For the next Stoke match we were at Revels with the sixteen anglers spread over Main and Dead Tree lakes. I was hoping to be on the latter after it fished well the last time I was here on a Tuesday and got my wish when I pulled out 46. I’ve drawn it a couple of times in the past and done okay but never won from it and judging by the pre match banter, all six of us on Dead Tree would be fishing for silvers today.
It’s a great looking peg
From past experience I know it’s shallow peg at around two foot all over the swim but it’s got lots of options. Rigs today were a 0.2 gram F1 Carbon Slim for top kit to hand plus a little Colmic Elsa to fish three lines at 10 metres to the left, straight out and then angled to the right. The side tray contained lots of maggots, disco pinkies and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
I was ready with ten minutes to spare to wandered up to have a chat with Hainsey on 48, Norts next door and Chanter on 51. There were lots of silvers topping so hopefully we’d all have a good day. The other two on the lake were Nick P over on 41 and Rob W who was on the end peg to my right.
On the whistle, I fed the three 10 metre lines with some loose groundbait and a few pinkies before starting short, feeding just a few maggots. I missed a bite first put in before catching a gudgeon and was hopeful of a decent spell before having to venture out on the longer lines but it’s just not happened. I gave it a further ten minutes but never had another fish short.
It wasn’t great at 10 metres either but I started getting the odd little 2-3oz skimmer plus some roach and perch, a gorgeous little 4oz crucian also put in an appearance but wouldn’t be going in the silvers net. As the first sixty minutes came to a close, I had 27 fish on the clicker for around 2.5lb (if they averaged an ounce and a half apiece). To be honest, that sort of catch rate probably wouldn’t be too far away but I was sure carp would become a problem at some point.
After catching three or four fish from one line, I’d toss pot in a little gb and move to the next line and this worked well over the next hour or so. I was loose feeding maggots over the top and it was just getting better and better with some cracking roach beginning to show. Rob was regularly landing fish which I think were carp but I had no clue how they were getting on round the corner to my left.
It started getting really hot and I was still expecting carp to begin pushing in but apart from a couple of smaller 6oz samples and another crucian, they didn’t give me any grief at all. With around two hours to go, I cut out the groundbait and was just loose feeding maggots, it was still a bite a chuck and really enjoyable fishing. Laying the rig in to the side or flicking it past the feed worked really well and I added a nice rudd along with a 12oz skimmer.
Going into the last hour, it slowed up a bit but moving out to 11.5 metres kept bites coming and in amongst the roach and perch I had a nice 6oz hybrid. At the all out I had 160 fish on the clicker which would give me somewhere around 15lb. After packing up, I went to give Norts a hand with the weigh in and get some photos.
Chanter had several carp and some silvers for 19lb 6oz, Norts weighed 8lb 2oz and then Hainsey had a lovely net of silvers for 14lb 13oz plus 3lb 14oz of carp. My three carp and two crucians weighed a massive 1lb 10oz and then my silvers went 17lb 9oz, Rob had done well catching 34lb 7oz of carp and 2lb 13oz of silvers and then last to weigh was Nick who had 24lb 12oz which put him second on the lake (and he nearly chucked his fish back!).
Chanter had 19lb 6oz of mainly carp
Norts had 7lb 9oz of silvers (and 9oz of carp!)
Hainsey had a lovely net of silvers for 14lb 13oz
I weighed 17lb 9oz of quality roach, skimmers, perch, gudgeon, rudd and a hybrid
Rob had the best weight on our lake with 37lb from peg 44
Nick P was second on Dead Tree with 24lb 12oz
At the results, there were some good weights down on Main, Nick Veale on 16 had the best weight of the day with 58lb 4oz of mainly carp, Terry ‘The Toast’ was second with 40lb 12oz from peg 9 while Roy Worth won the other section with 15lb 14oz and Dave Pope was second with 9lb 12oz. Dave Nash had the best silvers weight on Main with 8lb 13oz from peg 2. Photo credit – Nick Veale*
Top weight of the day was Nick Veale with 58lb 4oz from peg 16*
Section A – Main Lake
1 – Roy Worth (Stoke) – 15lb 14oz
2 – Dave Pope (Stoke) – 9lb 12oz
Silvers – Dave Nash (Stoke) – 8lb 13oz
Section B – Main Lake
1 – Nick Veale (Haines Angling) – 58lb 4oz
2 – Terry Morgan (Stoke) – 40lb 12oz
Silvers – Derek Goad and Mike Goad (Stoke) – 5lb 15oz
Section C – Dead Tree
1 – Rob Wylde (Stoke) – 37lb
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 24lb 12oz
Silvers – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 17lb 9oz
I picked up £40 (including the silvers superpool) and loved every minute of that, I did pull out of a couple of better fish and missed/bumped a fair few so should probably have had 20lb+. I also couldn’t believe that I hadn’t hooked a carp over 6oz all day (not that I was complaining though!).
Thanks to generous donations from Nick P (£3), Rob Cox (£3), Norts (£2) and me (£2), the Nugget-O-Meter reached £353.
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 – Todber Manor
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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