After drawing peg 63 in the last two matches and not doing very well, I was hoping for a change of scenery this week. I decided I was going to have the last peg in the bucket and hope 63 had gone by then! It was still quite chilly and spring is definitely taking its time to arrive, after picking up some bait it was time to see what hand fate would deal me.
Obviously my plan dictated I needed to be at the end of the queue, when I reached Guy and the bucket of dreams/doom (delete as appropriate) there were still two tickets left as someone was running late. I could see 62 and 63 had already gone so grabbed a ticket and when I opened it, I’d only pulled out bunghole number 75! To be fair, it was ‘THE’ peg to draw (even I won off it!) but has gone off the boil recently and not even framed in the last six matches (getting my excuses in early!) but I still hoped I’d be in for a good day.
I had Shaun Rhodes next door again with Nigel Bartlett on 73 and Nick was down on 69. DDAS Juniors were having a coaching session followed by a match on Homeground and it was fantastic to see a great turnout of youngsters and parents and I had a chat with Revels regular, John Bass, who had turned up to help out, nice one John.
I set up a little 0.3 gram Guru F1 Slim for the top two plus two line along with a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot to fish at 11.5 and 13 metres. On the side tray were maggots, casters and worms plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.
At the all in, I fed the 11.5 metre line straight out with a sloppy ball of chopped worm and casters, another line at the same distance angled to the right with groundbait and maggots while the top kit plus two swim received some loose gb and casters.
Starting short I was expecting to get bites quite quickly but it’s just not happened, after 20 mins I’ve only had three small fish, Nigel was catching a few and Shaun had begun on the feeder. Moving out to 11.5 metres I had a 2oz roach followed by a 12oz skimmer but was having to wait for bites and already it looked like it was fishing quite hard.
I tried the right hand line but never had a bite there and was only getting odd indications on the other 11.5 metre swim from small skimbobs and the occasional better roach. From what I could see, Pete Neate on 71 was catching a few on the feeder and down on 68, James Knight was netting fish regularly but not a lot else was happening.
Putting a small piece of worm on resulted in a couple of better skimmers but I was waiting ages for bites, Nigel was starting to put a few fish together on his short line and despite his protestations that they were only small fish, he seemed to be using his landing net rather a lot! I had another look on the top kit plus two line where I’d been feeding casters but it was the same story there for me, just odd fish although I did have a half decent hybrid and an 8oz perch.
Back out to 11.5 metres and things hadn’t really improved, going past the feed produced a couple of fish but I was going nowhere fast. So with two hours remaining, I fed a new line at 13 metres and the first bite resulted in a decent skimmer and then one of 3oz before I hooked what felt like a proper one, only for disaster to strike when it came off shipping back!
Next chuck I had another one, around 1.5lb this time and I started to think I could still do a good weight in the last ninety minutes. Once again bites fizzled out, although I did hook a leaper which also shed the hook! Thinking they might have backed off again, I started yet another line at 14.5 metres with an hour to go. It worked to a certain extent as I was getting bites from smaller fish so I tried worm and bumped what felt like a decent fish as my match ended in a whimper rather than the fireworks I’d hoped for!
I finished up with 44 fish but knew I hadn’t done any good today even though it had fished relatively hard by Todber’s standards. As the scales reached our end, I had a look at the board and James Knight had won comfortably with 33lb 8oz, Lee Jan had done brilliantly to finish second with 26lb from peg 63 and Mark Blake was third with 23lb 6oz on 65.
James Knight had the top weight with 33lb 8oz of skimmers*
Lee Jan continued his great run of form with 26lb for second place*
Mark Blake was third with 23lb 6oz from peg 65*
Nick had 17lb, Pete weighed 22lb and Nigel had a level 20lb, Shaun didn’t weigh and then my fish went 18lb 4oz so it had actually been really close at our end. Thanks to Todber Manor for the photos*
Nick had 17lb which included two nice tench*
I weighed 18lb 4oz on peg 75*
1 – James Knight – 33lb 8oz (68)
2 – Lee Jan – 26lb (63)
3 – Mark Blake – 23lb 6oz (65)
I must admit I drove home feeling really deflated, looking at the results it would be easy to say I’m drawing the wrong end or the right pegs on the wrong days and that might be a contributory factor but I also feel I’m not getting it right at all at the moment. I just seem to be a few pounds off every time, today I’ve lost enough to frame (although of course others have lost fish as well) and perhaps I should have gone longer earlier, conversely in the previous match, I should have just fished short and not fished the feeder while in other matches, the feeder has been the method!
So in summary, I’m basically just making a pigs ear of it at the moment! Hindsight of course, is a wonderful thing and I’m sure the fishing will change and evolve as the weather warms up and lets not forget, being a silvers lake it’s all still relatively new.
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 – Dillington
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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