Lindholme Festival Day Two

Tuesday 28th July

First of all apologies for the lack of a peg picture, when I get used to this regular blogging lark I will remember to engage brain and get my phone out before setting or packing up!

Today we were scheduled for Oasis Lake but with relentless hot weather of 24-26⁰c and low pressure recently, the lake’s oxygen levels were painfully low.
The aerators were kept on throughout the match on this 64 peg snake lake, which has a far bank to fish to at 14-16m throughout. It’s a brilliant lake with lots of methods working, but I feared we might be in for a tough day. And so it proved.

I won’t delve too much into this match because there is little to write home about. I drew peg 24, the narrowest, shallowest area of the lake. I wasn’t impressed although occasionally there can be a lot of proper mirror and common carp in this section, but there is always a distinct lack of F1s. I fished a positive match, too positive for the day infact, and I was left scratching my head after an hour. Apart from very early on, there were hardly any fish across in the shallow water. I had one fish at 5m all day and nothing down the edge, in fact the only way I could get an odd bite was by fishing pellet shallow to my right. This produced 19 F1s and a carp across for a dismal 30lb 11oz. Incredibly this was actually third in the section, the anglers either side of me fared even worse. On 22 former Fish O’ Mania finalist Paul Christie had, wait for it, 9lb and White Acres regular Mal Proctor mustered 17lb on bend peg 27. On peg 20 was my good friend Lee Kerry, again like my peg it can be solid or devoid in summer. He weighed in 38lb so I think it’s fair to say there wasn’t much feeding in our part of the lake!

The section was won by Andy Middleton on 28, where he took 62lb under the cover of the bushes on the far side. Andy Bennett took the match apart with 125lb from peg 34, a noted big fish area, in fact he only had 33 carp. In the 50s and 60s there was another 100lb and several 80s and 90s. I couldn’t afford another result like this or my chances of winning the festival again would be over.