Saturday 24th Kippax Park Fishery Open
A new venue for the blog, this was my first visit of the year to Kippax Park on the outskirts of Leeds. Most matches are held on the Lapwing pool, a snake lake where it is 15 - 17m to the island. It's only a 6 or 7 year-old lake but it's by no means easy and a good weight at this time last year was 70lb. The target is proper carp between 2lb and 6lb plus some decent ide, although the ide haven't been showing well this year it seems looking at results. These aren't big matches and there were 17 of us on the 27 peg lake, but I like the atmosphere and I've known most of the lads who fish it because I fished with them at the Willows in York for years when I first ventured onto the open match scene. They are friendly matches and generally the right hand side of the lake is better, I fancied anywhere between peg 5 and 14 so I was delighted to draw peg 8. This is a good across and edge peg for carp.
To my right on peg 10 I found my old mate Andy Stonner, who I've drawn next to several times over the years at various venues. The weather today was awful and it spent most of the day raining or trying to but the lack of wind meant that the 16.5m of pole required to get tight to the far bank wouldn't be too difficult. Now in past years I've found that the carp in Kippax are probably the craftiest I've come across on a commercial - your peg can be full of fish and you can hardly get a proper bite. This is especially true on the far bank where I've found that unless your rig is touching the bank, you'll foulhook most of your fish. Today I found a nice little gap in the far side grass with 10ins of water to fish into. Here I would feed maggots, feeding pellets just sees too many line bites. I've found this true on many snake lakes up here - once the fish spawn after June, maggots always seem to be the best bait in the mudline unless the lake has hordes of bits in. The Method feeder can also work occasionally at Kippax but the fish are not daft and soon wise up to it being cast in. I put up a 10ft rod too.
I also assembled a margin rig in about 18ins of water to my left and right, about 11m down the bank. A light ide rig for down the track completed things, both these would also be fed with maggots and casters. It didn't take long for the mudline to show signs of activity and I soon found myself attached to a 2lb carp. I had five or six in quick succession and caught steadily for the first few hours, pulling away from everybody I could see. After a few hours and around 15 carp in the net things became harder, I tried for ide briefly but caught two tiny skimmers and Andy wasn't having much look on the ide front to my right either.
Halfway through I decided to give the edge a look, I love these matches because the draw is at 10am and they fish 11.15 until 5.15! So this was normal edge time anyway. After feeding it I returned to the pot of bait as swirls appeared and straight away I was into a carp. It was then that things started to go pear-shaped. I was suffering badly with foul-hookers, bites that looked proper just saw a fish quickly hooked and lost and I think I lost three in succession. Plumbing my rig up tight to the bank further down saw the same problem. I tried all sorts, just feeding maggots, just feeding groundbait, full worm on the hook, feeding next to nothing, allsorts! All I added was a few decent fish to the keepnets. Sean Rogers to my left was now starting to catch good fish regularly so I had to force myself to ignore the swirls down the edge and spent the last hour across. I've experienced this before at Kippax, fish swirling down the edge but spooking on your rig. The water is coloured and there is cover in the edge. Next time I think I might try a really smelly bait like paste.
Anyway I managed to start putting a few carp in the net, plus decent ide on the across line. I love this kind of fishing as you can see the fish swirling on the mudline, getting closer to your hookbait, and you know when you're going to get a bite! I was worried that Sean had caught me up and his blistering last few hours saw him record 83lb. But my 30 or so carp plus about six ide went 102lb 4oz, enough for a win on my return.
Result (17 pegs)
1. B Fisk 102-4-0 peg 8
2. S Raper 94-8-0 peg 24
3. S Rogers 83-0-0 peg 5
Sunday 25th Lindholme Open Willows Lake
Today 21 of us lined up for an open on Willows. I slept in so I was left with the last peg in the bag, peg 15. I had a bit of an argument with owner Neil about why he had put this in, the reason being is that it is at the start of this bay and is facing a point peg (40) about 18m away. Had he put me on the usual peg 16 in the middle of the bay I would have been much better off, especially as the next peg in then is peg 20 on the other side. No peg picture today because my phone was out of action after getting damp in it the day before!
Anyway to cut a long story short this turned out to be a rock hard match by summer standards here. An early run of good F1s shallow soon fizzled out and by the half way point I was struggling for a bite, as were many others. A few anglers started to catch on feeders so I had no choice but to prepare some micropellets and get my rod from the car. It proved to be a good move!
Casting this over my pole line gave a few nice F1s, a bream and more importantly two surprise proper carp of 8lb and 4lb. I was never going to beat John Allerton and Steve Cooke in the first bay but I managed to bag an unexpected third place. Perhaps the rain the previous day was to blame for the fishing today?
Result (21 pegs)
1. J Allerton 112-4-0 peg 51
2. S Cooke 81-10-0 peg 7
3. B Fisk 68-9-0 peg 15
4. S Rothery 60-6-0 peg 48
Lindholme Bank Holiday Monday (Laurels & Willows)
Back again and as is customary on a bank holiday, a mystery pairs event was to run alongside the normal open. It's a great idea and is done completely randomly on weight. At the end of the match, all the pegs are put back into the bag and Neil draws them out in pairs, with the weights added together, so even if you don't catch much you still stand a chance of winning money. I wasn't sure which lake I wanted to be on today as Willows had fished so poorly yesterday, but I was sure it would be better today. Ironically Neil had put peg 16 on Willows in today after I moaned so much about 15 yesterday, and he was trying to put his old curse on me to draw it! Thankfully I came out of the bag with 56 Laurels. This is a peg I've always wanted to draw but never have, in the same bay as peg 25 and with an empty platform and reedbed to the left, where you catch some big fish in winter.
No peg picture again, this is an old one from peg 25. Peg 56 is on the right of the picture next to the overhanging tree.
With only 25 or so fishing we had plenty of room, there was one other angler in my bay on the point peg 25. Odd F1s were rolling and I could feel a few fish were definitely on the cards today. Again a simple match was in order. I set up to fish at 5m, shallow at 13-14m and an edge rig to the platform on my left. There are lots of roach in this lake so I started off on hard pellet at 5m, an F1 hooked itself on-the-drop first go! I had to wait considerably longer for the next one and after 15 minutes it was time to go shallow. I caught straight away. One point here is that I see too many anglers start a match shallow. When it's ridiculously solid on Willows you can sometimes get away with this but it's always best to start short or on a feeder or something, so you can build a shallow line up. On some lakes or days it can take 45 minutes before you have the fish lined up shallow. I've seen it so many times here that anglers start shallow, can't catch, so give it up and do something else. Completely the wrong way round of doing things!
The first few hours flew by and after two hours I felt I had around 70lb in the net. Then the sun came out and started making the fish finicky. I was missing a few bites and the fish seemed to be snatching at the pellet, and it was taking longer for a bite to materialise. Even so I was still catching well, although in the middle two hours the stamp of fish became 12oz - 1lb stockies, rather than the 2lb jobs I had earlier. I decided to put a third keepnet in. Not enough anglers do this at Lindholme I don't think, but I've started doing it when a big weight is on the cards. Not just to be kinder to the fish but so that your nets are easier to lift out, especially when you are well above the water level, as you are on Laurels.
In the last hour one of the anglers from Willows came and watched me and couldn't believe how quickly I was catching. But I was adamant this was quite a wait for bites with this style of fishing here in summer, even though he timed two fish taking 13 seconds and 19 seconds respectively to be hooked after putting the rig in. Today Laurels was definitely the lake to be on as Willows fished hard again, 101lb was top weight on there. I recorded exactly 176lb which I thought was enough to win until the last man to weigh in, Dale Sheppard, plonked 182lb on the scales from peg 38 in the top bay. Dale is very fast when he's on fish and I just hadn't been fast enough today. In my defence my asthma was horrendous today and I seemed to be coughing every 20 seconds, but I felt I should still have had a few more.
Back to the club house and the mystery pairs draw. I was amazed that Dale hadn't entered the pairs but there was a further twist too. Paul Yates had been paid into the pairs by his mate and didn't know. Neil was aware and was calling upon his friend Ron in the spirit world to get me drawn with Paul in the pairs stakes! When 16 Laurels (Paul's peg) came out, I knew what was coming. 56 Laurels I bet? Yep. But when I asked to see the peg it miraculously turned into 20 Willows. Phew! I was eventually drawn with Andy Whitehouse who took 60lb from Willows, which was more than enough. I also won this pairs event in April with Steve Cooke, slightly spawny I hear you say! A great end to the three day weekend nevertheless...
Match Result
1. D Sheppard 182-2-0, L38
2. B Fisk 176-0-0, L56
3. J Allerton 140-10-0, L65
4. S Cooke, 138-2-0 L33
Mystery Pairs
1. B Fisk/A Whitehouse 243lb
2. S Cooke/S Dyson 203lb
A new venue for the blog, this was my first visit of the year to Kippax Park on the outskirts of Leeds. Most matches are held on the Lapwing pool, a snake lake where it is 15 - 17m to the island. It's only a 6 or 7 year-old lake but it's by no means easy and a good weight at this time last year was 70lb. The target is proper carp between 2lb and 6lb plus some decent ide, although the ide haven't been showing well this year it seems looking at results. These aren't big matches and there were 17 of us on the 27 peg lake, but I like the atmosphere and I've known most of the lads who fish it because I fished with them at the Willows in York for years when I first ventured onto the open match scene. They are friendly matches and generally the right hand side of the lake is better, I fancied anywhere between peg 5 and 14 so I was delighted to draw peg 8. This is a good across and edge peg for carp.
To my right on peg 10 I found my old mate Andy Stonner, who I've drawn next to several times over the years at various venues. The weather today was awful and it spent most of the day raining or trying to but the lack of wind meant that the 16.5m of pole required to get tight to the far bank wouldn't be too difficult. Now in past years I've found that the carp in Kippax are probably the craftiest I've come across on a commercial - your peg can be full of fish and you can hardly get a proper bite. This is especially true on the far bank where I've found that unless your rig is touching the bank, you'll foulhook most of your fish. Today I found a nice little gap in the far side grass with 10ins of water to fish into. Here I would feed maggots, feeding pellets just sees too many line bites. I've found this true on many snake lakes up here - once the fish spawn after June, maggots always seem to be the best bait in the mudline unless the lake has hordes of bits in. The Method feeder can also work occasionally at Kippax but the fish are not daft and soon wise up to it being cast in. I put up a 10ft rod too.
I also assembled a margin rig in about 18ins of water to my left and right, about 11m down the bank. A light ide rig for down the track completed things, both these would also be fed with maggots and casters. It didn't take long for the mudline to show signs of activity and I soon found myself attached to a 2lb carp. I had five or six in quick succession and caught steadily for the first few hours, pulling away from everybody I could see. After a few hours and around 15 carp in the net things became harder, I tried for ide briefly but caught two tiny skimmers and Andy wasn't having much look on the ide front to my right either.
Halfway through I decided to give the edge a look, I love these matches because the draw is at 10am and they fish 11.15 until 5.15! So this was normal edge time anyway. After feeding it I returned to the pot of bait as swirls appeared and straight away I was into a carp. It was then that things started to go pear-shaped. I was suffering badly with foul-hookers, bites that looked proper just saw a fish quickly hooked and lost and I think I lost three in succession. Plumbing my rig up tight to the bank further down saw the same problem. I tried all sorts, just feeding maggots, just feeding groundbait, full worm on the hook, feeding next to nothing, allsorts! All I added was a few decent fish to the keepnets. Sean Rogers to my left was now starting to catch good fish regularly so I had to force myself to ignore the swirls down the edge and spent the last hour across. I've experienced this before at Kippax, fish swirling down the edge but spooking on your rig. The water is coloured and there is cover in the edge. Next time I think I might try a really smelly bait like paste.
Anyway I managed to start putting a few carp in the net, plus decent ide on the across line. I love this kind of fishing as you can see the fish swirling on the mudline, getting closer to your hookbait, and you know when you're going to get a bite! I was worried that Sean had caught me up and his blistering last few hours saw him record 83lb. But my 30 or so carp plus about six ide went 102lb 4oz, enough for a win on my return.
Result (17 pegs)
1. B Fisk 102-4-0 peg 8
2. S Raper 94-8-0 peg 24
3. S Rogers 83-0-0 peg 5
Sunday 25th Lindholme Open Willows Lake
Today 21 of us lined up for an open on Willows. I slept in so I was left with the last peg in the bag, peg 15. I had a bit of an argument with owner Neil about why he had put this in, the reason being is that it is at the start of this bay and is facing a point peg (40) about 18m away. Had he put me on the usual peg 16 in the middle of the bay I would have been much better off, especially as the next peg in then is peg 20 on the other side. No peg picture today because my phone was out of action after getting damp in it the day before!
Anyway to cut a long story short this turned out to be a rock hard match by summer standards here. An early run of good F1s shallow soon fizzled out and by the half way point I was struggling for a bite, as were many others. A few anglers started to catch on feeders so I had no choice but to prepare some micropellets and get my rod from the car. It proved to be a good move!
Casting this over my pole line gave a few nice F1s, a bream and more importantly two surprise proper carp of 8lb and 4lb. I was never going to beat John Allerton and Steve Cooke in the first bay but I managed to bag an unexpected third place. Perhaps the rain the previous day was to blame for the fishing today?
Result (21 pegs)
1. J Allerton 112-4-0 peg 51
2. S Cooke 81-10-0 peg 7
3. B Fisk 68-9-0 peg 15
4. S Rothery 60-6-0 peg 48
Lindholme Bank Holiday Monday (Laurels & Willows)
Back again and as is customary on a bank holiday, a mystery pairs event was to run alongside the normal open. It's a great idea and is done completely randomly on weight. At the end of the match, all the pegs are put back into the bag and Neil draws them out in pairs, with the weights added together, so even if you don't catch much you still stand a chance of winning money. I wasn't sure which lake I wanted to be on today as Willows had fished so poorly yesterday, but I was sure it would be better today. Ironically Neil had put peg 16 on Willows in today after I moaned so much about 15 yesterday, and he was trying to put his old curse on me to draw it! Thankfully I came out of the bag with 56 Laurels. This is a peg I've always wanted to draw but never have, in the same bay as peg 25 and with an empty platform and reedbed to the left, where you catch some big fish in winter.
No peg picture again, this is an old one from peg 25. Peg 56 is on the right of the picture next to the overhanging tree.
With only 25 or so fishing we had plenty of room, there was one other angler in my bay on the point peg 25. Odd F1s were rolling and I could feel a few fish were definitely on the cards today. Again a simple match was in order. I set up to fish at 5m, shallow at 13-14m and an edge rig to the platform on my left. There are lots of roach in this lake so I started off on hard pellet at 5m, an F1 hooked itself on-the-drop first go! I had to wait considerably longer for the next one and after 15 minutes it was time to go shallow. I caught straight away. One point here is that I see too many anglers start a match shallow. When it's ridiculously solid on Willows you can sometimes get away with this but it's always best to start short or on a feeder or something, so you can build a shallow line up. On some lakes or days it can take 45 minutes before you have the fish lined up shallow. I've seen it so many times here that anglers start shallow, can't catch, so give it up and do something else. Completely the wrong way round of doing things!
The first few hours flew by and after two hours I felt I had around 70lb in the net. Then the sun came out and started making the fish finicky. I was missing a few bites and the fish seemed to be snatching at the pellet, and it was taking longer for a bite to materialise. Even so I was still catching well, although in the middle two hours the stamp of fish became 12oz - 1lb stockies, rather than the 2lb jobs I had earlier. I decided to put a third keepnet in. Not enough anglers do this at Lindholme I don't think, but I've started doing it when a big weight is on the cards. Not just to be kinder to the fish but so that your nets are easier to lift out, especially when you are well above the water level, as you are on Laurels.
In the last hour one of the anglers from Willows came and watched me and couldn't believe how quickly I was catching. But I was adamant this was quite a wait for bites with this style of fishing here in summer, even though he timed two fish taking 13 seconds and 19 seconds respectively to be hooked after putting the rig in. Today Laurels was definitely the lake to be on as Willows fished hard again, 101lb was top weight on there. I recorded exactly 176lb which I thought was enough to win until the last man to weigh in, Dale Sheppard, plonked 182lb on the scales from peg 38 in the top bay. Dale is very fast when he's on fish and I just hadn't been fast enough today. In my defence my asthma was horrendous today and I seemed to be coughing every 20 seconds, but I felt I should still have had a few more.
Back to the club house and the mystery pairs draw. I was amazed that Dale hadn't entered the pairs but there was a further twist too. Paul Yates had been paid into the pairs by his mate and didn't know. Neil was aware and was calling upon his friend Ron in the spirit world to get me drawn with Paul in the pairs stakes! When 16 Laurels (Paul's peg) came out, I knew what was coming. 56 Laurels I bet? Yep. But when I asked to see the peg it miraculously turned into 20 Willows. Phew! I was eventually drawn with Andy Whitehouse who took 60lb from Willows, which was more than enough. I also won this pairs event in April with Steve Cooke, slightly spawny I hear you say! A great end to the three day weekend nevertheless...
Match Result
1. D Sheppard 182-2-0, L38
2. B Fisk 176-0-0, L56
3. J Allerton 140-10-0, L65
4. S Cooke, 138-2-0 L33
Mystery Pairs
1. B Fisk/A Whitehouse 243lb
2. S Cooke/S Dyson 203lb
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