Tony Rixon's Float Only, Penultimate Round, Shiplate, Sunday 21st July 2019

After the torrential rain of Friday and some spells yesterday, it was good to see a weather forecast with no rain for todays trip to this well kept fishery.  A bit of socialising before the draw and I got distracted and instead of being near the front of the queue, I ended up near the back.  6 Hawthorn was to be my home for the day, I will admit, I wasn't too chuffed, as I had brought Burt expanders, corn and Burts Silver Sensation/Expander GB to fish for skimmers, really hoping for a draw on the main lake.

I arrived at the peg and it was shouting out to be fished across with a banded pellet, tight to the far bank, I did set one up and plumbed it up, but had somewhat foolishly decided to 'fish for everything' by fishing expanders short and down the track.  So a rig set up for that, it was the same depth from under my feet to within 6' of the far bank, so one rig for both lines.  A HillBilly chump with the titan wire stem, I have been trying these and they are well suited to this sort of fishing.

A paste rig and a margin rig completed the set up, I wasn't convinced about the margin, it was only a topkit either side and too deep.  Neither of these really featured in the day, nor did they contribute to the weight, so no more to say about them.

I did go across on the all in, but whilst the plummet had gone in ok, the rig was settling on loose fronds of grass and reed.  I then hooked a small roach on the banded pellet and it fell off, then the rig looped over into the bushes.... great start.

I then decided that I was going to make the peg fish the way I wanted it to and would catch silvers and carp on my two lines.  Well, it was a fairly daft idea, after 2 hours I had one 6lb carp, two skimmers and two tiny roach.  I had two options, call it a day and go home, as the day was going nowhere or sort myself out and fish the peg in the manner necessary to catch.

I got out the very handy weed cutter that fits on the end of the pole (screws onto the cupping kit) made by Lee Murphy, cleared out the far side as best I could, picked up the rig I had set up, which was a Drennan clear float, on 0.16, to 0.14 and a 18 LWG hook, with a band.  Started pinging 6mm Burts feed pellets across, with a 6mm in the band and I started catching.  By the time I started this there was 3.5 hours of the match left and I still had 6lb in the net.

Initially I was sat there thinking what am I doing, I am not enjoying this, but I had to keep the feed going in and fed about 3 pints.  It was a bit of a balancing act, too much and it was fouler after fouler, not enough and the bites dried up, so it became interesting and I ended up enjoying it.  The best way to catch was to lay a couple of inches of line on the bottom and wait for a bite, lifting and dropping just incurred more foulers.

I ended up with what I thought was about 115lb, it actually went 129.12 and if I hadn't been so determined to make the peg fish my way and had actually fished it as it needed to be fished for the whole 6 hours, I am sure it was a 200lb peg.  A minor consolation as I got the section by double default and instead of finishing 8th it really should have been a framing place, if not the win.  Being stubborn is a life long trait of mine, sometimes it pays dividends, others times, such as today, its not such a endearing quality.

Oh well, on to the next one, Barston on Tuesday, looking forward to that.