Silvers Open, Plantation Lakes, Thursday 30th December 2021

 Last match of 2021 for me, the forecast was mild, light winds and not too much chance of rain, so happy days.  Regular travelling partner Tony picked me up (thanks mate, I do appreciate the lift every weekend) and we headed to the Bridge Inn at Yatton for breakfast,  For the money, its an OK breakfast, but I really do recommend swapping the sausages for extra bacon, which they will do, as the sausages are particularly bland and have a strange, verging on unpleasant texture. 

Onto the lakes and a quick look reveals the lake has more colour than last week, significantly more, on closer inspection it was an algae bloom, several layers and colour shades, hopefully this would encourage the fish to feed a bit and not put them off.

Into the bucket for a draw and out comes peg 7, had this peg two matches ago and fell short, struggling to put together a decent run of fish, would this colour make it better today, I could only hope so.

I'd brought a waggler and a light feeder rod, they stayed in the holdall, I decided on a pole only approach, given the colour I dropped a section short of where I fished last time and plumbed up two lines at 13m, both the same depth, so the same rig for both, a 4x12 Preston Maggot float with spread 11's, 0.08 hooklength and a 22 F1 pellet hook.  I did set up a 'standard' bulk and dropper rig, same line and hook and I also set up a Guru slim float with spread 11's for a line at 7 joints - same float would do for a line at topkit +1.

Fed 2 lines at 13 on the all-in, one with two 'jaffa's' of GB with caster, magot and pinkie in and one with one ball with just a few casters in, started on the line at 7 joints, where I fed a tiny nugget of GB and casters.  It didn't take long to get into fish, roach to start with and then a couple of decent skimmers, the first hour was great, I put getting on for 10lb in the net.

As the line slowed down I went out to 13m, had a couple of fish off each line, and decided to top them up, not sure this was right as, it seemed to be the kiss of death, I ended up fishing the peg as I did the last time, switching between lines to keep bites coming, catching everything on single caster, feeding the short line by hand, the 7 joints line with a catapult ans the 13m lines with a big cup.  This time I did get a couple more decent skimmers and some nice roach, even having a spell catching them at topkit+1 loose feeding caster by hand

Honestly wasn't sure what weight I had at the end and was slightly surprised to put 29.08 on the scales, which was enough for second on the day, so a reasonable end to the year.

Happy New Year and lets hope for an uninterrupted year of fishing in 2022.

 

Silvers Open, Plantation Lakes, Thursday 23rd December 2021

 Rare Thursday off to fish a match, so looking forward to it. Wasn't overjoyed to draw peg 2 next to Des, who was also not happy about drawing peg 1.

Fed a line for skimmers and then came short(ish) fishing caster, after 20 minutes I had a roach, and it all went down hill from there, I let Des nick my fish, I tried to catch skimmers (and there aren't usually many in pegs 1 and 2), I didn't feed enough and fed a fishmeal based GB, all wrong and I was handed a lesson in roach fishing.

Acorn Open, Saturday 18th December 2021

 Second of my winter opens on acorn, these matches have a 50/50 payout, overall and silvers.  I drew 21 - after last weeks winter league had thrown up an unexpected weight from here, I was hopeful, but it was't to be, I gave it 30 minutes fishing for carp, before switching to silvers, they were hard to come by but at least I had a few bites, I think the weigh sheet shows the fish were bunched up.  Beaten for 1st in the silvers by Joe - just the 1oz in it!

Hopefully it'll fish better next open.

Rons Silvers League R2, Plantation Lakes, Sunday 12th December 2021

 Drew peg 7  not the worst peg on the lake, so needed to get a top two in section to make up for the last round.  It was tricky to get a run of fish totter, I fished 3 lines, two at 14.5m and one at 7 joints and had to rotate them to get one or two fish off a line before moving.  Didn't achieve the desired result, beat the anglers either side but fell 8lb short of the required weight for top  in section.

Acorn Winter League, Round 2, Saturday 11th December 2021

 Onto section B this round, it's consistently the second best section behind A, but that's not important, as it's section points that are being fished for and the payouts are sections only.

In B section over the last couple of years peg 15 and 22 have been the consistent form pegs, so thought I would have to beat them to win the section.  I caught all my fish on one line, tight across in 20" of water toss potting maggots.

Was happy to have beaten Paul on 15, but just couldn't compete with 21/22, well done to Kev on 21, it's not been a decent draw for a while now.  Really need some decent draws in the coming rounds.

Rons Silvers League, R1, Shiplate Farm, Sunday 5th December 2021

 Was looking forward to getting back to Shiplate today, after the success of yesterday, wasn't too upset with my draw, as 22lb had come off it the day before, so was expecting a few fish.

Turned out to be a tough day, 0.08 and 22's came out of the box, a negative and a positive line fished, but really struggled for bites, even at the end I couldn't say what I could have done to catch more.  shame, not a good start to the league.

Shiplate Silvers league, Shiplate Farm, Saturday 4th December 2021

Fished this as a stand in, drew peg 10, which I did wonder if it being a bit closed in by the island, would be OK, I might have preferred a peg in the open water. 

Simple set up, a bulk shotted rig and a strung out rig - it seems the days of catching commercial skimmers on heavy and double bulked rigs are gone, the light strung out rigs seem to be the ones that catch most fish now.

I struggled for 90 minutes, my first fish was a roach after 80 minutes, I then had a skimmer at 14.5m and stayed there for the rest of the match catching skimmers around the 2lb mark on dead maggots over GB, lovely days fishing and nice to win on the day.