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.
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