A weekend double?
Turned up for today's open as usual with two minutes to spare until the draw. This gave me sufficient time to pay on, order breakfast and get a couple of bags of pellets! We were only on the Willows lake today which is good because it is fair and you are not competing against a section on a lake elsewhere. There were 25 of us which meant a few anglers had pegs next to them in but generally it was peg one miss one. I drew peg 42 in what used to be know as Dead Man's Bay, because it is the shallowest bay on the lake, isn't very big and used to be considered a bad draw. In the past few years that has changed however and there are always a few fish here. The only problem today was that there were four anglers in this small bay, two of them being Sir John Allerton in the corner to my left (44) and Steve Cooke opposite on peg 46. Peg 14 on the point was also in and if were to both fish 14m at a slight angle towards each other we would have been touching poles. My peg was just catching the edge of a ripple off my back but I would have preferred to have had it in my face so I was fishing in a good ripple.
First job was to clear out the edge to my right. This peg obviously hadn't been in an open for a while as the reeds were overgrown here. I set up a rig for 7m, slightly further out than usual as the water is getting clearer and sport harder. Three shallow rigs and an edge rig completed the attack. I toyed with the idea of setting a rig up for on the deck long but in the end I couldn't be bothered and decided to convert my short line to one if I needed to. There were very few fish topping and swirling and I expected a hard match again on Willows. This proved to be the case and after 20 minutes I had a few small roach short to show for my efforts. Nobody was catching much. The angler on the point had started shallow and hooked his first fish after 20 minutes so that was my cue to venture out long. After slapping the rig in I hooked an F1 immediately. Sport was best described as steady and after an hour I had about five fish but nobody was setting the world alight. John Allerton had a solitary mirror down his edge and Cookey was getting a few fish short but I stuck shallow for two reasons. 1) the fish are bigger shallow than on the deck. 2) if it took off it gave the chance of winning the match.
The second and third hours were better and more fish were added, with some of being 2lb things. Just like last week it was a case of being patient and then a sudden run of fish would come. I considered fishing a deck rig in between these spells but reasoned it would just confuse matters and possibly slow the catch rate down shallow. After 3.5 hours, I started to catch regularly and the last hour was the best by far. I did feed the edge a couple of times but only saw movement from a few F1s, no big carp. I also changed my elastic to a lighter grade 6-10 Middy hollow, after losing a fish on the way back on white hydro. The fish are definitely slowing down a bit now and weren't as well hooked as they are when they are ravenous in the height of summer. Some anglers pull fish's heads off at the net but I've learnt my lesson in the past and it's very easy to pull out of those bigger 2lb F1s when you start using your puller on them. Now I prefer to take my time and make everything hooked count!
It had actually fished better than I'd anticipated and there were a few 90lbs recorded before my two weighs registered 108lb exactly. Dale Sheppard gave me a bit of a scare with 105lb from peg 50 but I had just done enough. Sir John Allerton unfortunately had a rare off day and really struggled in the corner, tipping back and eventually coming behind and watching me. John stuck to his plan to catch down the edge and on the waggler but today it didn't pay off. More often than not it does for him however as he picks just one or two positive lines and sticks to them all day, that is why he wins so many matches!
Turned up for today's open as usual with two minutes to spare until the draw. This gave me sufficient time to pay on, order breakfast and get a couple of bags of pellets! We were only on the Willows lake today which is good because it is fair and you are not competing against a section on a lake elsewhere. There were 25 of us which meant a few anglers had pegs next to them in but generally it was peg one miss one. I drew peg 42 in what used to be know as Dead Man's Bay, because it is the shallowest bay on the lake, isn't very big and used to be considered a bad draw. In the past few years that has changed however and there are always a few fish here. The only problem today was that there were four anglers in this small bay, two of them being Sir John Allerton in the corner to my left (44) and Steve Cooke opposite on peg 46. Peg 14 on the point was also in and if were to both fish 14m at a slight angle towards each other we would have been touching poles. My peg was just catching the edge of a ripple off my back but I would have preferred to have had it in my face so I was fishing in a good ripple.
First job was to clear out the edge to my right. This peg obviously hadn't been in an open for a while as the reeds were overgrown here. I set up a rig for 7m, slightly further out than usual as the water is getting clearer and sport harder. Three shallow rigs and an edge rig completed the attack. I toyed with the idea of setting a rig up for on the deck long but in the end I couldn't be bothered and decided to convert my short line to one if I needed to. There were very few fish topping and swirling and I expected a hard match again on Willows. This proved to be the case and after 20 minutes I had a few small roach short to show for my efforts. Nobody was catching much. The angler on the point had started shallow and hooked his first fish after 20 minutes so that was my cue to venture out long. After slapping the rig in I hooked an F1 immediately. Sport was best described as steady and after an hour I had about five fish but nobody was setting the world alight. John Allerton had a solitary mirror down his edge and Cookey was getting a few fish short but I stuck shallow for two reasons. 1) the fish are bigger shallow than on the deck. 2) if it took off it gave the chance of winning the match.
The second and third hours were better and more fish were added, with some of being 2lb things. Just like last week it was a case of being patient and then a sudden run of fish would come. I considered fishing a deck rig in between these spells but reasoned it would just confuse matters and possibly slow the catch rate down shallow. After 3.5 hours, I started to catch regularly and the last hour was the best by far. I did feed the edge a couple of times but only saw movement from a few F1s, no big carp. I also changed my elastic to a lighter grade 6-10 Middy hollow, after losing a fish on the way back on white hydro. The fish are definitely slowing down a bit now and weren't as well hooked as they are when they are ravenous in the height of summer. Some anglers pull fish's heads off at the net but I've learnt my lesson in the past and it's very easy to pull out of those bigger 2lb F1s when you start using your puller on them. Now I prefer to take my time and make everything hooked count!
It had actually fished better than I'd anticipated and there were a few 90lbs recorded before my two weighs registered 108lb exactly. Dale Sheppard gave me a bit of a scare with 105lb from peg 50 but I had just done enough. Sir John Allerton unfortunately had a rare off day and really struggled in the corner, tipping back and eventually coming behind and watching me. John stuck to his plan to catch down the edge and on the waggler but today it didn't pay off. More often than not it does for him however as he picks just one or two positive lines and sticks to them all day, that is why he wins so many matches!
1. B Fisk 108-0-0 peg 42
2. D Sheppard 105-8-0 peg 50
3. S Rothery 95-8-0 peg 25
4. C Wood 90-2-0 peg 22
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