By Jake Marshall | No Comments
Last updated: Sunday, May 11, 2008

Well, the first time after fishing white acres was the week after this was the 12th of April. I was fishing a silverfish league to be hosted at the excellent Frant lakes in Kent. It’s known for its dominant carp presence, but also is known for its massive head of skimmers. There were three lakes in, Sunken Island, Stumps and Skirmish.

The Peg and My Methods

I drew on sunken island, which peg I was on I cannot remember however i can remember where. Sunken island backs onto Car Park Lake, and they both link together, however the part where they link is about 5 metres wide and there is a bridge across this and this is where I had drawn, next to the bridge. These pegs are noted for how deep they are and I made sure I had brought some extra deep rigs. It was around a top kit and three quarters deep, as it wasn’t very windy I decided to set up a 4×18 carpa porth on 0.11mm Preston Powerline, to an 0.09 Powerline hooklength and a size 18 PR21 (my favourite pellet hook) The rig was shotted with a bulk of number 8’s about 40cm from the hook, there were then to number nine droppers, on the hooklength loop, and the other directly in between this one and the bulk, so they were around 15cm apart. I also set up a 0.8 gram Sensas Jean Francois incase I would need to fish maggots. This rig was exactly the same, except mainline was 0.10mm Powerline and the hook was a size 20 Tubertini 808. I wanted to be catching on pellets as that was the ‘in’ method so I made sure I had plenty of feed pellets and plenty of fishmeal groundbait. I was aiming to be catching on one line and have two back up lines, normally you need to fish around 14.5 metres here to catch a weight, however as it was so deep and as I had plenty of room, I decided to fish 13 metres. Here I would feed 4 balls of Ringers dark with a few wetted down 2mm Preston Sonu Baits pellets in. I wanted to make sure I had enough bait on the bottom for the fish to find in that depth of water and enough bait to hold them there. I also cupped in half a pot of chopped worm angled at ten o’clock at ten metres out, then at four metres i would loose feed casters and fish a strung out shotting pattern with a 4×12 Preston Chianti tied onto 0.10mm Powerline straight to a 16 PR23.

How The Match Went…

After feeding everywhere I went straight over my groundbait with a 4mm ‘Bad Ass Madras’ pellet. These are tip-top skimmer pellets and I was into fish straight away, my number 8 Preston slip elastic slipped out and I was soon rewarded with a 6 oz skimmer. I caught all throughout the first hour and a half, after about an hour and forty five minutes the baits stopped, I tried the maggot rig and different expander pellets, as well as my other lines before deciding to re-feed. I cupped in another two balls and soon started catching, the bites then slowed again for half an hour and I had to keep topping up with two balls whenever the bites slowed. As a result of this the middle of the match was very slow. However by the last hour things were picking up, i was catching well again, like I did in the first hour and i was soon catching some bigger fish, however it was too little too late.I ended up with around 45 skimmers all averaging around 4-8ozs so I guessed I had around 20-30lb.

The Weigh In

The scales eventually got to me, and surprisingly enough I had managed to pack up which meant the scales must have taken ages!! Ask my Dad if you don’t believe me, I’m always the last one packed away. But anyway, I lifted my net out and tipped my fish out, the scales bumped round to 26lb 7ozs I wasn’t pleasantly pleased as I had come fourth in my 12 peg section which wasn’t too bad considering I hadn’t fished a single round of the league, however I was the beat by 3ozs for third in the section and that would of picked me up 30 quid so I was gutted especially as I had lost quite a few fish! But never the less I had a good day and had learnt a few lessons, a big one being if something’s not right do something about it, I kept bumping fish but I didn’t’ get up to change my elastic and look what it cost me, next time something like that happens, change it ASAP!! The league was won by the might Preston Innovations Delcac, and their other team was either second or third I can’t remember it just slips my mind! The individuals of the match were dominated by the new generation of anglers, and all of them close friends of mine, Robert Williams was 1st with 54lb, Martin Trice second with 52lb and Robert Taylor 3rd with 50lb, all marvellous nets of skimmers. What a lovely days fishing but all i can say now is….roll on the summer!!!