Wednesday 13/07/2011 - Avon Angling Open - Landsend Fishery - Match Lake

With the Special One away with her Friend Gill I was home alone so decided to fish Landsend Wednesday Open even though it was a late start, fishing from midday to 18:00. However, I was highly influenced by the excellent days fishing I had last Sunday at this venue.

I arrived at the venue 2 hours early so I had a walk around all four lakes. We were down to fish Match Lake which looked a bit quiet.

In to the draw and out comes peg 11. At last I draw this peg after years of trying. It’s a good Silvers peg so I was delighted. I set up my usual 4x14 Jolly but was surprised how deep the peg was. I considered changing up to a 4x16 but didn’t. I also set up a 4x12 Drennan chop to be fished at the same depth over at 13 metres to the island (apparently there are plenty of Chub over) and in my LH margin with caster for Tench, Perch and Ronnie’s. I also set up a paste rig for the Margin in case the Carp moved in (they didn’t).

Looking around there were plenty of Carp mooching around on the surface ready for mugging by the Carp Slayers – see picture right.

Due to the bottom being variable to say the least (probably due to the silt being moved around by the aerator) I plumbed around for an age I was undecided where to fish but in the end plumbed for 6.5 metres at 1 o clock. Fishing the river for Chub you generally catch them "early doors" so I toyed with this but decided Commercial Chub might be different, so

I started on the 3mm expander hook bait over a few wetted 4’s and caught Skimmers, F1’s and Ide from the off. I had a wonderful two hours before things got difficult at 6.5 metres. As I had been feeding caster over and in the margin I switched to the Chop and single caster and caught a few decent Perch and Ronnie’s. I switched to the far line again with single caster and caught Ronnie’s and small Perch. This wasn’t good for fishing this long as I could catch these on my top set. So I invested in opening a tin of corn and tried that over and had four Chub. Unfortunately the smallest managed to jump out of my keep net!! After being beaten up by Carp (probably foul hooked) I finished the match in the margin catching Perch and Ronnie’s. There was a tail of a Tench showing now and again in the swim but I couldn’t get it to take any bait I tried. So yippee no Carp with my Silvers weighed in at 41lb 8oz (see pictured top right of my catch) I was delighted to win the Silvers. This also put me sixth overall.

The match was won by Tony Rixon (pictured right with the Silvers winner) from peg 7 with 90lb 3oz. Tony caught … see his Blog ...for the officail record he trashed four rigs ... should have gone to specsavers!!

Full Result:

1. Tony Rixon 90-03-0 peg 7
2. Tom Thick 70-01-0 peg 1
3. Clint Wojtyla 66-09-0 peg 17
4. Leyton Palmer 61-04-0 peg 3
5. Pete Sivell 60-08-0 peg 21
6. Mike Nicholls 41-08-0 peg 11

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 41-08-0 peg 11
2. Leyton palmer 27-0-0 peg 3