Sunday 25/11/2012 - Landsend Individual Winter league - Round One - Specimen, Match and Sidney's Lakes

It was the start of the Landsend Winter League run by Tony Rixon. It’s an expensive league but well worth it because of the payouts with the Silvers getting a reasonable share – but not equal – yet! This did mean we would be breakfasting in Shipham café with the delectable Wendy. Two Chews went for the large breakfast and there was no way he could eat it all and beat me to the finish – he did try. On the way to the draw from the café Two Chews was quiet until he chirped up “That breakfast was one sausage too far”!

 

Arriving at the fishery the Somerset Moors were well under water (pictured right). Mike Duckett thought it was the worse since 1968 (I remember that year very well). It’s the first time for me that a fishery had to pump out water from the Lakes to gain access to the platforms.

 

Arriving at the draw box Tony Rixon wanted me to draw for him – I refused, which was my first regret at I could have handed him peg 29 on Specimen Lake and redraw myself – bugger. Tony ended up opposite me on peg 34.

 

Peg 29 is a peg too big for me with 16/17 meters required to reach the far bank and with me limited to 11.5/13 metres it was going to b e a struggle. Any other peg - nearly.

 

I decided to fish for Silvers even though it doesn’t have the form as do many of the other pegs on the Lake. So I set up my Ronnie rig with caster, a 4x16 Jolly to be fished at 11.5 metres with soft pellet and the paste rig for over the pellet line in the last hour or so (the second weight on the Saturday open fell to paste by Mike West).

 

I started by feeding a half pot of caster on the Ronnie (half expecting to catch some specimen Perch as well). I then started kinder potting a few micros at 11.5metres and second put in hooked a big Common Carp. I usually put in keep nets to protect the sides of the platforms which do stick out a bit in to the Lake, but I forgot. Back to playing the big common, we both spotted it’s bolthole at the same time – my pallet. The Carp was far quicker than me and I lost it. I should have let the elastic go on the pull-a-bung which would have given me chance to do the platform shuffle – but it didn’t. I put the side guard nets in – after the Carp had bolted. I must say this pissed me right off as I buggered the float, so a new rig was erected.

 

From now on I struggled on this line so went in on the Ronnie rig which was disappointing as I couldn’t get a bite on it. So it was the long line for the remainder of the match. As I couldn’t catch kinder potting, I put a full pot in and found this did work for a while catching a few Skimmers, Ronnie’s and one Crucian. However, it was short lived and even though I kept potting in, all I could catch was Ronnie’s, which was bloody hard work for me at 11.5metres with 4 mm soft pellet. I decided for the last hour (which on reflection was the wrong decision) to fish for Carp on the paste which resulted in two small Carp. I now wished I kept on the Ronnie’s as I was 2lb out of picking up a Lake Silvers. My two Common Carp weighed 11lb 8oz as did my Silver for a total of 23lb. At least I beat “Deep Sigh”.

 

The match was won by Mark Poppleton (pictured right with the joint equal Silvers winner) with 104lb 10oz from peg 11.Mark caught Carp at 13 metre towards the end of the opposite island using expander hook bait over micro. Mark fed 1 ½ pints of micro.

 

Joint winner in the Silvers was Mark Brennan (pictured lower right with his catch of quality Perch) with 17lb 8oz from peg 31. Mark caught at 16 metes with caster over kinder potted caster.

 

Full Result:

 

1.      Mark Poppleton 104-10-0 peg 11

2.      Mike Duckett 82-11-0 peg 22

3.      Craig Edmonds 75-04-0 peg 26

4.      Tom Thick 60-08-0 peg 17

5.      Tom Mangnall 60-06-0 peg 3

6.      Bob Gullick 60-01-0 peg 68

 

Top Silvers:

 

1.      Tom Thick 17-08-0 peg 17

2.      Mark Brennan 17-08-0 peg 31

3.      Ken Rayner 15-12-0 peg 13