It was no surprise to see the rain falling as Tony arrived to pick me up, it seems to have been a recurring theme this summer - or what laughingly passes as summer - to be OK in the week and then piss down at the weekend. I opted for the big breakfast, so extra gym sessions this week, very nice but it is a filling plateful.
Into the drawbag and out comes peg 1, a corner that look like it will be a margin fishers paradise, but with peg 20 and peg 2 in today, its a little hemmed in and had the wind blowing out of it...... is that enough excuses yet???
Plumbing up I found that the peg slopes away from the end bank and out in front for about 13m, given the foul weather, I set up a feeder rod to fish a cage feeder and GB/worm well beyond pole range, hoping that the skimmers would settle over it. Four topkits, one for down the edge, which although it looks inviting, slopes away, with no real shelf that I could find. 2 lines here, I decided on GB/maggot at 8m in by a rush bed and at 14.5 which I would feed with 8mm pellets. Three rigs for the open water, one wire stemmed 0.4g to fish worm/soft pellet, a double bulk rig and a rig to fish banded pellet..
I fed some micro's and 4mm pellets at 13m and then started on the feeder, this resulted in one double figure ghostie, but not the target skimmers. After 1/2 an hour or so, I had a look over the 13m line and had bites immediately on soft pellet, but it was the same as my other visits, small skimmers. I switched to a banded pellet and this resulted in less bites, but better fish including, bigger skimmers an F1 and a couple more carp. This then died off so I topped up with GB and worm, this had a similar effect to the soft pellet, one small skimmer and one small perch, before it went dead.
By halfway I was having to wait a long time for bites and fed the edge, expecting to see some fish activity, to save typing and energy, the margin was devoid of fish, not so much as a liner at any point during the match, so much so I decided to re attack the 13m line with GB and dead maggot, this saw the stamp of skimmers and the frequency improve in the last hour, as well as a couple of carp taking a fancy to the three dead maggots. I wasn't sure what was leading the lake come the all out, but I was sure that the lack of margin fish would cost me and so it proved. Just to rub it in, within 15 minutes of the all out, the margin was colouring up and there were swirls as the fish moved in - its about time Andy confiscated their watches......
As per the venue rules, I had three nets in, one for silvers which went 22lb, one for carp under 5lb, which went about 10lb and the net with those over 5lb, the three fish went just over 33lb. My 66.02 wasn't enough to pick up, but it was 5th and I feel I learned a fair bit about the venue. Just to cheer me up on the way home, Tony said "I would have been distraught if I had drawn 1 or 2", which he didn't, peg 10 for him and a nice win with 93lb, of which over 80lb was skimmers. (You pick up both here as well, no default payout).
Once again the nice touch after the match, home made scones and sausage rolls whilst waiting for the results.
1: Tony Rixon 93.17 peg 10
2: Clint W 89.00 peg 37
3: Dick 81.07 peg 15
4: Shaun Townsend 77.09 peg 14
5: Chris Fox 66.02 peg 1
6: Mick 63.04 peg 12
Silvers
Tony Rixon 81.02 peg 10
Andy Lloyd 45.10 peg 39
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