Sunday 22/11/2015 - Windmill Fishery Open - Match Lake

Went out to the car early to pack, no frost or ice on the car windows, packed the car, had a cuppa back to the car and the glass iced up in 20 minutes!! I filled the kettle with warm water and washed the windows. That said we were promised a less windy day and warmer day the yesterday.

Bela was working this weekend to catch up on last weeks rained off work, so it was the Beefeater for breakfast on my lonesome.

I just managed to be first to the fishery, beating fifteen others for the 08:30 draw. I was about fifth to draw and out came peg 18, which didn’t mean a lot to me except I was told it was the shallow end and was likely to be Carp free this time of year. Not an issue for me.

OK the winter has suddenly been thrown at us, so need to change the approach? I decided to start where I finished the last match which meant setting up the 4x12 Jolly for semi-hard over soaked pellet to be fished at full depth at top-set plus two. As back-up I set up a 4x10 Ronnie rig.

I started on the semi-hard and had a bite immediately a 1oz Skimmer, for the next 45 minutes I stayed on this with a 4oz Skimmer the biggest fish to grace the keep-net. I was getting plenty of indications from these small fish but they were too small to pull the float down. I had been loose feeding caster both sides so tried the Ronnie rig and had a few Ronnie’s but I was missing too may bites. I decided to mix some GB in the anticipation that I might get the Skimmers close in on the Ronnie rig. This didn’t work so I added caster to the GB and caught Ronnie’s averaging 2oz, which was much quicker than trying to catch the micro Skimmers further out. I converted the Jolly line to meat but trying it a few times found that the tiny Skimmers were converting a cube of meat into a sphere. This was soon abandoned to fish for the Ronnie’s for the rest of the match. Absolutely no sign of a Carp except a late welcome addition of a 1lb Crucian.

My net of Silvers (pictured right) weighed 14lb 3oz for first in the Silvers – just.

The match was won by John Osborne (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 51lb 2oz from peg 23. John caught at 15 metres up the far shelf using either 6mm expander over 6 mm feed pellets or maggot over maggot. Well done matey.

Full Result:

1. John Osborne 51-02-0 peg 23
2. Mike Wilson 42-10-0 peg 26
3. James White 27-13-0 peg 22
4. Gary Walsh 19-07-0 peg 30
5. Mark Summer 17-0-0 peg 2
6. Bob Price 16-0-0 peg 20

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 14-03-0 peg 18
2. Steve Dawson 11-12-0 peg 11

Weigh Sheet: