This week saw me heading to Lake-lands for another club match, I really enjoy this venue, its got a good head of carp, tench, ide and skimmers. In the warmer months you can really bag up with catches over 100lb, but in these colder months sometimes 50lb is still possible on the right day in the right conditions.
At the draw, the only peg I didn't really want was peg 8,inevitably I drew it! This peg is in the straight section of the lake, its about 20meters wide, for some reason the carp just don't seem to come into this area much, so when people are bagging its very hard to keep up with the pace, this peg has been last in its section on our last few visits so it was looking a little grim to say the least!
There were some good anglers on the better pegs, so I was already fighting an uphill battle, i felt as though i should set my self the target of getting second in the section, although i was in the worst peg in the section, i new conditions were tough as the water was up by over a foot from the rain during the week, and it was hardly warm!
At arrival on my peg I was greeted with 20 mph winds coming at me from an angle, plumbing up was hard enough let alone fishing the pole at the start of the match! The forecast was for the wind to ease so maybe I would be able to build my swims up for an hour or so before I could actually fish the pole.
Id opted to fish a 6 meter line for silvers and hopefully odd carp with chop worm and caster, and an 11 meter line for carp with corn, I would have liked to have fished both lines further, but not knowing how much the wind would ease I couldn't afford to feed up a line and not be able to fish it all day as it would be a big waste of time. I also set up a bomb rod and a banjo feeder.
I started the match by chucking out the bomb with some popped up bread, i hooked into a carp straight away and soon after a 4lb common was in the net, not a bad start! about 3 other anglers also had a fish first chuck, then nothing! I just could not get a bite, after 30 minutes of casting around with the bread i decided to try the banjo, but there was just nothing there, id expected this from this peg anyway, and with the flyers having 2 or 3 carp each with an hour gone I had to try the pole!
Although it was incredibly hard to hold the pole on the 6 meter line, I was catching fish, In fact i was catching quite well getting the odd ide upto about a pound and a half.
After about 3 hours into the match I could finally fish the long pole, this still didn't produce many fish, but I new it may be one of the only places I may catch carp. Throughout the day I ended up just going round the lines, getting what bites I could, and just maximising my chance of getting a few weight building carp, I managed 8 big ide and some other silvers on the short pole on worm, and 2 carp on the long pole, along with one on the banjo and the first fish on the bread. I even tried the margins every now and again for the last couple of hours just for one unexpected perch to jump on my hook. no carp though. If I was in a better swim I would have expected to get another 3 or 4 carp at least fishing this way, but unfortunately you cant beat the draw bag!
By the end of the Match I new id done probably as good as I could have done under the conditions on the day, I feel as though if the wind wasn't blowing a howler, I may have been able to snag a couple more carp on the long pole as I would have been able to fish it longer, possibly about 16 meters, and also not for just the last half of the match! Unfortunately that's how it goes though, and you cant have everything your own way,
When the scales arrived I was pleased to see my 4 carp and silvers went for 30lbs, which was more than id expected, I had around 20lb of silvers, which is fantastic fishing anywhere, my section was won from the best peg in the section on peg 2, he'd caught 10 carp, 2 of them being real lumps, so id managed second in my section on a peg that could have possibly seen me struggling for bites! The match was won from peg 14 with 45lb, all carp, this was one of 2 pegs I really fancied on the day as its a lot deeper here and the fish seem to go to this area when it gets cold.
The final result left me second in section and third overall, which I was really happy with under the circumstances. Unfortunately I lost my £1 to Mr banks on peg 2, Im sure I'll be able to win that back next week though.
So another good match for me, as I continue to keep the points coming in for the league, although I may have lost a few points to my main competitor this week, I had made the most of a poor draw, as a season goes on you are going to get a few poor pegs, and these are the pegs that decide league titles, you have to do your best with them. So far this season I have had my fair share of poor pegs, but I have done a good job with them all so far, hopefully I can keep it that way for the remainder of the season!
Next saturday I'm heading to Rayne lodge top lake for another open match, hopefully I will have another good day there, I'm really building in confidence at this venue and feel like I can catch good weights from average pegs now. Sunday I have The cancer research open match at the Fennes, this is always a fairly popular match with anything from 30-50 people normally attending. The match is held over the Ash grounds lake and Hobbs croft lake, unfortunately this place is extremely peggy at the moment, and I'm fairly confident the top 3 will come from the 'bowl' area on ash grounds, where the bream and f1s tend to hold up in winter, but there's still plenty of sections to win, and its for charity so it doesn't really matter if you get a poor peg! As long as you set yourself a realistic target, and try to hit that target, you'll have a really good days fishing!
Thanks for reading this weeks blog,
Tight lines and see you next week!
Reece Hearn.
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