Wednesday 10/11/2010 - Carps AC - Boyd Valley Lake

I wasn’t sure I would be able to fish as yesterday snot was streaming down my nose. As the lake was sold out and the weather promised to be bright and sunny I was dead keen to fish, so I decided to get up an hour earlier to see if I could get myself motivated in time. I did have a reasonable night sleep and didn’t feel too bad, albeit a bit slow to get going.

There was only one no show and that was Leyton Palmer who had a bloody good reason, he was in hospital having suffered a heart attack. By my reckoning Leyton must have been suffering a heart attack at Cider Farm last week and still managed to weigh in 124lb of Carp– cripes, this must be a first. Get well soon matey.

I pulled out peg 9 which meant I would have the sun in my eyes for the first few hours. However, you do get the red carpet treatment on this peg. Someone has put a large piece of Axminster down as protection from the mud. I’m not sure what the original colour was but its bright red now! The water level is up about 18 inches so I was able sit on top of the bank. I set up two Ronnie rigs and 1 Skimmer rig a 4x16 Jolly to be fished at 10 metres down the inside shelf. I decided to feed four tangerine balls of GB over this line to fish maggot, caster or soft pellet. But I was never to find out whether this line worked or not as I never fished it. Because of the sun I started on the top set with Ronnie rig one, a 4x14 PB14 (modified) using caster hook bait over loose fed caster. I caught quality Ronnie’s to 12oz from the start, but would loose them from time to time. I put this down to feeding too much inviting the Carp in have a look. After two hours I switched to Ronnie rig two - a “to hand rig”, with a home made float fished on a 3 metres Drennan whip (flick tip). I basically kept the Ronnie’s coming, again losing them if I over did the feed. In the last ten minutes I decided to up the caster feed finnishing off my 3/4 of a pint to try my theory wrt Carp. And yes I hooked and landed a 6lb 2oz Mirror on 0.1 line and flick tip. My Ronnie’s (pictured right) weighed in at 28lb 2oz totalling 34lb 4 oz including the one Carp. This put me first in the match and first in the Silvers.

I’m glad I made the effort as I had a memorable days Ronnie fishing, plus I didn’t sneeze all day.

Runner up in both the Silvers and overall was Steve Dawson on peg 11 with 18lb 8oz of Silvers and a total of 21lb 3oz mainly made up of Chub, which Steve caught on the maggot feeder fished over to the island.

Full Result:

1. Mike Nicholls 34-04-0 peg 9
2. Steve Dawson 21-03-0 peg 11
3. Kevin Dicks 19-02-0 peg 1
4. Bob Price 18-05-0 peg 4
5. Chris Davis 18-04-0 peg 6
6. Andy Gard 17-12-0 peg 5

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 28-02-0 peg 9
2. Steve Dawson 18-08-0 peg 11
3. Chris Davis 16-0-0 peg 6