Two Out Of Three Aint Bad!

I was really looking forward to Saturday, as it was round two of the Ranskill Summer League, and the venue had been fishing really well the previous week, with big weights of carp and silvers being recorded.

As I mentioned in my blog about the first round a couple of weeks ago, the safest bet is to target the silvers off most pegs, as they are a good stamp and you can soon build a good weight up if you get them coming quickly.

I stuck my hand in the bag and pulled out peg 32, an OK draw, with an island to chuck too, which can hold a few carp as well as a wide channel that sometimes holds some better skimmers. To be honest, I wasn’t ecstatic about the draw however, as 33 is a better silver fish peg in my section, and 37 is a good carp peg and I also had that to beat. In fact, ours was the only five peg section on the lake, with all the others being four pegs!

I decided to fish three lines, one at six metres with worms and casters for the silvers, one down the edge with worms where I hoped to get some better silvers late on in the day, and a bomb line to a tree on the island where I planned on feeding 10 mm pellets with catapult and fish a big pellet on the hook for the carp.

I started the match on the six metre silver fish line and I was into fish straight away, taking a small ide or skimmer every put in. I was having to feed quite heavily however, just to keep bites coming, there were obviously a lot of fish there and they wanted feeding.

I also trickled a bit of worm in down the edge, but decided not to try and fish this line until after the half way point of the match, as I wanted the fish to be feeding confidently on this line before I tried it. After the first hour in front of me with the worm, I had around 10lb in the net, and felt I was doing reasonably well, I had a look on the bomb and was pleased when the tip pulled round straight away and a 3lb mirror was soon in the net.

I had another couple of chucks and nothing materialized, so it was back on the worm line. It was interesting fishing, as I seemed to get a run of skimmers then a run of ide, it was almost as if they wouldn’t feed along side each other, and they kept pushing each other out of the way.

With two hours to go I tried my margin line, and had a better skimmer around 1lb straight away, then I had a run of roach and perch however, which led me to think that they still hadn’t settled properly on that line. I stuck it out in front of me with the smaller stamp fish for another half an hour, before trying the margin line again, and this time it was much better.

I had around 25 better skimmers in the last hour and a half, which I reckon added about 30lb to my weight. When the scalesman arrived, Mr Cordell was leading my section with 64-0-0 of meat caught carp and skimmers, and I thought it would be close between me and him. Fortunately, the silvers weighed heavy and two weighs later my combined weight went 71-15-0.

This was good enough for second overall, P ‘Flyer’ Watson won the match with a cracking 76-0-0 from peg 21, an unfancied peg considering the wind.

Overall, I was happy with the result, and felt I fished a good match, I got the section win I was looking for from the point of view of the league, so I just need to keep it up!

So Close at Kivo!

Sunday saw myself, Matt and Kev Godfrey and Paul Gorman descend on the open match at Kiveton Waters, and with a decent turnout it looked set to be a good match. The only thing that was going to nacker it up was the wind, that was blowing strongly straight down the lake, making any sort of presentation on the pole difficult.

Even though we were expecting a tough days fishing, plenty of banter was guaranteed as daft Stan the man put in an appearance, and with him taking £1 off me the previous week, he was even more full of beans than ever!

I managed to get my own back for some of the jibes however; I stealthily introduced a good handful of maggots into the hood of his fleece, and he never even knew the were there. Five minutes later, Matt did the rest: “That’s a nice fleece Stan, lets have a look at you with the hood up!” They went everywhere, Matt drew next to him and he tells me he was still pulling them out of his underpants at two o’clock!

Anyway back to the draw, in went my hand and out came peg one, It had won the open match the previous Sunday, but when the same angler drew the peg on the Tuesday night he really struggled, suggesting that the fish had moved.

Matt drew peg 25, one peg away from where he was the previous Sunday, with Paul drawing peg nine on the point of the island and Kev drawing peg 30. All in all, we were all really happy with our draws, and fancied our chances of sharing some money out at the end of the day.

The wind was horrendous, and really limited my options, I set a feeder up to chuck to the far bank, and two pole lines, one to fish in the deeper water to my right with groundbait and maggot, and one in the shallower water to my left to fish with pellets, both lines were to an angle at eight metres.

I started the match on the feeder, and didn’t have a bite for the first 20 minutes, so it was on to the pole. The wind was getting stronger, and I was regretting my decision to fish so far out. I decided to cut my losses and re plumb my pellet line a bit closer to me, my groundbait line wasn’t so bad as it was slightly with the wind.

I took a few silvers and an early tench over the groundbait, and from what I could see no one was catching a deal. Another chuck with the feeder proved fruitless so I stuck to the silvers for the early part of the match, to try and give the fish chance to settle on the shallower pellet rig.

When I tried over the top around half way through the match I had a run of five or six fish before they shied away, so it was a matter of refeeding the line and going on the feeder/ maggot line then taking a few fish off it again. Normally I would have probably fed a couple more lines and tried take a fish off each of them, but the wind was so bad I was restricted as to how far out I could go, and I didn’t want to risk feeding two lines too close together as I felt there was a danger of splitting the fish if I did that.

A couple of times I tried to force the line but it was no good, three or four fish was the most you could get off it without resting it. I did manage a couple of good tench off the line in the last half an hour, which helped to boost my weight, but when the all out sounded I didn’t think I would have enough, as the lad next to Kev on peg 31 and Darren Moyle on peg 10 had both been catching quite well.

I weighed 29-14-0, which was the best weight on the island, but Darren on the outer slapped 32-0-0 on the scales and the danger man on 31 won the match with 34-0-0. Still, third wasn’t a bad result, I just wish the wind would have held off a bit, as there were definitely enough fish in front of me to win the match.

The wind made fishing really tough up where Matt and Stan had drawn, with Stan packing up with an hour to go, and doing a runner without paying up his quid! I made sure he had his all nice and shiney after the match last week, and he did a runner! Typical! Mind you, he probably had to wash the maggots out of his pubic hair from the morning!

All in all, we have had quite a good run at the venue, and one of us has picked up every time we have been, with Matt picking up five out of six times and me picking up four out of six.

We had decided that we would have a beer on that Saturday night, before a trip to Wetlands on the Monday. We had a wonder down to the White Lion which is my local fishing pub, and then a look round a couple of bars in town. Unfortunately, our advances on females of various shapes and sizes proved fruitless. I never had a bite despite feeding quite heavily as the session wore on. I did get a twitch, towards the end of the night, but it never fully developed.

Wetlands

So we turned up at Wetlands the following morning a little the worse for wear, and once again the wind looked horrendous. I pulled out peg 25 which I was happy with, and Matt pulled out peg 28, also a reasonable draw.

I planned on just fishing worm and caster at the venue, and intitially plumbed four rigs up, one with a 4X16s float and one with a 4X14 float on 0.12 and 0.14 respectively. I must have been still half pissed to even think I could fish these rigs however, when I laid the rig in it just laid at 45 degrees to the water, against the wind, such was the extent of the tow!

I started the match on the worm, but was soon chucking it up the bank and going to fetch my feeder rod!

I decided to fish a small maggot feeder, and fill it with micro pellets and a few maggots. It worked a treat, and I ended up with 14 carp to 4lb and a few skimmers, unfortunately though I never really got amongst the big lads that inhabit the venue, and the stamp of my fish were quite small.

I did feed a line short with worms late on in the day, but it was towing through here as well! I managed a bream about 3lb and an ide about 3lb off this line, but presentation was difficult. I was left a bit gutted that I hadn’t fished feeder right from the off as my 48-10-0 was 3lb short of the 51-0-0 I needed to win my section.

Still, it was an enjoyable days fishing and considering the state I was in in the morning I didn’t do to bad.

Next weekend, I’m off to Lindholme on Saturday then trying my hand at a bit of canal fishing on the Stainforth and Keadby canal on Sunday. I will let you know how I get on. Tight Lines!