Ivy House Open Tuedsday 13th September 2016

I'd been wanting to get back to Ivy House for ages, today was an opportunity to give it a shot.  Word was that the skimmers had been feeding, so I had worm and caster, as well as a few pellets and a bag of paste.  The usual decent breakfast, although with the addition of a fancy coffee machine in the cafe, it pushes the price up, I've spent less entertaining classy ladies than feeding Tony Rixon, whose breakfast I bought in return for him driving.

I was hoping for a decent skimmer peg and 14 came out of the bag, should be OK, so rigs were aimed at Skimmer fishing, the only concerning thing was the bright sun and flat calm conditions.  A 0.4g rig to fish a standard bulk and two droppers, a 0.5g double bulk rig, a paste rig to fish short and as the LH edge down to peg 13 looked inviting, I set up a margin rig.

On the all in, I put 3 balls of GB with chopped worm and caster in, at 14m (used my new worm chopper that Paul Faiers got me - he said watch out, the blade is really sharp - I now have a rather large cut on my thumb......) and some caster and pellet at 5m.

I started on the paste short, just to let the GB line settle, after 20 biteless minutes I gave that up and went out with a bit of worm on the hook, it was another 20 before a small skimmer was netted.  Bit of a worryingly slow start, but no one was catching at any rate.  I then had a tench about 3lb and then another skimmer, but the action was far from hectic.  By now the bright sun was hidden behind the encroaching cloud cover and the air was smelling of rain, rain and thunder to be precise.

A swap to caster brought a couple more fish, including a bream of at least 4lb, I had topped up the GB with another ball and it needed another top up to get a couple more fish, by now the rain had started and the thunder and lightening joined in.  The short line had shown a few bubbles and a switch to this saw 3 more decent skimmers in the net, it was about now - roughly halfway through - that the peg completely died, nothing else of the short line and the 14m line only gave me 2 more fish.

The lovely looking margin held a snaggy root, I hadn't found when plumbing up, this resulted in breaking some perfectly good elastic when it went through the bankside vegetation and got cut.  The day was going downhill fast.....

I managed 28.06 for second in silvers which comprised mainly skimmers/bream, 1 tench, 1 perch and 1 roach, I had lost 3 foul hooked carp, so they weren't much of a nuisance, I am not at all convinced it wouldn't have been better to fish soft pellet over micro's although I believe the silvers winner caught on corn.  Will have to get back there soon, as it's a venue I enjoy fishing.  Just have to hope Tony goes on a diet and has  small breakfast and a glass of water........