Sunday 10 October 2021

Ivy House Open, Sunday 3rd October 2021

 Over two lakes today, old match lake and willow, I didn't fancy drawing the bank by the speci lake, so where did I draw, 32, one peg away from where I dismally failed to weigh in in the spring festival.

Travelling partner Tony, drew peg 2 which I would have taken in preference to mine.  I did set up a method, a straight lead and a waggler - the two lead rods went away at the end unused, as I thought my best chance of picking up was fishing for silvers and I did expect the OML to produce the winning silvers weight, but decided to give it go, as for me it would be a bit of an unknown, not having fished for silvers on willow before.

Started well catching roach short on caster, then the sun came out and spoilt that, I had fed two skimmer lines, one with GB/maggot and another with micros.  Well I had a frustrating few hours, my bluetooth headphones were flat, so had to listen the the GP from the speaker on my phone (turned right down so as not to upset anyone).  But the biggest frustration was that there were skimmers in the peg, I was missing bites and foul hooking them.  I tried lighter rigs, heavier rigs, not feeding GB, corn on the waggler (not a bite on it) and I was pretty stumped, the one thing I didn't do was persist with expanders, which turned out to be a mistake.

I the last 30 minutes the trees and bushes behind me cast a shadow on the water and the roach came back, I had some decent fish (up to 10oz) amongst the smaller specimens, but felt I'd fall a long way short.

As it turns out there wasn't a big silvers weight from OML (17.12 being top silvers on there) and John on peg 31 to my right weighed 24.14 to my 17.10, he'd sat it out on expanders and caught plenty of hand sized skimmers  - patience is a virtue I am yet to learn..... (likewise having confidence in soft pellets!)



No comments: