On Saturday Nick P, Norts and me headed to Ivy House for another Fish South Silvers Qualifier. There was the usual plethora of stars in the draw queue including Andy Power, Jon Arthur, Tommy Hiller, Mark Goddard, Dave Willmott, Gary Etheridge and Chris Telling to name a few!
Not really knowing the venue, when I pulled out peg 1 on Old Match Lake, I didn’t know if it was a good area or not although on my previous visits, the top half of the lake has been the better end. ‘The Power’ drew 15 opposite and said he didn’t think it was far enough up the lake. Nick drew 4 while Norts was on Willow peg 32.
My swim looked nice but there was nothing topping as I was getting ready which I always think is a bad sign. I set up a few rigs to fish top four, 13 metres and 14.5 metres while today’s side tray contained maggots, casters, disco pinkies, worms plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
The whistle got us underway and I fed little nuggets of groundbait and some pinkies at top four and 13 metres before starting on the short line with single pinkie on the hook which has been good for a few fish every time I’ve been before. Not this time though and after 15 minutes, I’ve not had an indication. The bloke next door hooked a carp first chuck which wasn’t a great sign.
Nick was getting the odd hand size skimmer and it looked like Jon had made the early decision to target the roach and was catching well. I moved out to 13 metres and that wasn’t great either although I did manage a few small roach and skimbobs.
With an hour gone and very little in the net, I had to try and make something happen so fed a little blob of sloppy groundbait and worm. First put in I had a better 6-8oz skimmer and when I had another next chuck I thought I was on to something. A couple of small roach followed so I fed another little wet ball and it seemed to be a case of catch a couple and then feed again.
I probably had half a dozen slightly better skimmers but it soon slowed and I was back to struggling. From what I could see it was the same for most people on our lake with the exception of Jon who was still catching lots of small roach and Gary Etheridge over on peg 10 who was netting some decent skimmers.
I’d been regularly throwing some casters on the short line but despite trying it several times during the day, never had a bite there. Back at 13 metres it was just very odd bites and adding another section and going past the feed or left and right of it only resulted in a smattering of roach. Mark on my right was also struggling as was his brother Christopher opposite on 16 and even Andy Power had only caught a few skimmers.
With around an hour to go, I tried fishing a little strung out rig at 14.5 metres and pinging a few casters with single dead maggot on the hook and started getting the odd chunky roach (time of day?) along with my best skimmer of 10oz but I did also hook and land two carp.
On the whistle I’d finished up with 46 fish which I thought would give me between 4-5lb. The scales soon arrived as I was first to weigh and my fish went 5lb 12oz, Mark had 3lb 8oz and then Nick had 5lb 11oz so it hadn’t been great at our end. Jon Arthur then did brilliantly to weigh 13lb 5oz of roach, Dan Pither on peg 7 had 7lb 11oz and Jo Wingate did well with 9lb 9oz of skimmers.
On the other side, Gary Etheridge had a great net of skimmers weighing 20lb 5oz from peg 10 to win the match and qualify, Adam Lee on peg 12 weighed 15lb 6oz for second and then Tommy Hiller and Andy Power didn’t weigh before Chris B opposite me weighed 5lb 7oz. Photo credit – Fish South*
Class act Gary Etheridge won the match and qualified with an excellent 20lb 5oz of skimmers*
Chris Telling had the top weight on Willow with 11lb of roach closely followed by Mark Goddard with 10lb 12oz. Norts didn’t weigh but reckoned he’d chucked back around 4lb.
So a bit of a struggle although it definitely felt like we were at the wrong end of the lake today. I’m still really enjoying having a go at these qualifiers but with the class of angler fishing them, it would be a massive achievement for me to win one and if I’m brutally honest, that might never happen.
I’ve not disgraced myself and have had some great results so far but I’m also realistic enough to know a proper dolly peg is required and even then it might not be enough! So I’ll be having another go next winter but that’s it for this campaign.
Norts very generously donated £5 to the Nugget-O-Meter which now stands at £114.
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 – River Brue
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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