14 fishing, so plenty of room, but that's not always a good thing on these snake lakes, as the fish back off under pressure.
The weather forecast was 11°C and dry, I hope the forecasters aren't paid by accuracy, as the one who forecast that would be skint, it was a chilly wind and for a big part of the day, that fine misty rain - the sort that gets you wet, as someone said.
I had meant to bring some bread, but looking at the lake before the draw with Paul (Faiers) it was still quite coloured, so wasn't upset I'd forgotten to call in and pick a loaf up - my memory is getting terrible. Into the draw bag and ping pong ball 13 was my reward, or as it turned out, penance.
Got to the peg and found Des Shipp on the next peg (15) so had to endure the usual moaning about his peg and the mid games of how good mine was - always a good bit of banter with Des. The wind was blowing L to R but not too bad, wouldn't hinder fishing across to the far side. I did consider setting up a method rod, but decided against it, so 4 topkits assembled, one a small Drennan float to fish banded pellet in approx. 2' water, a rig to fish the next shelf down, this rigged up with 0.14 and a 18 LWG hook, to try and tempt the carp. I also set up a rig for the near margin, down to the pallet of 12, but not with much confidence, its been months since I caught a margin fish, or even anything decent short. Finally a 0.5 diamond homemade float to fish down the track, a catch all rig hopefully, this would do for two lines, 2 o'clock line being fed with GB and caster/maggot/pinkie, 10 o'clock with micros.
On the all-in I cupped in half a dozen 4mm pellets and 20 micros over the 2' deep shelf, dropping a 6mm pellet in a band over the top, the float had hardly settled, before burying and a decent fish on. I got it to the net and saw that it had a hookhold that I just knew was going to give, right on the outside edge of the mouth, with the hook barely nicked through. As expected, once the fish came near the nest and then dived down, even with me dropping the topkit down quick to reduce pressure, the hook pulled - bugger, at least 8lb gone.....
Straight back over and after a couple of liners a fish about 3.5lb safely netted, followed by one about 1lb, I was starting to think it might be a good day. Thinking is obviously not good, as that was the last of the indications or bites from there. Gave it another 15 minutes or so, searching along the bank, but the carp had upped sticks and moved out. Hoping they'd dropped down the shelf, I switched to the deeper rig and expanders, nothing, not a bite. Des was struggling, so I was fairly happy that it wasn't just me getting it wrong, in fact I couldn't see anyone catching.
I fed the 2 o'clock line at 7 joints and left it whilst I tried to make the lines across work, also fed the 10 o'clock line with micros, in the end gave up with the biteless lines across and came over the GB line. This was slow, but at least a couple of small skimmers took the double pinkie offered, the wind had changed by now and was blowing into the faces of those of us on the 'back bank' this was frustrating, as I had to keep wiping the mist off my glasses, even the peak of a baseball cap not offering enough protection.
I refed the 2 o'clock line and then had a little run of skimmers, which was a welcome change from no bites, I had also been feeding casters by hand at topkit + 1 just to my left. I had a couple of better roach from there, but felt I would have needed a lighter, strung out rig to make it work, rather than the skimmer rig.
By now - ha;lfway through, the wind was blowing some fairly unpleasant acrid smoke across the lake and my eyes were watering, Des had enough of it and packed up early, as did Paul on peg 2, had I not had the run of skimmers, I probably would as well. The skimmer line died off, they never settled over the micros line, I didn't have a bite on a 4mm expander, even trying to switch it to a maggot line was a dismal failure.
I did keep looking back across for a carp and down to the pallet of 12, where I tried corn and maggot, but never had any sort of indication from either area. A couple of skimmers in the last 20 minutes completed my day and I unashamedly took the payout for second in silvers by default - feel I could have won the silvers if I fished for them all match, but hindsight is great..... Well done to Mike Chapman, winning from unfavoured 27, all by himself down that end.
1. Mike Chapman. 21-12 p27
2. John Mills. 17-11 p18
3. Dave Stephenson. 16-09 p9
4. John Roberts. 13-13 p5
5. Chris Fox. 11-14 p13
6. Eddie Wynne. 11-00 p30
Silvers
1. Mike Chapman. 10-11 p27
2. Eddie Wynne. 7-08 p30
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