Lindholme open Sunday 22nd September

 

Oasis Lake was the destination for today's Lindholme open but with a turnout of 34 on the 63 peg lake it meant a few anglers would have people right next to them, these pegs are usually put together on the bends where there is more water to go at anyway. It was bright and very mild for the time of year. I was really hoping for a very early or very late peg today so I wasn't too impressed when peg 38 came out for me. It can be a good across peg as it has a bit of cover in the form of a reedbed on an otherwise bare mud bank but it wasn't the area of the lake I would have chosen. Very simple stuff today, I had a rig for fishing almost tight up to the bank in about 14ins of water on two or three lines, another for fishing further down the shelf to the reeds and a couple of shallow rigs. I was interested to see if the shallow rigs would work in this area of the lake which is notoriously narrow and featureless.


I couldn't take a picture straight on because of the sun! Note the shadows which were eventually created, giving my pole a bit of cover on the shallow line


I went straight across to the island with pellets and after a bit of a wait a 2lb F1 was safely hooked and landed. Back out again and a repeat performance about 8 minutes later. Then I hooked something bigger in the form of a 4lb carp but this was a good start and I was happy. I had plenty of maggots left over from the day before so I decided to try them and I soon had a swirl over the bait and hooked another proper carp. Unfortunately this shot into the reedbed next to where I was fishing, the float jammed on a reed and it snapped me. Now this is where I lost my way a little. With proper carp around I decided to plumb further along the bank away from the snags and put a bit more bait in, in the form of maggots and groundbait, thinking I was being clever. This never produced a bite! I went back to the original line again but it was now seemingly dead and I think I overdid it a little. I decided on an early look shallow but it took far too long for a bite, although I did get two fish. I was convinced the bright sun and lack of ripple was not very conducive to shallow fishing today.

My next move was to drop down the shelf on two lines. The one in front didn't produce anything, most unusual considering the amount of silvers in here which readily take a pellet. However first drop in to the reeds produced a bonus in the form of a 6lb-plus carp. I then caught a small F1 before the bites from proper fish stopped and the roach and skimmers took over. I tried a few more lines to the right and left with no success. Nobody around me was catching and I had another look shallow, which produced a few more fish and left me thinking this might be my only chance today. This soon died a death however and I was left scratching my head, along with everybody else around me.

It was after 1pm, half way through the match now and I suddenly began to get stomach rumblings. I tried to fend it off but it wasn't going away fast and so I made a quick hot foot down the lake to the toilets in the café. I would have been annoyed if I was catching! Walking down the lake I saw one fish caught and I was thinking that it was fishing hard. Arriving back feeling somewhat relieved with weight of my stomach (must have been those beans that morning) I took stock of the situation. The sun was moving further and further around, and the far bank trees were now creating a shadow on the lake. I decided to restart my shallow line in one of these shadows, in the hope they would obscure the shadow of the pole itself. It took a while but I started to catch a few more shallow, before it died once more. I then decided to move my shallow line again towards the reeds where there was even more of a shadow now, and this proved a good move as the peg became very strong in the last hour. Steve Cooke came to sit behind me for the last half hour and in that time he counted 11 F1s for around 25lb. One of them was a real beast of around 5lb, the biggest F1 I have ever caught.

I was never going to break any records but a catch of 75lb 10oz was enough for a section win and was the best weight on my side of the lake. Elsewhere Paul Yates won the match off end peg 2 with 130lb caught shallow, and John Allerton was second fishing pellets across on peg 26.

Match Result
1. P Yates 130-14-0 p2
2. J Allerton 124-4-0 p26
3. R Lidgard 110-10-0 p29
4. C Elkin 93-3-0 p8