Having decided to fish the Ivy House winter league series (they still have some spaces) I thought it best to get some practise in and with plenty of casters left from the weekend I fancied another day fishing for silvers.
I thought the traffic would be bad, but my mood by the time I got to the motorway wasn't the best, Ivy House is about 3 miles further than Viaduct for me, but it took an hour and 50 minutes to get there, its 50 minutes to Viaduct!! Over an hour to get from home to the M4, bloody ridiculous. Once there I was going to order the regular breakfast, but my will power went at the last minute and I had the large one, very nice, a good way to set up for what I assumed would be a chilly day.
I paid Andy for the league fees and the match, before drawing peg 37, not knowing the venue it didn't mean too much, although Andy told me 40lb of skimmers made up part of a 70lb net on Sunday, so I was hopeful of a good day, Andy did warn it might start off slowly.
As 37 is next to the causeway, I did set up a carp rig, but dropped from my usual 0.20 down to 0.16 and a 16 Guru Super Spade as the water was fairly clear. Two skimmer rigs, 0.4g to fish bulk and two droppers, 0.5g to fish a double bulk and a 4x12 rig to fish caster short, I also set up a waggler as we had loads of time before the 11.15 start. The depth was fairly consistent at 13m so I picked an area of 'dark' water for ease of float visibility and fed this with 3 balls of GB/caster/worm - but not too much worm.
Leaving that to settle I fished for roach short, but they weren't too obliging on the topkit to hand, so I went topkit + 2 and this produced a couple of better roach, one of about 8oz, before this line went 'iffy' as well. Out to the 13m line and I expected to see some sign of the skimmers, I had Gary Ethridge the other side of the causeway and he reckoned we were both on decent skimmer pegs, but I hadn't seen a single bubble over the GB and the tiny perch taking the worm, caster or dead maggot were far from a good sign.
After 3 hours with about 3lb in the net, I was starting to question my sanity in booking in for the league, as both lakes were fishing hard and there were guys blanking. There had been carp moving along the far bank (what would be the LH margin of 36) all day, but the venue rules are no fishing further than halfway across the lake. At this point Andy Lloyd walked round, as even he was struggling, he was pointing at the fish in the margin of 36 and saying how coloured it was - not too frustrating then!!
I had tried the area at 14m along the causeway, where I had fed, about 3' out from the bank to find just over 2' of water and there was the odd waft of the float, but I could not induce a bite. With about two hours to go, the carp started moving out of the margin of 36, they were up in the water and mouthing leaves etc on the surface. A pair of them were over my 13m GB line, so I swung the margin rig round and mugged one of them, a fish of about 8 or 9lb, gratefully netted. It was amazing, an area that seemed devoid of fish now had a large number of carp up in the water and heading round the lake - away from me sadly, the rest of them stayed out of reach, but they did start to come closer as they went through peg 38, not sure that they were so visible to Chris Cotterill on that peg, but I could see it was black with them.
Thankfully a few stayed and ventured along the causeway towards me and I had my first from there shortly after the mug fish. There weren't loads there, as I had no indications until the float buried and it was fish on, I was feeding after each fish, fishing maggots (6) on the hook and I though I might end up with 10, but Andy Lloyd came and sat behind me, he's obviously not a good luck charm as I didn't catch in the time he was there and ended with 8 carp and my sparse collection of roach and tiny perch.
The 8 carp went 89.06 and the roach 3.06 for 93.00 dead and first on the day.
1: Chris Fox 93.00 peg 37
2: Val 86.12 peg 20
3: Gary Ethridge 34.06 peg 11
4: Baggy 27.12 peg 3
5: Paul 26.06 peg 31
6: Fred 25.14 peg 14
Silvers
1: Gary Ethridge 15.09 peg 11
2: Terry 12.01 peg 6
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