Only one day off this weekend and with my failure to secure
a Fishomania ticket for Viaduct, it was a toss up between a first visit to
Hillview or Landsend. Landsend won,
partly due to a late finish Friday night and an early start Sunday and partly
due to me needing to get the better of the venue, rather than the other way
round.
16 or 17 booked in, so Mike spread the match over two lakes,
with six on lake 3 and 11 on Match lake, paying the lakes as separate matches. I fancied a draw in the high teens on Match
lake or lake 3, I wasn’t sure how the overnight rain and the water Mike has
been pumping into Match lake to raise the level, would affect the fish.
I managed to draw myself peg 7, which was the opposite side
to where I fancied, but it should be worth a few fish, especially as the next
peg in was 11, with first time visitor to Landsend, Mike Walker sat on it. There were a few carp showing themselves, but
not showing any signs of feeding.
My silvers fishing is
over until next winter, so it was pellet and meat on the bait tray, with plenty
of time to set up I, assembled 4 topkits, a AK47 margin float to fish up to the
pallet of peg 8, I did mix up a bit of groundbait and had some dead maggot to
try in the margin. A rig to fish banded pellet up the far shelf, which is now
18” – 2’ deep with the extra water, a rig to fish banded pellet at about 7
sections and a rig for meat short.
Starting on the banded pellet across, I had a small carp
first put in, next drop in saw and F1 netted, that was it before the bites
stopped, I upped the feed a bit and had one more fish, but they wouldn’t
settle. A switch to the 7 section pellet
line was equally unproductive, a long wait for a bite, before a big skimmer was
the first to fall to the 6mm pellet.
After a couple of hours I got off my box and pumped a few expanders, as
the action was so slow, first drop in with an expander saw another big skimmer
netted, my one and only roach and a carp, before the bites dried up.
I had already had a biteless look over the meat line, before
dropping on it with about 2 ½ hours to go, it produced a couple of big skimmers
and a tench, but no sign of a carp. It
was a long wait for a bite, then the tell tale sign of a bubble or two
approaching the float before a bite. By
now there was a few fish in the margin over the GB and I spent (with hindsight)
too long trying to catch them. I had
several, also losing a couple which took the line against the scaffold tube
pallet leg and this caused it to part both times.
The fish weren’t really getting their heads down in the
margin, no tails on show, so liners were an issue, they seemed attracted to the
feed, but weren’t in the feeding frenzy normally associated with margins. I spent too much time into trying to make
them feed, whereas had I just fished the pellet and meat lines, I am sure I
would have picked up the silvers money, as I was just two fish away from
beating serial whitebait thrasher, Nigel Bartlett. Then again, another couple of lumps from the
margin, would have seen me sneak into the overall lake money, which I was one
out of as well…. My fish went 22.04 of
silvers and 49.03 of carp. So an
enjoyable day, with a bit of frustration at the poor decision making, that went far too quickly, roll on next week, the start of Tony Rixon’s short pole series at
Trinity.
Match lake:
1: Rob Watts 91.13 peg 17
2: Martin Pettifer 88.13 peg 19
3: Darren Vowles 83.07 peg 1
4: Chris Fox 71.07 peg 7
5: Mike West 65.09 peg 21
6: Mike Walker 54.08 peg 11
Silvers
1: Nigel Bartlett 26.01 peg 1
2: Chris Fox 22.03 peg 7
Lake 3
1: Rich Lovering 95.13 peg 68
2: Rod Wootten 88.14 peg 61
3: Mark Walsh 65.06 peg 70
Silvers
1: Mark Walsh 18.12 peg 70
No comments:
Post a Comment