Tony Rixon's Float Only, Shiplate, Sunday 29th June 2014

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth carrying on with this blog, it was helping me analyse my matches, but when there is so little of consequence to write about, there is little to be gained from the effort.

The chance of doing well in the league had already gone, so it's just the individual matches to fish for and today, the knockout, where I was up against tough opposition, the man behind the counter in Avon Angling, Tony Rixon.

I got in early and drew peg 10 on the main lake (20 pegs on the main lake and 10 on each canal lake), immediately I was told that the last two matches had been won of it with 200lb - funny how the lake record is 172lb and that didn't come in the last two matches............  Then that Des had done over 200lb on it for a feature, so Des catches a lot of fish pleasure fishing, is that really news??

I have drawn the peg once before and really struggled, its about 18-20m to the island, with a short RH margin.  I set up two wagglers, one 12" deep and one at full depth, with two No8's down the line. They were clipped up so that the pellet just kissed the mud on the island when it landed.

Five topkits today, two paste rigs, one for the margin and one for the 6m line. Two pellet rigs, one shallow and one at full depth, finally a margin rig to fish pellet/corn/worm etc.

I started at 17m towards the island and had a skimmer on 8mm banded pellet, that was the extent of the action for over an hour, I could see my knockout opponent, Tony, on peg 8, he was similarly struggling, as were the others pegged at this end of the lake.  Tony had a carp, then not too long after I managed one on the full depth waggler, but it was a lone bite.

The short line at 6m only produced two roach all day, both fell to corn, the RH margin had a fish swirling and small fish kept jumping out of the water, but paste was ignored, as was pellet.  I tried double dendra and the float buried, a 10oz perch was the culprit and just before the net he spat out a dead roach, so the swirls weren't carp, they were perch chasing fry.

I desperation I got another section from my holdall and was fishing 19m to get tight to the island, which produced two fish and a lost foul hooker, no surprise that Tony landed a foul hooker!!  I was totally reliant on the margin coming good, as there was no liners, no fizzing and very few bites.  Paste was again a non starter, so back to double dendra and the float buried, this time a bootlace eel.  Finally I hooked a carp, this was obviously fouled and it took off like a rocket and snapped 0.20 as it bottomed the elastic out as it rounded the end of the island.

In the last few minutes I landed a carp from the margin on double dendra, this put the total to 4, one behind Tony and three ahead of Paul Elmes and Steve Seager on pegs 8 and 9a respectively.  This end of the lake fished extremely hard, compared to the ton weights at the opposite corner, I had about 23lb, which was 8lb short of Tony's weight, so that's the knock out over as well.  Shiplate is a lovely looking fishery, the owners are friendly, but it does seem to be very peggy when 40 pegs are put on it.

1. Tom Mangnall 101-09-0 peg 1 (Maini)
2. Glenn Bailey 100-05-0 peg 2 (Main)
3. Shaun Townsend 87-09-0 peg 13 (Main)
4. Eddy Wynne 74-08-0 peg 15 (Main)
5. Tim Ford 71-07-0 peg 6 (Hawthorne)
6. Gordon Cannings 63-10-0 peg 15 (Hawthorne)