After last weekend’s trip to Norfolk for the three day Reepham Fishery festival it was back to my regular spring/summer haunt (Willinghurst) for today’s open match. I’m often the first to moan about bad weather conditions whilst fishing but today’s weather was amazing – sunny, 20 odd degrees and a light breeze. (Yes, this is April in England!)
As a result of the first round of a local league series taking-up Top Lake (as well as occupying some of the open match regulars) today’s open match was limited to 18 anglers and Old/New Lakes – as I’ve done quite well recently on Old Lake (and only ever bombed-out on New Lake) I was obviously hoping for a draw on Old but was by no means surprised to find a red poker chip with New 7 in my hand!!!
In all fairness peg 7 on New Lake is a very good pitch as it sits on something of a point and as a result offers lots of open water to go at – it also provides access to peg 8’s platform (as long as nobody is sat on it of course).
Prior to the all-in I set-up a record 5 different rigs! (I don’t normally find the time to set-up for than two so this really was unusual.) These were:
The first 90 minutes of the match were interesting as I caught 3 fish on three different lines and certainly couldn’t get more than one proper bite from each! The first came virtually immediately from the two and half foot line away from the bank and was actually a pretty decent carp. I stuck with this line for a further 20 minutes before switching to the more traditional 5m line – this part of the swim actually plumbed-up terribly as it just seemed to be a 45 degree slope with no start, no finish and certainly no flat spots! However I did manage to sneak-out another carp pretty quickly before foul-hooking and losing another (I knew it was foul-hooked when the float popped-up instead of burying).
That foul-hooker seemed to kill the 5m line so it was out on the long pole shallow as the hot, sunny and still conditions had led to a lot of cruisers doing what they do best – sunbathing with no intention of feeding properly! I had a quick go with the shorter (0.2g) rig pinging a few pellets but after establishing pretty quickly that this wasn’t going to work I switched to the longer (mugging) rig and managed to get a third carp in the net.
Today’s match was fished from 1030 to 1630 and it had been my intention to purposely ignore the margin swim until at least the final two hours of the competition. However at about noon I decided to feed a few cubes of meat next to the vacant platform to my left just to see what would happen – my thinking was that the tree to the left of the platform was casting the only bit of shade onto the lake so given the hot, sunny conditions why not give it a whirl? I potted in a small handful of meat onto this line and went back to fishing the long pole shallow – well for all of about 5 seconds as there were clearly 3 or 4 carp swirling next to the platform!
From this point onwards my match was pretty simple as, despite having quick looks on the other lines from time to time, all of the remainder of my catch came from the margin line – given the clear water and the relatively shallow depth (14/15 inches at most) I could tell when I was going to get a bite as I could actually see two or three dark shapes mooching about over my bait!!! (At times I could also see some really big fish in water that must’ve been less than 10 inches right underneath the platform.)
In all fairness I’d actually thought that Jon Cook had won the lake from peg 26 as every time I looked to my right he seemed to be playing a fish! However Jon had suffered a slow last 90 minutes allowing me to catch-up and in the end my 118-2-0 was enough to win the lake and claim second place in the match (on the continental pay-out)!!! (I would’ve been third purely on weight as Tom ‘Dobber’ Arnot won the match from Old Lake with 140 odd pounds and England legend Stevie Gardener took second place on Old with 121 pounds.)
Until next time ...
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| All the gear ... |
As a result of the first round of a local league series taking-up Top Lake (as well as occupying some of the open match regulars) today’s open match was limited to 18 anglers and Old/New Lakes – as I’ve done quite well recently on Old Lake (and only ever bombed-out on New Lake) I was obviously hoping for a draw on Old but was by no means surprised to find a red poker chip with New 7 in my hand!!!
In all fairness peg 7 on New Lake is a very good pitch as it sits on something of a point and as a result offers lots of open water to go at – it also provides access to peg 8’s platform (as long as nobody is sat on it of course).
 |
| Looking over my right shoulder |
Prior to the all-in I set-up a record 5 different rigs! (I don’t normally find the time to set-up for than two so this really was unusual.) These were:
- A lightish rig (Nick Gilbert black elastic, 0.17 main, 0.15 hooklength to a size 16 LWG) for fishing tight to peg 8’s platform
- A rig for fishing with hard pellets away from the bank in two and half feet of water
- Another rig for fishing hard pellets but this time down the slope into the deeper water
- A traditional shallow rig with a 0.2g dibber made-up on 3’ of line in total
- A heavier 0.4g dibber rig for fishing shallow/mugging with a 4 foot lash
 |
| Looking towards the far bank |
The first 90 minutes of the match were interesting as I caught 3 fish on three different lines and certainly couldn’t get more than one proper bite from each! The first came virtually immediately from the two and half foot line away from the bank and was actually a pretty decent carp. I stuck with this line for a further 20 minutes before switching to the more traditional 5m line – this part of the swim actually plumbed-up terribly as it just seemed to be a 45 degree slope with no start, no finish and certainly no flat spots! However I did manage to sneak-out another carp pretty quickly before foul-hooking and losing another (I knew it was foul-hooked when the float popped-up instead of burying).
That foul-hooker seemed to kill the 5m line so it was out on the long pole shallow as the hot, sunny and still conditions had led to a lot of cruisers doing what they do best – sunbathing with no intention of feeding properly! I had a quick go with the shorter (0.2g) rig pinging a few pellets but after establishing pretty quickly that this wasn’t going to work I switched to the longer (mugging) rig and managed to get a third carp in the net.
 |
| Slim shady |
Today’s match was fished from 1030 to 1630 and it had been my intention to purposely ignore the margin swim until at least the final two hours of the competition. However at about noon I decided to feed a few cubes of meat next to the vacant platform to my left just to see what would happen – my thinking was that the tree to the left of the platform was casting the only bit of shade onto the lake so given the hot, sunny conditions why not give it a whirl? I potted in a small handful of meat onto this line and went back to fishing the long pole shallow – well for all of about 5 seconds as there were clearly 3 or 4 carp swirling next to the platform!
From this point onwards my match was pretty simple as, despite having quick looks on the other lines from time to time, all of the remainder of my catch came from the margin line – given the clear water and the relatively shallow depth (14/15 inches at most) I could tell when I was going to get a bite as I could actually see two or three dark shapes mooching about over my bait!!! (At times I could also see some really big fish in water that must’ve been less than 10 inches right underneath the platform.)
 |
| Nice mug |
In all fairness I’d actually thought that Jon Cook had won the lake from peg 26 as every time I looked to my right he seemed to be playing a fish! However Jon had suffered a slow last 90 minutes allowing me to catch-up and in the end my 118-2-0 was enough to win the lake and claim second place in the match (on the continental pay-out)!!! (I would’ve been third purely on weight as Tom ‘Dobber’ Arnot won the match from Old Lake with 140 odd pounds and England legend Stevie Gardener took second place on Old with 121 pounds.)
Until next time ...
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