Fossdyke Fever!

It’s been another busy weekend for me fishing wise as our practice for the forthcoming winter league semi at Lindholme starts to hot up. With the weather turning cold again I didn’t know what to expect on our teams of 3 match on saturday at Lindholme. It was a serious frost on Friday night and as we pulled into the fishery one half of Bonsai lake had ice on it!!! Not good. With nearly 40 on the match we would all be on Bonsai and this normally makes for a decent match as it gives the fish less room to hide. Anyway I drew peg 38 which is OK, but as my section is up against the 40’s which are awesome at present I didn’t fancy my chances.

Peg 38 is one of the pegs with an island within pole reach but, because 39 was in, which is on the gap I was a little limited with what I could do, so I was hoping there would be a pile of fish there and not have to worry too much! I set up a track rig, a rig for halfway up the slope and one for right on top of it in the shallow water which I wasn’t optimistic about but its worth having the rig set up for last hour better fish. I decided to try maggots down the middle and pellets on my across lines, I plumbed up lots of swims to try and find two places I could get bites from.

I kicked off by feeding a few maggots down the middle and a bottle top of micros halfway up the slope, and kicked off with a pellet on the swim on the slope-it didn’t move! Oh. So I decided to go to my left hand line in the same depth and that didn’t move-so there isn’t a pile then! I thought no problems they will be down the middle, a bite first cast that I missed was encouraging but next cast I caught the culprit, a tiny roach. I caught a few roach for 15minutes and I was feeding loads of maggots to try and feed them off but if anything it just got stronger and stronger so I just sacked it off. Right so 45mins in and im looking for snookers!

Venue regular Daz Taylor was on 39 and was in the same boat and I noticed Ash Clements on boss peg 42 not really bagging so the whole lake seemed to be fairly slow. I decided to just have a quick look in the shallow water just for something to do really, and to my shock it buried and an 3-4lb F1 came to the net which was pretty handy, I quickly had 5 more and decided to open up another line in the same depth further along the island so I didn’t punish my only line I could get bites from, unfortunately the fish where only in that area and I couldn’t buy a bite anywhere else. I knew I needed to find somewhere else to go, so I chucked a bomb off the point to my left but it didn’t move. It looked like I just had to catch what I could on that one line until it died then work out what to do after!!! I soon had 12 fish to daz’s 7 and I couldn’t really see anyone bagging. Going into the last hour though and daz had caught up with me and I hadn’t had a bite for a long time, luckily I managed to catch a couple more just to hopefully stay in front of Daz at the all out.

The lad to my left tipped his 3 fish back and I put 28lb onto the scales and daz weighed 22lb and Emma Pickering to his right had a grueller too as did Ash with 25lb. Id beaten all the 40’s except 48 where Steve Barroclough won the match with 60 odd pound. Lee did well and won his bank with 28lb and Alan Scotthorne had come second in the match with 43lb so our 99lb would keep us in the race for the teams of 3. Unfortunately they didn’t pay 4 as James Dent won my section and came 4th from peg 29. Steve and Emma’s Preston team won the day with 101lb and we were second with our 99lb which was pleasing considering our average draws.

On The Cut
On the Sunday me and Lee where guesting for a couple of teams on the fossdyke canal winter league. It was both our first visit’s to the venue but reports where good and we were told we wouldn’t be short of bites. As we drove past the canal we couldn’t believe the colour, it was really coloured after all the rain we’d had. I drew peg 52 which meant nothing to me but team mate Simon Fields said it was a decent area and I should be ok there. My peg was about 14m wide and featureless but with a bit of depth I was very optimistic, I decided to fish a line on my top kit, a 5m line an 11m line and a lobby line across and a lobby line down the edge intended for big perch. My rigs where .4gr and .6gr sensas lomme floats for the two bloodworm lines and a 4×12 malman cedar for the lobby lines and 2 1/2ft of water with an 0.14 mainline to 0.10 hook length and a 14 hook for a lobby tail.

I decided on the same approach feed wise as Thorne as I was fishing to win the match so needed to be positive. So at the all in I fed 4 balls with 150ml in at 5m and 6 balls with 250ml in at 11m, I also chopped 10 lobbys into decent sized chunks and added a few casters and a pinch of bloodworm and joker and fed that at 14.5m down my peg and a similar feed down the edge. I kicked off on a top kit over a little ball of leam I’d fed and after 10mins i’d had only one fish off it, so I was soon out to 5m where I started catching tiny 25-30 to the pound roach which seemed to be all anyone was catching.

I was however getting frustrated with missed bites and I can only assume it was down to the fish being so small, I couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm with the fishing either, I seemed to catch 10 really quickly then have to wait for a bite then miss a couple more bites, I plugged away and noticed the lad to my right catch a decent perch down the side then caught one across, then Kev Parkes to my left had a couple so I thought what the hell ill have a look too, my float didn’t budge on either of my lobby lines so I re fed and came back on my roach swims for 10 mins, so after 10mins I was back across with half a lobby on and my float slid away and a 4oz perch was soon in my net, I went across again and had much more substantial resistance and a yard or so of no.8 elastic came out and a 12oz perch was in my keepnet, next chuck one of nearly a pound, followed by another 10oz perch and another a bit smaller. I reckoned on having roughly 3lb in 5 casts.

BONUS

I topped it up and caught some more roach before trying it again, unfortunately I think id caught them all and I never had a another bite there for the rest of the match. So with 2 hours to go I decided to just plug away with the micro roach and in the last hour also managed a few dumpy roach too. I must have had 60 or 70 roach in the last hour and I got a phone call from Lodgey and while he was on the phone for a few mins I had 15!!!! I was loving it and I noticed the lads either side where fishing for the roach but I was definitely catching a lot more than they were, untill with 10 mins to go the lad to my right went across on the lobby again and hooked a zoo creature!!!! After playing it gingerly to his net I thought either massive perch or massive bream, much to my surprise when I heard b**t**d pike!!!! Unfortunately they don’t count.

I decided on one last look on the lobby and once again it didn’t budge. At the weigh in 4lb was winning my section and I weighed 6lb7oz to win the section quite comfortably. I also came 3rd in the match so with 60 fishing got a nice little pay packet and went home very pleased.