My turn on Spring Lake today, so was hoping for a decent draw. The boys in the team were all for Fred to draw for us again, as he hasn't done too badly the last couple of rounds and with faux reluctance, he agreed to do so again - he doesn't take much persuading, as he really can't face sitting on one of the pegs I'd draw and Fairsy doesn't draw much better.....
We were about 2/3 down the pile of team sheets and could see some of the favoured draws disappearing and when Fred went to draw, Ditch who was calling the peg numbers, said to Fred "there's only one or two good ones left", that would have been the kiss of death had it been my hand in the bucket, but Fred managed to locate one of the decent draws, much to our relief. The draw put Paul on 130, not spot on, but close to the carp ball on Campbell, Glenn on 99, again, not plum in the epicentre, but in with a chance, Fred wasn't disappointed with his own draw of 69, Mark was on 50 on Match lake and expected a few bites and I certainly wasn't disappointed with 18.
I got to the peg to find Bernard Curry on 19 and Dick Bull on 17, with Ron Hardiman not too chuffed with his drawing arm, he'd put himself on 20. Drawing 18 immediately had me hoping for a good day on the waggler, but first of all I set up two lead rods, one with a straight lead for popped up bread and another for fishing a GB feeder. Next up the two waggler rods, one to start on, with a 0.15 hooklength, just in case there was a carp lurking, the other with a 0.12 hooklength, with the option to go lower.
3 topkits set up, a 0.4g Hillbilly chump, 0.10 hooklength and a 18 F1 maggot hook, this coupled to Middy 1-5 elastic - perfect for skimmers, a Hillbilly float whose name eludes me, but its one I use for double bulk fishing, this again with a 0.10 hooklength but a 16 F1 this time and No6 elastic, hoping this rig would pick out the bigger skimmers. Finally, an optimistic rig with a homemade float, 0.14 hooklength, a 16 Kaizen hook and white Avalon hollow elastic, this was just in case there were carp in the peg, or the big skimmers really had a feed....... as I said, an optimistic (wildly so, it turns out) rig.
On the all-in I went straight across to the island with popped up bread, within two minutes I had a gentle bite and I was into what I initially thought was a skimmer, then wasn't sure and even until I saw it I wasn't sure what it was, once it came up for netting I could see it was a decent hybrid, not far off 2lb. Not the double figure carp I wanted, but a nice start. Next cast, the tip flew round and a smaller, but feisty cousin of the first fish was netted. Given that start I stuck at the bread for 30 minutes, but apart from one small knock, that was it.
I had fed a pole line at 14m, after about 15 minutes and decided to have a look on here, sadly, the wind was getting up and pushing round the island, 18 is the narrowest point of the lake and it was acting as a perfect venturi, with the surface water pushing through the peg at pace. The rig I was fishing was just enough to counter the wind and I had two roach and a tiny hybrid, before I lifted into a better fish on the 4th bite, a skimmer nearing 2lb. I was now thinking that I might have a good day, but the size of the fish and the frequency of the bites went rapidly down hill from there.
I topped up the pole line and left it, I picked up the feeder rod and that was almost instant, with a 6oz skimmer coming to double maggot. But what followed was the pattern for the day, fish a line and get an instant fish (or nothing) then have to swap to another line or method to get a fish. I was disappointed that the wind didn't abate enough to make fishing the waggler a viable option, I had several attempts, but only small roach were fooled by the moving bait. First half the match, I couldn't find any trip against the wind, second half the match, the trip was going hard back against the wind near the island, but the wind tow was picking up the line close in, causing a big S in the line and dragging the float towards me. Shame, as this is a great waggler peg.
One of the feeder chucks saw a spirited bite and I was surprised to see the culprit be a scale and fin perfect F1, that went 2.14 - about sums my luck up, every other carp caught on the lake was touching double figures or bigger.
I thought I had 8 or 9 lb and was surprised to see the scales go to 11.11 for silvers and my 2.14 F1 taking me to 14.09. That would be decent points I thought and it turned out to be worth 13. Frustratingly one out of the money in the silvers (one out of the money is a regular theme lately!).
The corners caught carp 3 each and it was just the size of them that settled the lake, in favour of Tim Ford.
Team wise, we thought we might have done OK, although we hadn't bee quite keen enough to follow the scales round on such a cold day. Paul had 12 points, Glenn 15, Fred made the most of his nice draw and won the lake so 18 points and a silvers pick up for 3rd in silvers, Mark had 7 points, giving us 2nd on the day with 65 points.
Two rounds to go, currently lying in fourth and hoping we can stay in the hunt for a framing place - I best go nowhere near the draw tin next round.......
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