, as I could not, no matter how I altered, depth, shotting, single or double on the hook, elicit a bite on caster. Maggot on the hook brought the odd roach, one decent skimmer and not much else.

The margins produced one decent perch and some quality roach, again to maggot, as the caster was no more productive than fishing with a bare hook. I even tried going down to 0.06 and a 24, single pinkie, to no avail, that brought no more bites than double maggot on a 18 b911 on 0.16. I alternated between the waggler and the 3 margin lines, short left, 5m and 11m to my right, to take the occasional fish. I didn't manage to hook a carp, there was very little sign of fish life in the peg. It seems that even the silvers have vacated this end of the lake. Although unexpectedly, my slim 8.08 was enough to take last in the silvers coin and hard work it was too!!

Venue expert and plastic thing fanatic 'Noddy' was on peg 26 to my left, gave up and packed up well before the end. Glenn (weekend & internet name - 'Faitheeey') Calvert also struggled on peg 19, it seems that the prophesy of 'Noddy' was correct and we were well and truly at the wrong end of the lake.

A word for Mark Bromsgrove, he took some advice about the plastic things fron 'Noddy' and in spite of claims that he'd only ever used them once before, managed to take the last framing place from peg 27 -worst of all, was he was quite excited by it and announced it a good and fun way to fish. I fear Weston General has been undertaking some secret lobotomys and electo-therapy on unsuspecting locals.

I didn't get a chance to ask Rod Wootton how he caught, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't pole and pellet, as he won from fancied peg 5. In fact, the peg numbers that framed were virtually as predicted by 'Mystic Noddy' - how about picking me some lottery numbers? I reckon we could do with a frost, failing that dynamite, to get the buggers to spread out round the lake.

1) Rod Wootton 75.10 peg 5
=2) Andy Hembrow 53.00 peg 7
=2) Mike Owens 53.00 peg 39
4) Craig Tucker 44.08 peg 4
5) Rich Lovering 37.10 peg 8
6) Mark Bromsgrove 32.08 peg 27

Silvers

1) Brian Slipper 29.06 peg 18
2) Paul ("I've never fished for silvers, its easy isn't it, I'm going to do it again") Nicholls 12.04 peg 28
3) Chris Fox 8.08 peg 25