Well after a jam packed winter with team events and one thing and another with lots of travelling, I decided to have a few weeks going to Woodlands at Thirsk, it makes a refreshing change to do my own thing and only have to drive 15mins to get to the venue. It also is the perfect place to get some practice catching the big lads ready for white acres!!!!!
First time I went up was on bank holiday Monday and I drew in a corner with the next peg in and both opposite too I had a tench and a few silver fish for a measly 4lb odd after a cold snap. This weekend though has been much better. On Saturday I arrived at the venue and had a hearty brekky and was well pleased to hear there were 45 on with possibility of more turning up this meant he would use skylark, partridge and kestrel. Now for those of you who may not have been to Woodlands I’ll explain a bit about the lakes. There are five match lakes on site: Skylark, Partridge, Kestrel, Curlew and Wagtail.
The lakes are basically big rectangles with wooden boards lining the banks, there are no so called features in the lake to try and keep the fishing as fair as possible. Although the wind direction plays a massive part in summer. Depths are usually around 4-5ft and nearly every peg is the same. Weights can be anything up to 200lb but usually a ton will get you in the frame.
On Saturday I drew kestrel lake, peg 26 to be precise which puts you roughly in the middle of the lake, I always feel happy in the middle of these sort of lakes so I was well chuffed. My plan for the day was to fish a bomb with either hair rigged meat or corn and also nick an odd pva bag onto the hook to introduce some feed. I planned to fish for the first half an hour with no feed though just to locate a few fish. I also plumbed a 13m and 8m pole swim to fish pellets and corn on and also either side against the boards. Bait for the day was 2 pints of 4mm fishery feed pellets, some meat for hair rigging, a small tin of corn and a few expanders. I’d also tied a box full of pva bags just in case!!!!
I kicked off with a quarter of a cup of pellets and corn deposited at 8 and 13m and my plan was to loose feed 4-8 steadily all day. I also fed a dozen pellets either side of me, just a quick one on how I like to feed the margins. I know a lot of people like to ‘dump’ a lot of bait in and get plenty of success but I much prefer to find a nice spot I can throw to and build it up by feeding lightly all day, this method seems to result in less fish charging around the margin and hopefully more ‘proper’ bites.
Anyway I kicked off on the bomb and after 30 minutes I’d not found so much as a liner!!!! So I gave the pole a try and a 6mm expander at 8m did the trick with a 2lb tench swiftly netted it was a loner though and my 13m line didn’t inspire me much, but I wasn’t worried at this stage as you only need a couple of hours on them at woodlands. I decided to try and make something happen on the bomb so cast a small pva bag out and instantly a 4lb ghostie was on!!!!
Game on, 3 chucks later and 3 more and I was starting to think about a brown envelope!!! Then the rain came!!!!! Anyone got any advice on using pva when its chucking it down please give me a ring???? Everything was soaked and I just couldn’t get my hands dry, luckily i’d found a pod of fish so I was still fairly confident of catching. Half an hour later and no more carp so a drop in at 13m was in order, 2 stockie carp about 10 oz apiece where encouraging and I was getting loads of indications but unfortunately they where skimmers.
I decided to have an hour on the pole just to see what I could catch and I had at least 20lb of the small skimmers with the occasional tench in that hour but I still couldn’t muster a carp of any size. Nobody around me was catching and our bank was definitely the worst with Andy Oldham packing up 2 pegs away. The rain at this stage was torrential and I felt I needed some carp and I felt I needed to fish the bomb. I decided to spend the final 90 minutes on the bomb and they where good too, I had 10 carp. They where small by woodlands standards but I thought id done well on my bank. Everyone else tipped back on my bank except one angler who weighed 70lb caught on a top two!!!!
He had some massive fish one going 15lb easily. I weighed a respectable 50lb which I was chuffed with. My travelling partner for the day, Ian bowman had caught well and weighed 75lb for a section win, with young Ashley Clements winning with 99lb from skylark 5, you needed 80lb to frame and on the whole the venue looks to be coming out of winter mode. I was well up for the Sunday as the weather was forecast to be better although I did suspect the rain may kill it but time would tell!!!!
SUNDAY and it was a lovely sunny morning and once again there was 45 on, the lakes in use today where Skylark, Partridge and Curlew. I drew Skylark 16 which is one out of a corner so fancied some big lads down the side and also fancied a few fish on the bomb by the aerator.
The plan was the same as the day before. Except the fish didn’t seem to agree, I fed a 15m swim to my right into the extremely fishy looking corner with corn and pellet. The way the fishing is at the moment the fish seem to be at one end or the other and if Saturdays results where anything to go by we would struggle and so it proved!!!! It took me two hours to get a bite and finally landed a 6lb carp on the pole but no more bites followed.
I’d been firing corn to the aerator and felt it was time for a look and was promptly rewarded with a barbel well over 5lb!!!! Anyone who says barbel don’t thrive in stillwaters definitely hasn’t seen the ones in woodlands!!! They where 4oz when stocked and they get caught over 5lb regularly and look pristine. Another biteless couple of hours and I was bored, I kept flicking pellets into the corner just incase, and with half an hour to go felt I needed to have a look. 15mins without a bite was all I expected then all of a sudden my float moved to the side!!!!
A liner, now I thought about it and to the fish we where just about to go into the last hour but with the clocks changing we where finishing when the fish are usually just moving into the edge!!!! And with 5 mins to go it was liner city-typical!!!! 10 seconds before time I hooked a big un that tore off and after ten mins I landed an 8lber hooked in the belly which was a bonus. Our end of the lake had been poor and I thought I might sneak a section, my 3 fish went 20lb and 24lb won the section. Ashley clements won again with a big 70 from a peg opposite to where he was yesterday!!!!! Wish I could draw like that. Anyway that’s all for now and I fancy a bit more Woodlands action next week.
Just found fishing 4 fun.What a brilliant site it is. Full of interesting articles,and packed with loads of useful information. Absolutely Brilliant.
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Tom
