Chatting to Tony Rixon on Sunday, we fancied a change of venue for a Tuesday costcutter, as Acorn has been tough lately and unfortunately, it takes us so long to get to Ivy House, it meant trying to garner enough interest in another venue, Viaduct match lake was mooted, but Landsend came up as the one to try.
Tony picked me up and we stopped at the café in Shipham, we were joined at the table by Leon and he did his best to convince me I'd draw on a few fish today. This is the first time I have been in there since Wendy left and I must say, it was very good, nice food, good service and a bit of banter with the staff.
Just 9 of us today, so spread around the match lake, I was first into the draw tub and out comes 11, apparently the fish have been up this end, so fingers crossed they hadn't moved. Whilst tackling up I didn't see a single fish move, nor whilst having a good plumb round the peg did I feel any fish, so not such a good sign.
I set up a homemade wire stem slim with 4 No11 stotz spread out, to fish banded pellet just down the shelf, a carbon stemmed NG Gimp No1 to dob maggots round the peg, a margin rig, a rig to fish meat at 6m and finally, another Gimp to fish the deepest part of the peg at about 14m off the point of the island. Bait tray was fairly simple, 4 & 6mm pellets, dead maggots and 6mm meat,
Starting on the dobbing rig, I spent nearly 30 minutes searching the peg and had one bite from a miniscule roach which fell off when shipping back. I had been pinging a few 4mm pellets across towards the rushes and slipped a 6mm pellet into the band and dropped the rig in, it settled and dipped, first fish netted, an F1. Another 3 F1's and a 2lb carp followed fairly quickly, before the bites dried up. I did rotate round the lines, the margin down to peg 12, the meat line and out to the 14m line, all to no avail.
I had to try and make something work, so I opened up the casters I had languishing in my bait bag and started a new line towards the island, easing a caster into the band, I shipped it out and laid it in, the float settled and kept on going, another decent F1 netted. Next drop in, same again, then a couple of missed bites before a roach joined the F1's in the net. The roach was to be the last action from this line all match, nice to see the F1's but not enough of them there to stay competing for feed.
Another look round the lines, I had been fairly frugally dripping maggots and corn in front of peg 12, but this again didn't give so much as a quiver on the float, I tried upping the feed, hoping for something, even if a few perch moved in, but the line remained resolutely biteless. The meat line gave me a flurry of 3 bites, 2 of which I missed, one was hit and resulted in a 8oz hybrid. Then that was it, every other look on it was biteless.
I had started to feed the 14m line a little heavier, about 100 micros and a few dead maggots every 20 minutes and dropping in on this saw a few indications and missed bites. I tried soft pellet to no avail and corn, with an hour of the match to go, I went back to double maggot saw a decent skimmer netted, then a 6oz hybrid, next up was a 12oz perch - all accidentals, as I had set my stall out for carp, but with only one in the net, they were remaining elusive. I then hit a bite that felt like a carp, but after it ran towards me, it shed the hook. Two more carp were hooked and netted, but they were only small, as the weigh in proved, with the 3 carp going 12.04, the F1's and assorted silvers went 13.08, giving me a total of 25.12, which was 4th overall and top silvers weight. The carp, whilst not abundant did seem to be on the other side, as the top 3 weights all came from there.
It was a nice change today, started with a good breakfast, the realisation that I had left my Goretex jacket at home, was soon sorted as fishery owner Mike Duckett lent me a jacket, that stayed unworn!! No rain. The fishery is so peaceful, no motorway nearby, the birdsong was the only noise for virtually all of the day until a low flying aircraft came over the moors in some exercise. I even felt that whilst I wasn't sat on a shedful, there was ways to get a bite and a fish, it took some working out and all in all, was an enjoyable day.
Next up is Viaduct on Saturday for Don Sutherland's memorial match.
1: Leon Hubbard 54.07 peg 15
2: Tony Rixon 50.02 peg 20
3: Mike Duckett 36.05 peg 22
4: Chris Fox 25.12 peg 11
Silvers
1: Chris Fox 13.08 peg 11
No comments:
Post a Comment