Nick and me headed to Landsend on Saturday for the open match on lake 2, twelve of us fishing today so basically every other peg in. I drew 19 on the far side which looked nice with a gap in the island and Nick was down on 15.
It was pretty chilly and with the pond flat calm and painfully clear, it would probably be hard going today although hopefully we’d still get a few bites. I set up a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot for four lines at 11.5 metres plus a little 0.3 gram Guru F1 Carbon for the top kit swim on my right. The side tray contained maggots, disco pinkies, micros, 2mm expanders plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.
On the whistle I fed the top kit line with a nugget of gb and a few pinkies and then the same on three lines at 11.5 metres while the fourth received a little marble of soaked micros. Starting short I’ve not had a bite, Pete Z next door on 17 who was also fishing for silvers did have a bite but a carp wasn’t the desired result!
After half an hour and no bites I moved out on the longer lines, working my way from right to left, I missed an indication and then next chuck the float buried and a 3oz perch was deposited in my silvers net. Swapping lines I added another perch followed by a couple of chunky crucians and I was quite pleased with how things were going as it sounded like it was fishing hard with several people still waiting for their first bite!
I had a decent perch of 8oz along with hooking and landing my first carp but when Nick shouted up that he had two skimmers and a couple of crucians, I needed to find some better fish. With two hours to go, a few more fish were coming out, Neil V and Steve K opposite had started catching some carp and I was now getting a few bites but only from little roach.
Nick had landed a couple more fish which I thought were F1’s so I had my first look over the micros with a soft pellet on the hook but didn’t have a bite. I did catch two small roach on expanders over the groundbait but they were no bigger than the pinkie fish. Single maggot resulted in a carp which tore off and snapped me.
Next I tried a maggot and disco pinkie combo over the micros and when I had a quality roach first chuck, I thought a decent finish was still possible. It didn’t happen though and in the remaining hour or so, I’ve only hooked three carp, landing two of them.
I packed up and as the scales made their way round the pound, I caught up with them as they reached Nick. A quick look at the weigh board revealed it had been tough for most, Eric was leading with 36lb 12oz from peg 13 and Dave Wescott had the top silvers so far with 7lb 13oz from 11. Nick weighed 20lb 8oz of carp and 4lb 8oz of silvers, Pete Z chucked back and then my three carp went 15lb 1oz and my silvers added 3lb 4oz.
Mike D on 21 had 8lb 9oz, Allan Oram didn’t weigh next door and then Bruce Hunt on 24 had 8lb 13oz of F1’s to win the silvers.
1 – Eric Fouracres (Landsend) – 36lb 12oz
2 – Neil Venning (Landsend) – 31lb 4oz
3 – Steve Kitteridge (Landsend) – 28lb 6oz
Silvers
1 – Bruce Hunt (Tiverton) – 8lb 13oz
2 – Dave Wescott (Landsend) – 7lb 13oz
£2 each from Nick and me (for today and tomorrow) took the Nugget-O-Meter total to £46.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Stoke Xmas Fayre
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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