Ivy House Open, Saturday 4th July 2020

First trip to Ivy House for a while, match on the canals today, which I enjoy as its a bit of variety and a  mixture of silvers and carp.

Andy has been busy and put up some fences that have added to the appearance of the lakes and shielded the car park from the New Canal.

Peg 43 plucked out for me, I had no up to date info, but was happy enough with the area.  With the keepnets and landing nets supplied, it was a novelty to see them already in the water and sat in a wooden bar - great idea.

Just a pole to set up, 4x12 to fish at the bottom of the near shelf, another 4x12 to fish down the track and a 0.5g in case the wind got up.  A margin rig and a rig for across the far side, which was easily in reach with 14m and the dolly butt.  Couldn't find any shallow shelf across, so had to settle for the first shelf which was nearly 3'.

Plan was to start across for carp, then two lines down the track 10 o'clock line fed with a few micros and a couple of 4mm pellets - quite a negative line and a more positive line at 2 o'clock fed with GB, dead maggots and casters.  Also a short line at the bottom of the near shelf, finally margin line to the left in about 18" of water.

Started across and was surprised not to get a bite, not even a liner, gave it 15 minutes before coming off it and feeding the positive line with GB, then dropping in on the negative line with an expander on the hook. Had a couple of small carp, but it wasn't wild, finally had a skimmer on it, but there wasn't much sign of activity.  The positive line was even slower, one skimmer on dead maggot, not a bite on a piece of worm.

The short line has always been a banker for me on this lake, but not today, maggots saw me wait ages for a bite and the reward was a micro perch, this happened several times, so I wasn't at all convinced the fish would come in on that line.

I ended up fishing the negative line for another hour or so, putting an odd fish in the net, a look back across say a few carp in the 2lb bracket come to the net, the margin remained fishless and I was never convinced there were many fish there.

I put 44lb on the scales which beat the peg to my left (just, by ounces) but I didn't stay and get the results, so unfortunately have no idea of the winning weights, suffice to say, mine wouldn't have been one of them.   Enjoyable day though.