Landsend League, Round Two. Sunday 8th December 2013

After I shocked myself (and a few others no doubt) with a section 2nd and a lake silvers win in the first round, I actually had something to build on in this round.  My turn for the specimen lake today, I was a bit disappointed that anglers fishing the league had fished a match on it yesterday, just my personal opinion.

I was only a few back in the queue at the draw, but the favoured pegs 33 and 31 were already gone to a contented looking Mark Poppleton and Trigger (Craig Edmunds).  I managed to pick peg 32 the end peg on the far bank, opposite Mark Poppleton, whose peg had won the Saturdays match.  Some helpful advice from Ken Rayner, Tony Rixon and Mike Duckett was noted.  I was surprised to see just how clear the water is at the moment, so the rigs were all on 0.14 with either 0.12 or 0.10 hooklengths.  I set up two rigs, one for the open water that would suffice for Devils Spawn, caster or maggot and one for down the edge to the tree at 16m.  The shelf by the tree is only about 6" shallower than the open water, so deep enough to hold fish even in the gin clear conditions.

Plenty of time, so in anticipation of a few carp showing later in the match, I set up another rig with a bait band, to fish 6mm pellet or pull the band into a piece of corn.  This was a remarkable piece of optimism, which wasn't rewarded, so little to say about that rig.

On the all in, I fed some softened micros and a couple of maggots via a tosspot at 13.5m, lined up with the bin in John Bradfords peg (34).   Starting on the Devils Spawn saw the float remain steady and visible, no indication of life beneath the surface. After 15 minutes, a swap to maggot brought an immediate response and a small F1 graced the net.  Trigger on 31 had snared a carp and Mark P on 33 was already showing the rest of the lake how to do it.

That was it for that line, no more bites, no indication of any fish anywhere near it.  So an early look down the edge saw me miss a bite, land a perch, bump one and land another, decent perch worth catching, over the lb mark.  That too proved to be a false dawn and the line was for all intents and purposes, devoid of fish.

By now, it was becoming frustrating, watching Mark P, bemoaning the sun and the fizzing in his peg, causing light refraction and poor float visibility, mine and Triggers sympathy was unforthcoming, as even with this most terrible of conditions, Mark was still regularly netting, F1's, Skimmers and carp, in short, absolutely pissing the lake.

A rummage in my holdall produced an extension for my pole, so a new line started at 17.5m towards the aerator, this was bloody hardwork, but did result in 3 decent skimmers (one was really a bream) a couple of roach, some missed bites and two lost carp,one of which was definitely fouled, as a huge scale came back when it took umbrage at being hooked.  The other carp snapped the 0.12 and the resultant recoil of the elastic broke the float and snapped or cut one strand of the double 5 elastic, summing up a hard day.

I did manage a couple more decent perch from the edge, but by now, was thoroughly pissed off at watching Mark P's elastic flowing from the end of his pole with almost clockwork regularity.  Trigger managed a couple of carp towards the end, fishing 17.5m to the end of the island, the rest of our section, was really struggling, when anglers like Alan Oram manage two bites and one carp in 51/2 hours of fishing, you know its tough.

My motley collection of silvers went 12.12, for second in section, behind Triggers 28lb odd, the section had a DNW and a couple of 4lb weights, so pretty poor.  As expected Mark Poppletons net won the match, 72lb odd, including nearly 23lb of silvers.

So I keep just about in touch in the league with two section seconds and two section silvers wins, surprising really, as Landsend usually sends me home with my tail between my legs, even though it was pretty humiliating to be so soundly beaten by the peg opposite, I just could not get the fish to move that 4 or 5 metres.  With hindsight, maybe a lead rod or waggler would have been worth taking, just to be able to fish to the limits of my peg, as even with the other pole extension (which was home in the garage) 19m wouldn't have been enough and I'm now aching and knackered after fishing 17.5m for so long.

See Ken's blog  http://kenrayner-fishing.blogspot.co.uk/   for the results, as I had to dash home for 'puppy duty'.

See previous post for details of Acorn pole only series, 2014.