Ivy House today, not been for a while, just down to circumstance, no other reason, Travelled up by myself as Tony is fishing the Landsend Winter League and I just didn't fancy it.
When I texted the fishery to book on, I was told the only space was on the Heron match, as it's bound to be in the Ivy House Winter League which starts next week, I thought I'd give it a go for a practice as I haven't fished it since the festival last June. I assumed that the summer tactics of fishing short wouldn't come into play today, but I really didn't have any up to date information. I'd brought maggots, pinkies and pellets, the lake only has F1's and carp in (realistically) so no dedicated silvers rigs or bait.
Allan Oram told me I was most likely to catch at 16m, rather than shorter and possibly on the method.... Hmmm, not so good. I drew peg 20 not that it meant anything to me, but 19 wasn't in so I had a bit of room to my right.
I did set up a method feeder, just in case I was absolutely desperate or saw others catching on it. 4 topkits set up, a Preston maggot float with a strung bulk, 0.10 hooklength and 20 hook for a line at 11m in the deepest part of the peg, same set up but a smaller size float for 16m, which was significantly shallower and optimistically a duplicate, but with a banded hook on for hard pellet. Finally a rig for down the edge towards peg 19.
Started down the track tapping a few micros in and fishing a soft pellet, gave it 20 minutes with a motionless float before switching to 16m and a few maggots toss potted, it took an hour and twenty minutes to get a bite, then I had 3 F1's in twenty minutes, but that was it, no other indications. I did have a look down the edge, in hope, not expectation and the hope was dashed, not a bite.
With three hours gone, the light being really bad (couldn't see any colour float tip out there) I had to try and make something work, so came back on the 11m line, upped the feed to a full toss pot of maggots every put in and started to get some F1's and an odd small carp. This carried on - not manic, but at least it was bites - until the all out, no idea what weight I had, so was surprised to go into third place when weighed, with 26.00, but that didn't last long as peg 21 had 27.08, he'd stuck to that shorter line and it obviously paid off. So one out of the money, but a useful practice for the upcoming league.
No comments:
Post a Comment