By Jake Marshall | No Comments
Last updated: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Sunday the 30th march saw the last round of the excellent Shimano Arun Silver Fish League. My team Preston Innovations Delcac (the ‘B’ side) were currently lying second by around 7 points, and the ‘A team’ were only one point behind us so the gap could easily be closed and we could seal ourselves a victory.

We were all told we were going to be on the snake lake and I knew it was gonna be a tough match what with the results of the previous round on here with around 25 of us on there. This week there was 50 of us!!

I was drawn on peg 19, five pegs up from last time and this peg had caught well that week, however today was a different day so we would see. This lake is full of F1’s with a load of skimmers and some massive MUNTER carp down the edge, which counted as three pound even though it was a silver fish match. All F1’s counted for whatever they weighed. So i settled on an all F1 attack.

My main line was at the bottom of the far shelf, which was about 3 foot off the island. I set up a 4×14 Carpa Porth and a 4×12 Preston Chianti. The Porth on 0.11 mainline and the Chianti on 0.10. They both had 0.09 hooklengths to a size 18 PR21 as I was aiming to fish pellets. All lines were Preston Innovations Powerline. The rigs were shotted with number 10 shot, with a bulk around 30cm from the hook and two droppers, one sitting on the hooklength loop and the other halfway inbetween this and the bulk. Both rigs were set to a Preston black number eight elastic. These rigs would be able to be fished at any distance between me and the island as the lake is flat all the way to the shelf. I also set up a rig for tight over, this was a 4×12 Preston Sommo float and was on 0.11 Powerline straight to a 16 B911. It was shotted with a small bulk about 15cm from the hook as it was only around two foot deep, this was tied to a number 10 Preston elastic.

At the start I cupped in 10 expander pellets at six metres to catch me a few early fish like last time, a golf size ball of Ringers Dark groundbait, 6 maggots and around 30 micro pellets at the bottom of the far shelf, and tight over I fed around 50 4mm pellets and a few maggots. I went straight on the 6m line where I had fed the expander pellets and went biteless for half an hour. It was then that I realised it was going to be harder than thought. I went to my 13m line and again went biteless for a further 20 minutes when eventually I had a small skimmer. All the time fishing a pellet on the hook and loose feeding corn down the edge just in case.

No bites tight over either so this called for a change in what i was doing. After around an hour and a half I decided to try and catch a few skimmers as that was all that had been caught. So i cupped in a soft ball of groundbait nearly half the size of a tennis ball, a few micros and ten maggos at 13m angled at around 1 or 2 o’clock. I went straight over it on a ‘Bad Ass Madrass’ 4mm hooker pellet and was immediately into fish. Everytime the bits slowed i would top up with annother golf ball of groundbait. With an hour to go i had around 7lb in the net.

The bites had stopped and my dad had rung me to tell me that he had caught a mug F1 but cupping in a TINY ball of grounbait with about 3 maggots in, this was already my next plan of action anyway so i jumped straight to it cupping it in at 13m at the same angle as before but to my left. I changed my hooklength to a size 20 B510 on the same diameter line and slipped a red maggot on. Straight away the float dipped and i was into a skimmer, second chuck saw the same but third chuck i had to wait quite a while for a bite, but when the float dipped this time as i lifted into the bite i was rewarded with something a little more solid. After a short five minute scrap a nice 2lb F1 was in the net.

I went straight back on that line with a single red maggot and continued to catch skimmers for the last hour of the match.

When the scales came round i was satisfied to bump 9lb 10 oz on the scales for fourth in my 12 peg section. Two pegs in the top end of my section had 11lb and 34lb of F1s where all the fish were, and the end peg just down from me had 12lb of skimmers. So i had a good day being beat by some good pegs, I was pleased as i had beat everyone two pegs either side of me so not a bad result.

When back in the car park we found out we hadnt done too bad as a team, with 3 section fourths and a section second. However when the final result was read out i was a tad disappointed

Milo Bordon; 228 Points

Preston Innovations Delcac Gold; 217

Preston Innovations Delcac Silver; 216

We had slipped into third one place behind the ‘A Team’ GUTTED as we had been leading them but never mind eh?!

Finally for the raffle, and me and my Dad had two wins picking up two bottles of wine!!

All in all it was a great league to fish with some great people and its been a bundle of laughs along the way!! And oh yeah, the fishing was great too!!!

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