Thursday 13/11/2014 - Coffin Dodgers @ Emerald Fishery

At Mike Jones request I arrived early at the Lakes to help him peg out because Emerald Lake was closed for weed removal we were given both Sapphire and Ruby Lakes to ourselves. However, we didn’t know for sure what to peg. Because of the threat of high winds and heavy rain we went for the far banks of both Lakes. But the wind stayed in the South all day so we didn’t get that right. Mike and I discussed the pegging after and decided it might had been better to have put us all on one Lake.

Mike decided on equal payout - one overall and one Silver on each Lake.

In to the draw bag and out came peg 12 which was the corner peg on the far left of Ruby Lake.

Chris Fox had passed on to me the bag of his “last Avon Angling casters” (thank you - pictured right). So I decide to fish caster all match with Silvers the target.

Just the one rig that I would be used all match - the faithful Ronnie rig. The wind was blowing hard right to left so I fished the rig down wind letting it run up the shelf to try and get some presentation. We did have some really high gusts of up to 60 mph bringing down a tree by the railway – bit scary at times.

I started well on single caster catching some decent Ronnie’s. Unfortunately the Carp heard the caster going in and it wasn’t long before they were getting to the bait first. I tried backing off the feed but the Carp were there for good!. The Carp I was catching were very small up to 2lb, but I was catching them quicker than anyone else on the Lake. However, I noticed Rich Coles was catching Carp which were two to three times bigger than mine. So it was the Silvers or no coin. So it was a question of fishing around with minimal feed to pick off the odd Ronnie, but it was hard to avoid the Carp. Looking around I couldn’t see anyone catching Silvers – plenty of Carp though. So with half hour to go I upped the feed and caught some more small Carp.

My Carp weighed 79lb 8oz and with my Lake winning Silvers (pictured right – the casters weren't wasted Chris) of 11lb 12oz took me to 91lb 4oz for third overall. Another great days fishing at this venue.

As expected Rich Coles (pictured lower right) won the Lake and the match with 176lb 4oz fish his top set in his LH margin with Dendrabena hook bait fished over caster and maggot.

Result:

Sapphire:

Overall: Dave Bacon 103-09-0 peg 7

Silvers: Mike Jones 22-10-0 peg 3

Ruby:

Overall: Rich Coles 176-04-0 peg 8

Silvers: Mike Nicholls 11-12-0 peg 12

Weigh Sheet: