Plantation Silvers Open, Thursday 30th January 2019

Another chance to fish this prolific silvers venue, the weather gods were not kind and the van temperature display was gleefully showing -4°C as I set off.  A good tip learnt today, if using the Bridge Inn for breakfast, ask them to swap the sausages for extra bacon, as the sausages aren't the best.

Had a walk round the lake before the draw and the lake was mainly frozen over, I was hoping to draw a peg that was completely frozen, as I am sure the fish prefer to sit under the 'lid' rather than in the unfrozen areas.  A few had cried off because of the weather, so 13 fishing today.

I had brought plenty of caster and waggler rods, the waggler rods weren't likely to be used looking at the thickness of the ice, into the draw bucket and I pulled out 8, which turned out to be permanent peg 19.  I was going to cut out two channels, but as the peg is on a point, I decided that one line straight out in front would be the way to go.  Nice and warm chucking these around...

As there was no point in getting the waggler rods out, I decided on a simple approach, 3 rigs, first one was a 0.1 NG Gimp, with strung out No11 stotz, this was finished off with a 0.09 hooklength and a 20 Gamma Green hook.  The other rigs were a 0.3 float set up with usual bulk and droppers and a double bulk rig - not too much to say about these, as I started on the strung out light rig and stayed on it all day.

On the all in I fed a tangerine sized ball of GB (50/50 Tom Thicks Intelligent and Sonubaits F1 Green) with caster and pinkie in.  Wanting to get a fish of any size to start off, I had a single flouro pinkie on the hook. It took 25 minutes to get a bite and a 8oz skimmer was a nice first fish in the conditions.

Another skimmer shortly after and then a 4lb carp, which wasn't so welcome, but it didn't mess the peg up too much.  I refed after this, as there was obviously fish feeding and I had a little run of 4 skimmers.  This was pretty much the way it panned out for the rest of the day, a couple of fish and then refeed, and a lull, then a couple more, I hooked a couple more carp, one landed and one broke the hook.  What was odd, was that I kept trying caster and fed a caster line a bit shorter, that I never had a bite on a caster, every fish fell to the single flouro pinkie, yet talking to Paul (Faiers) after the match he had caught all his fish on caster.  Given the low temperature and the ice, everyone was surprised that the fish were very responsive to feed, in fact, if you didn't feed regularly, you didn't get bites.

What I had thought would be a tough day, was very enjoyable, a lovely simple days fishing, one rig, one bait and some nice quality skimmers, I had hardly any roach, whereas the other end of the lake they showed.  I didn't have a clue what I had in the net come the all-out, but I was hopeful it would be there or thereabouts.

It wasn't enough to beat match organiser Tony Rixon, who put 32lb on the scales, but my 28lb was enough for second on the day, given the conditions, there were some great weights with 5 over 20lb and everyone except two DNW's in double figures.