Monday 14 September 2015

Landsend Open, Sunday 13th September 2015

After the last match I fished at Landsend, I decided to book into this one and fish for silvers, that was after I checked that lake 3 wasn't going to be in as I feel that it cannot compete with Match or Speci lakes for silvers.

On arrival I found out that there had been a 20 peg match on the lake the day before, bugger, this seems to wake up the carp and they often feed better when there has been a match the day before, but in my experience, its the opposite for silvers, as the main weight builders are skimmers and perch, which shut up shop.

Too late to change my mind, especially when I drew peg 5 which has in the past thrown up a few F1's, I don't agree with them counting as silvers, but that's the venue rules, so I was hoping to catch a few.  No carp rigs set up, only 4 topkits to try and cover all the silvers / F1 options, a rig to fish banded caster on the far shelf, a double bulk rig in case the skimmers really went and two similar rigs with wire stemmed floats, one with 0.14 to see if there were any tench or big perch by the lilly pads to my left and one with 0.10 in case it was tough.

Bait tray was simple, caster, a few dead maggots, some micros and softened 4mm pellets, a selection of expanders, although by the end I was thinking B & J might have been a better option......

Before I had finished cupping in on my chosen pellet line, Tony Rixon, who was on peg 3 was playing a carp, I fed some caster short - very short - and at 6m, starting on the 6m line with double caster, after 10 minutes without a bite, I was starting to get a bit concerned as starting on caster here usually brings instant bites from small fish, which then seems to attract the better stamp.

A switch to the expander over the pellet feed brought a couple of 10oz skimmers, but there was very little signs of fish feeding in the peg, I ended up spending the whole match switching between four lines, a caster line at 6m which was pretty barren apart from a roach and a very small rudd, the topkit caster line produced one big skimmer and a decent perch, the far shelf single caster saw four more perch netted and a couple of unwanted carp.   It was very hard going, as it was for Nick Ewers on peg 6 and Rod Wotton on peg 7, Nick fished for carp, Rod for a bit of both, but we did seem to be in a fairly barren area.

It was hard work and my meagre catch tipped the scales at 13.07, that was enough to take 3rd and last payout in the silvers, behind Clint's 36.01 and Paul's 33.02, they both managed a few of the decent skimmers which eluded me and Rod, who fished his usual hard pellet for them.

On the carp side Trigger had a red letter day, he said afterwards he had a 10 minute spell without a bite....... I had about 5 hours 50 minutes of no bites!!

1. Craig Edmunds 311.05 peg 13
2. Tony Rixon 25.09 peg 3
3. Steve Seager 147.01 peg 39
4. Andy Hembrow 141.05 peg 13
5. Paul Elmes 134.01 peg 24
6. Mike Nicholls 90.12 peg 18

Silvers
1. Clint Wojtyla 36.01 peg 37
2. Paul Faiers 33.02 peg 22
3. Chris Fox 13.07 peg 5

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Gary Wall Memorial Match, Landsend, Monday 31st August 2015

I decided to go to this match and see if I can't get a result at this venue, where I seem to struggle, unless I fish for silvers.  With that in mind I did have a couple of pints of caster, just in case.....

Into the draw tin and out comes peg 9, match lake, which was my preferred draw, as it seems that lake 3 never competes on silvers, but the considered opinion of the venue experts was that 9 is an out and out carp peg.  Not a problem, as I had brought pellets and meat as well and with Tony Rixon on peg 7 I was sure I would get a few pointers as well as a lesson in catching carp on this lake.

I set up a rig to fish caster, same rig would do for short and down the track, a meat rig for 5m, pellet rig for bottom of the shelf and one for up the shelf and as it was a memorial, I did set up a paste rig, as no doubt Gary would have been on it if he were still here.

Starting at 5m on meat resulted in a worryingly motionless float, Tony was finding the same thing, whilst we could hear splashing from the opposite side. In the first two hours I managed to get two 3lb carp, one on pellet and  did set up a paste rig to fish it tight over, one on that first drop in and then nothing.  Tony was still struggling and I could hear Russ Peck and Ken Rayner discussing catching, which seemed a distant memory to me.

I switched to fishing caster and had a bream on my topkit just in front of my nets, I switched to feeding caster down the track and across to the bottom of the shelf, this produced one tiny roach across and two skimmers along with a 6oz perch down the track.  Thankfully the bream / big skimmers came in on the short line and double caster accounted for every fish I weighed in, all caught short apart from the those previously mentioned.  Nice day in the end putting 30.04 on the scales to win the silvers and complete a weekend of picking up - a nice change from the poor run I have been in.  See Tony's blog for the full result.

Float Only Final Round, Viaduct Sunday 30th August 2015

Been a lean month for fishing, lots of work, I did venture to Larford last week for the Maver Pairs, this resulted in one carp, exactly the same as last year, I shan't be rushing back there.......

On to this match, I was out of it in the league, after a good first round and a section win, it went downhill from there at Landsend, somewhere I just seem to struggle to get any decent results there apart from silvers.  So this match was all about being positive and I wasn't too upset when 115 came out of the draw tin.

Plenty of time to get to the peg and tackle up, I have been trying Sensas magic elastic and whilst it is very different to the hollows I have been using and a chance conversation with Steve Tucker led me to have a close look at my kits, after he said he had some break.  Both the No12's I had broke very easily, one had an obvious nick in, one had no visual marks or degradation, glad I checked before the match.

I set up two waggler rods, one shallow, one full depth, not much more to say about them, did try them, not a bite on either.  4 topkits set up, a rig for meat short, 0.20 to a 16 Guru Extra Strong spade end hood.  A rig to fish banded pellet at 13m, this was on 0.20 to 0.18 and a B960 16 with a band, a paste rig, which was a back up plan and a rig for down the edge, only short margins on this peg, so wasn't sure what, if anything they'd throw up.

Started on the meat short and had a couple of fish in the first 20 minutes, before venturing out to 13m and taking odd fish but nothing hectic. Glen 'two pots' Bailey on 114 was fishing paste and he had a couple of quick fish the it went quiet.  Chris Davies on 116 was managing to get some fish shallow and had a run whilst I had a quiet spell, I took the paste rig off and set up a shallow rig, but this only produced one fish. By switching between the 13m pellet line and the short meat line I managed to keep fish coming.  With a couple of hours to go I fed the margin and had a look in there every 15 minutes or so, but there were no signs of any feeding fish in the edge.

The meat line kept producing odd fish, no late run, but enough to keep me plugging away at this line. With 40 minutes to go, I saw a swirl down the edge and the water was clouding up, first drop in saw a fish about 15lb netted, this might have been a senior moment as I put it in a net that had 62lb in it, although I thought that made it 62lb...... it proved to be a costly mistake.  Another 3 edge fish that went into a new net for 25lb rounded the match off.  I had 9lb skimmers, a net with 69lb and ounces in (close shave) a net with 77lb in (lost 7lb) and the 25lb net.  Total weight 173lb with the 7lb deducted, Trigger had 175lb for the win, with my 173lb second, Chris Davies with 170lb for third.  See Tony's blog for the full result as I had to shoot off at the end before they were finalised.