December 2015

Decoy, Six Islands Lake, Peg 18

Club's fur & feather and I drew the adjacent peg to the one I was on last week. Still blowing a hoolie and despite being only around 10m wide I still found it difficult to fish the pole across.

Chose again to fish 2+2 and bottom of the margin slope. To the left this coincided with the edge of a clump of rushes. So an easy spot to aim for.

The depths were variable and I set up a number of rigs. At 2+2 I had two rigs. One at just overdepth, a much heavier float with a long bristle at around 4 inches overdepth. For the margin swims I set up a dead depth rig and one that was for fishing off the deck. I had discovered on peg 19 that I fished the previous week that I could get the occasional fish with a slightly shallower rig.

For feeding I used the smallest tosspots I own, made from small plastic drinks bottle caps, probably Fruit Shoot bottles. I had made some extras during the week having thought that I had overfed last Sunday. I planned to feed a mixture of maggot & micros.

Things started well. On the 2+2 line I had three early fish on the lighter float that gave me around 5lb. Then, just as last week this line died. And I had fed a fraction of what I had done previously. One thing I couldn't fathom was that despite a very strong right to left wind into an arm of the lake I could not pick up any tow left to right.

 

The margin didn't produce and so I tried a small pellet feeder with dead reds towards the far bank. Still nothing.

Then tried the heavy float on the 2+2 line and at last got some left to right movement. I had a couple of fish doing this, one at least 6 foot from where the minimal amount of feed had gone in. So it was back to the margins and at last I started to get some indications of life and a couple of fish. On both the full depth and shallower rigs. I still wasn't happy with the amount I was catching. I was foulhooking the occasional fish, landed two so I knew there were fish around.

Middle of the day I put a larger pellet feeder across while I had a hot drink and a couple of sausage rolls, 8mil hard pellet on the hook. Tip went round when I was just finishing the first sausage roll and I had a 4lb carp. A welcome bonus.

With around an hour to go and knowing I could not compete with Andy on peg 22 and Ray on 15 I was resigned to being well down the field and missing out on the bottle of scotch I knew was one of the prizes (I had bought them all so I should know). I decided to concentrate on the margin to the left beside the rushes. I tried to ease the float as close to the rushes as possible and managed to get a few bites and fish on both pellet and one on corn. I then decided to re-plumb the shallow rig and get the bait just two inches off deck. Doing this I managed another two or three fish on pellet. One was a barbel that was foulhooked just outside the mouth

I packed up and went off to sort out the prizes while the lads weighed in. To my surprise I had just over 32lb and with that managed third. The first and second (Andy & Ray) don't drink scotch :-). So I returned home a happy bunny. The previous day I had also won a bottle in a charity raffle. Christmas sorted!

Decoy Willows Lake, Peg 18

You know you are in for a tough day when you are told the area you have drawn is known as Dead Man's Bay. And the weather was what the Scots would call dreich.

Round two of our Winter pairs league. In reality I could only hope to top the four of us drawn in this bay. But as the draw is completely random they may not have been in my section anyway.

The peg was around 25 metres wide with a rush lined bank opposite. I opted for a pellet feeder approach and then four pole lines. Two at topkit+3 10 o'clock and 2 then a further two at +2, one in front and one to the right just as the bottom shallowed up. Feed would be a tiny amount of micros and a couple of red maggots. Bait – expanders (2, 4 & 6 mil), maggot & corn.

Started on the feeder and had two small carp first two casts dropping the feeder around ten foot short of the far bank. Nothing on the next cast so picked up the pole and had three carp and a skimmer. Around 45 minutes gone and near ten pound in the net. A good start towards my target for the day of 50lb. Took fish on all sizes of pellet but nothing on maggot.

Next hour and a half and I had one fish.

Picked up odd fish for the rest of the match on pole and feeder but nothing consistently. I foulhooked a few showing they were there but I couldn't get them taking a bait consistently, or if they were I wasn't seeing the bites. Float was dotted down to near submerged.

Weighed in 18lb, was beaten in the bay by a 20, so my weight wasn't bad for the area.

The only bright spot was my partner won his section by default with 40lb. My 50lb target was a little optimistic but would have seen me frame had I achieved it.

I probably have to re-think part of my approach as my partner reported that he only caught well once he dotted the float down so it needed bristle grease to keep it afloat. And even then bites were minuscule movements. Perhaps I really should try a shorter hooklength in tough conditions.

Lindholme, Bonsai, Peg 41

The Maggotdrowners Fur & Feather. I have never fished this lake before so was going in a bit blind. Got some info from the website that in the end proved correct. Basically fish pellet on the pole and possibly bomb & hard pellet. I prefer though to fish with a feeder of some kind to give the fish something to home in on. Its all down to confidence in a method.

My plan was to approach it like my club lake. Set three spots at topkit+3 where I would feed various amounts of micros. Couldn't fish further out due to the wind. I also fed a +2 line where the lake bottom started to shallow gradually. To start with on the ledger with a pellet feeder & dead reds cast towards the island in front of me. This tactic normally snares me a few fish at places like Decoy. The water temperature was 8.6 degrees so I also set up a margin rig.

Started on the feeder after feeding the pole lines. Nothing on the first cast. Had a bite on the second that was probably a skimmer that came off. Then had an early look around the pole lines and eventually managed a bite in the margins that produced a roach. Back on the feeder and still no interest. I wasn't that worried as anglers I could see were also struggling.

Onto the pole line at +3 and I started to get bites and a few skimmers. I also had a couple on the +2 line.  Strange thing was that at +3 I could not pick up the tow while at +2 the float moved strongly into the heavy breeze.  The skimmers gave me confidence and I hoped that with them feeding a few carp would take interest. That didn't happen all day, I think the inability to get the float moving with the tow possibly spoilt presentation for the carp to take the bait.  After around two hours I had roughly three pound of skimmers and was now behind a few others. So time for a re-think. I set up my bomb & pellet rod which produced a carp of around 4lb first cast. Promising, particularly as an F1 of around 2 ½ followed.

A few more casts produced zero, nada, nothing. Back on the pole to see if the carp had followed the skimmers. But this time I made a slight change in my rig. Following my previous match I had tied some four inch hooklengths on fluorocarbon. I now started to use the same rig I had been but with thei shorter hooklength. It seemed to improve matters slightly. Bites were a little strange as they were mostly slow drag unders of the float and not sharp takes. But I was still catching only small skimmers (4oz) and not quickly enough to make a dent in my deficit.

With 90 minutes to go I decided the pole was a wash out and chose to concentrate on the bomb. This immediately produced another F1 of around 4lb and then for over half an hour nothing. Me being me I had to have one final look on the pole line just in case the carp had come in for the last hour. A couple of small skimmers and I was back on the bomb for the last thirty minutes.

Two more fish in that time gave me an estimated 18lb, scales said just over 20.

That was enough for third in a section of six and ninth overall out of 21. In a way disappointing but given a lot of the others seemed to know the fishery well I had to be pleased with my first go at Bonsai.

Well, that's my match year over I think. Nothing planned between now and 2016. If you have followed my monthly reports and enjoyed them, possibly learned something if only what not to do then I'm pleased. Thanks for reading, I have enjoyed writing.

Next year I will probably only write about matches where either I do well or I learn something new.

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