Tuesday 18/10/2011 - Stafford Moor October Festival - Day Two - Josephs Lake

Out to dinner again but this time at the Union Pub in Dolton, where we all had steak pies, chips and mushy peas. However, before we left mark Tanner decided to have a swim in out pool – yes that’s him right.

As I said I was looking forward to fishing Josephs Lake in to the draw bag and out comes peg 27. Andy said it’s called Blackpool Pier. It didn’t take long to discover why. The platform is 5 metres long! The peg wreaked Mr Crabtree. It reminded me a bit of one of the end swims at Rood Ashton. That said there wasn’t much sign of fish except a number of very small Rudd and Ronnie’s topping. There are many stories of lost big fish on this Lake so with plenty of features around me including an island at 16 metreish. I decided to use my margin pole at 7 metres in open water and as the Lake had been patchy the day before I decided to fish negative and set up a Ronnie rig and a 4x14 rig for any Skimmers that might be about.

That left me 1 ½ hours to have a walk around and found Mark Tanner on Tanners peg 18 and Glenn on Tanners peg 6 outside the Bollywood Chalet, where Dave Stockton was staying and made me a cup of coffee – thanks Dave. During the walk around I was informed that my swim does hold Cat Fish – cripes.

Back to the swim and on the “all in” I kindered in a dozen casters with a single on the hook, it took five minutes to get my first bite a ½ oz Rudd – saved a blank then! I started to catch them regularly so switched to my Ronnie whip fished to hand. I had a good first hour catching very small Skimmers, Ronnie’s and Rudd. I thought I would try and catch some of the bigger stamp and put a small 3mm expander on the Jolly and started to miss quick bites. Switched to the single caster and hooked a Carp which after a tussle I broke off as the fish decided to switch sides of Blackpool Pier! I jumped up and made up a paste rig and first put-in in foul hooked a carp and was once again left in wonderment of a huge scale. Back out on the paste and – nothing. I now had about 8lb of Silvers and with 9lb winner the Silvers the day before I thought bugger back on the Jolty and single caster still feeding through the kinder pot. And would believe it I hooked and landed four Carp in consecutive put-ins three of them were teen fish the biggest I guessed at 16lb. I went back on the Ronnie rig and caught another 3lb of small fish. As the swim went quite I was worried that I might hook another Carp so I went back out on the Jolly with single caster. I was right as I had another two small Carp making it six – another one and I would another net, however, this wasn’t necessary, because the next one bottomed my elastic (Middy blue tightened down). As the Silvers had dried up I decided to spend the last ¾ hour fishing paste having put in a huge amount of dead red maggot to no avail.

My Silvers weighed in at 11lb 3oz and my Carp 53lb 2oz for a total of 64lb 5oz for a lake win overall and a Lake Silvers win. This contributed £160 to my Polo shirt but it’s still costing me £50 – still too expensive!! This left me 10th overall.

It will be either Emily’s Lake or the “Wall of death – first eight pegs on Joseph’s dam wall. I was secretly hoping to draw here as it would be easier than trying to fish 16 metres on Emily’s.

The match was won by Simon Jones (pictured right) from in form peg 36 Tanners with 140lb 8oz. Simon caught on the straight lead and 8mm pellet.

Full Result:

1. Simon Jones 140-08-0 peg 36 Tanners
2. Derek Smith 134-0-0 peg 3 Woodpecker
3. Perry Stone 132-02-0 peg 3 Tanners
4. Nobby 121-14-0 peg 32 Woodpecker
5. Dave Stockton 91-11-0 peg 20 Woodpecker
6. Ryan Harris 86-12-0 peg 16 Woodpecker
10. Mike Nicholls 64-05-0 peg 27 Josephs