I had booked into Todber Manor for my first visit to the
venue, but got a phone call from Tony on Tuesday to say that due to the weather
forecast, the match had been cancelled.
Also, Viaduct had cancelled their match, so it was Ivy House or stay at
home. With the forecast as bad as it
was, there was a significant temptation to stay at home, but they usually
exaggerate it, don’t they…… and Ivy
House was a new venue for me as well.
Wednesday dawned and it did seem that the forecasters might,
for once, be near the mark, but with the gear loaded into Tony’s van, off we
went full of optimism. It looks like
Andy is undertaking a bit of work at the venue, with plenty of freshly felled
trees, undergrowth cleared and some new pallets evident. A decent breakfast and some conversation
about the pegging, which I abstained from, having no valid input. Only 6 hardy
souls turned up and with hindsight, all of us could and should have had pegs
with the wind off our backs, unfortunately, two anglers had a side on wind, one
L to R and the other on the other end of the spit, had it R to L.
Hardly any need to say, that given the remarkable
consistency of my drawing arm, I managed to draw 36, the peg with the L – R
wind, the other unfortunate was Gabriel Skarba (I bet that’s not right..)on peg
43. Sat with their backs to the wind,
fishing in comparative luxury, were Tony Rixon, Martin Lenaghan and Alan
Oram. One of the venue locals who braved
the weather, a gentleman called Magoo, was on peg 6.
My initial idea was not to get the pole out of the bag, but
as I set up a lead rod, watching the ‘sheltered three’ setting up their poles
had me reaching for my rod bag and getting 13m of pole out. Two topkits were enough, one with a MW
diamond to try and get some stability in the windy conditions, this was
finished off with a 0.12 hooklength and a 18 63-13, with the idea of fishing
soft pellet at 10m. The other rig was a
wire stemmed NG Gimp, this was for fishing at the bottom of the near shelf,
about 6m out, a 0.10 hooklength and a 20 Drennan Carp Maggot hook completed
this set up.
On the all in I managed to feed the 10 line OK, this was
with micros and dead maggot, the 6m line was fed with two balls of groundbait
with caster and dead maggot. Leaving these to settle, I had a few chucks round
the swim with popped up bread, but not even a liner from that. By now the wind had increased and for the
first time ever, I had a large flat roller blown over, complete with pole,
luckily no damage. So the 10m line was
unfishable with the pole and it stayed that way for the rest of the match, I
did try a couple of times, but it was a pointless exercise.
Dropping in on the 6m line, I had a roach first put in, the
float was racing through the peg, against the wind, a massive undertow was
going from R to L, letting it run through and gently holding it back produced a
couple more roach, then 6 small carp, so it was looking promising. The roller
blew over again, as the wind got worse. Then the roach came back, several
finding the maggot before the carp. I
had a rummage in my bag and found a tin of corn, I fed a few micros and 4 or 5
grains of corn, in an attempt to get the carp back, first put in with a single
grain of corn resulted in the biggest (and last) carp of the day at about 2lb.
A particularly strong gust lifted the tin of corn off my
side tray and deposited it far out into the lake, so would corn have been the answer,
I’ll never know……..
That was it, one and a quarter hours into the match I had a
couple of pound of roach and 7 small carp, which is exactly what I tipped back
at the 4pm all out.
I did swap the bread rig for a small groundbait feeder, this
produced on roach and I did hook a large carp that made short work of the 0.12
hooklength. With about ¾ of an hour to
go, yet another violent gust picked up sections 4,5 & 6 of my pole and
deposited them into peg 37, luckily, without (visible) damage and within reach
of the bank. That was enough of that.so
the pole went away and I watched a motionless tip for the last ¾ of an hour.
I knew Alan had me well beaten and Tony, so my 8 or 9lb was
tipped back, as I was cold and not a little fed up by now. Magoo on peg 6 DNW,
Gabriel on peg 43 had two fish and DNW, whilst the sheltered 3 took the money
(well two of them) and glory.
I look forward to going back and fishing the venue when the
conditions don’t dictate.
11) Tony
Rixon 52.00 peg 41 (included 11lb skimmers and a 10lb carp)
22) Alan
Oram 32.00 peg 39 (including a 16lb+ ghostie)
33) Martin
Lenaghan 10.00 peg 40
The other 3 DNW.
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