Two separate draw buckets for today's draw, each pair to decide which bucket each angler was going to draw from, as we had no real information, I dived into the RH bucket and pulled out 45, meant nothing to me, but apparently I would have the wind off my back, which wasn't too bad. This was on Hillview Lake, Mike pulled out 73 on Ash Lake.
I dropped Mike off at his peg and went to find mine, which as promised had the wind off my back and an island to chuck a method....... deep joy!! Talking of methods, even the staunchest float angler in the SW, Mr Rixon had one set up.
I set up a method to fish to the island (if absolutely necessary) and 4 topkits, a AS float 0.6g to fish at 13m, a 0.4 NG gimp to fish at topkit + 2, a shallow rig and a rig to fish down to the unoccupied 44,
I started on the method, but it must have been like watching someone who had only ever picked up a fishing rod in the shop, two casts where I had clipped up, but I felt it was too close to the island ( too shallow) so wound 4 turns of line round the spool and reclipped, Next cast looked spot on, as I lifted the rod to stop and cushion the feeder, only to see it fly past the spot and land on the island. The clip had come off and that was the end of the hooklength and part of the feeder. Enough of that nonsense and up the bank with it.
I had 4 and 6mm pellets on the side tray and a couple of pints of casters, I was hoping the casters might tempt the fish to come shallow , so fed them regularly by hand. I picked up the topkit +2 rig and tried caster on the bottom, this resulted in bites, plenty of them, from perfect, miniature tench, lovely little things, but not much good for weight building.
Out onto the 13m line with a 6mm pellet in the band and feeding 4mm pellets by catapult, this saw the carp start coming, they seem to range from 8oz to a couple of pounds, although I did have one nearly 5lb, but he was a lonesome chap amongst the manic, whirling stockies.
The 13m line consistently produced the 'pasties' and a few looks on the short line produced the odd carp to pellet, but was slower than the long line. I persevered with this until about 2 o'clock when the angler to my right on 46 started having a run of fish on the method, so I picked mine back up, put a new one on and cast out, somehow this one came off - a real noddy display of method chucking today - so another new one on and back out. A couple of fish on pellet, then I changed to a white band-um and this brought a few more fish, but it wasn't quicker than the pole and the fish were no bigger.
I did see a few swirls over my caster line and tried banded caster , I had an enjoyable 15 minutes catching a couple of 1lb skimmers and roach to 10oz shallow, but no carp. Back onto the 13m line and a concerted effort saw a few more pasties added to the net in the final hour. My 92.02 was nowhere in the match, bur was enough to be second in section and a welcome pick-up for the third match running. Mike had a quiet spell during his match and this cost him, so we are about halfway down the table after R1.
Its a great set up at Todber, plenty of bites, but I couldn't fish for those pasty carp week in, week out. Lesson learnt today, there are big carp in the lake, Tucks won the section and had some right lumps, on meat, which I hadn't taken, believing it to be all small fish. The other lesson would be not to try and chase bigger fish or quicker fish on other lines, when you are catching steadily, stick with it.
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