After drawing peg 27 and really struggling in my last outing, for Foxy’s next open I decided to employ the tactic of having the last peg in the bag again. There were actually two balls left (as Chris hadn’t drawn yet) and I pulled out number 9 which is one of the best carp pegs on the lake but can also be brilliant for silvers too. Nick was on 36, another good area so he was happy as well. It was a glorious day but with some carp still showing signs of spawning, there was talk the fishing could be tricky today.
I set up two Preston Innovations F1 Maggots to fish the top two plus one and then 10 metres straight out and the same distance angled to the right. On the side tray I had lots of maggots plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.
At the all in, I fed all three lines with groundbait and maggots before starting on the longer line, as expected it was a slow start and it was around ten minutes before I had my first bite from a nice little 12oz tench. I had a second quite quickly and although not particularly fast or furious, I was getting a few indications. Three decent skimmers followed and then just before the first sixty minutes was up, I hooked a big fish that I thought might be a tench when it tried going to ground and loads of bubbles came up. Sure enough a rather large green shape surfaced and a five pound plus tinca put me on 8-9lb after an hour, a great start as around 30-40lb has been winning the silvers in recent matches.
I had a look on the right hand 10 metre line and was expecting to catch straight away as there were loads of blows coming up but I’ve not had a bite. Back on the other long line, I’ve had a nice roach but then foulhooked a fish that tore off and the rig came back with two little green scales on the hook!
Dave Manning next door on 10 was getting the odd fish as were Paul Faiers and Kev Perry on 12 and 13 but nobody was really sacking up apart from the guys on Rayet’s Boycott’s island. Mr R himself was on peg 7 again and getting some carp shallow on maggot.
With two hours gone it was time to have a look short, again I was expecting a quick response but the float just sat there, eventually I’ve had a bite but after an age I reversed a carp in the net which was hooked up the bum! Back on the longer lines I did manage a decent tench and then my first fish from the right hand line was a little bar of soap but that was the only fish I had from there, I’ve not even hooked a carp.
I was rotating around my lines but after my strong start, I was now struggling to get bites and foulhooked carp were beginning to be a pain. With two hours to go, I’ve finally had a 4lb tench from the short line, next put in, the float’s gone straight under and on the strike there was swirl and I was sure I’d foulhooked another carp. I was half right as the fish wasn’t hooked in the mouth but it was a nice tench and I managed to land it without too much trouble.
It felt like there were a few fish there now as I had a big 3lb skimmer that leapt out the water, then lost another foulhooked tench. My next fish was a little 4oz eel and I also bumped a fish just before the all out. I finished up with 17 fish which I thought would go 20-25lb and Paul F said I wouldn’t be far away with that today.
While I was waiting to be weighed in, Nick came round and said he’d really struggled, he’d only had five fish all day and chucked back. As the scales headed towards us, I went to have a look at the weigh board, Simon Stacey was winning with 182lb 14oz from peg 5 on the island and there were some close back up weights, Martin had 157lb 5oz and then my fish went 27lb 10oz which was the top silvers so far.
I had 27lb 10oz which included some lovely tench but I needed a couple more.
Dave had chucked back to go and watch the footy, Paul weighed 147lb 5oz and Kev just pipped him with 154lb 5oz. There were only a few pegs left to weigh but Neil Morgan on bridge peg 22 had 34lb 2oz on casters to win the silvers.
1 – Simon Stacey (Acorn) – 182lb 14oz
2 – Martin Tomas (Acorn) – 181lb 7oz
3 – Gareth Boycott (Acorn) – 172lb 1oz
4 – Martin Rayet (Acorn) – 157lb 5oz
5 – Kev Perry (Acorn) – 154lb 5oz
Silvers
Neil Morgan (Acorn) – 34lb 2oz
Close weights as always but I came away thinking I’d not done the peg justice and casters seem the way to go for silvers at the moment.
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
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Next up – Coombe Farm
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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