Sunday 08/01/2017 - Windmill Fishery Open - Match Lake

Today was the first match of the new fishery regime. I met with both Tom and Terry the fishery management team (pictured right the long and short of it), plenty of enthusiasm from both and were saying all the right things, except I don’t understand why they want to net it to remove small fish. Hope it’s not the biomass syndrome that is slowly killing some match venues. Let’s be clear small fish do not affect larger fish feeding as the small fish are soon bullied out – ask any match angler. Need to decide if it’s a pleasure venue or a match venue where all fish are welcome irrespective of size or creed. However, I do wish them both well with their endeavours and they get the budget they want from the fishery owners.

I had breakfast with Geoff Francis at the Beefeater. I did get my moneys worth today! After delaying the draw to 09:00 for those that aren’t on Ass Book, luckily Dave Haines arrived which probably got me out of being head peg selector, bloody hard venue to peg.  I suggested to Dave he leave peg 20 out, which surprised Geoff Francis, however, another angler arrived so peg 20 went back in. In to the draw box and out comes peg 8 for me and peg 20 for Geoff, serves his right. Happy with my peg as it was an end one.

Arriving at the peg and during setting up the one 4x14 Malman F1 Winter I noticed the reflection of the overhead power cables out in front and because there was absolutely no wind the reflection was like radio waves (pictured right) it made watching the float difficult. It was a first experience for me. A couple of times the wavy lines appeared to rise above the water!

The one float did all within a margin of 6mm. Initially I fed a knub of GB laced with some dead reds at top-set plus two expecting to catch some early small Skimmers. I also fed a micro pellet line at top-set plus three off to the right at 2-o-clock. Well an hour passed by on the GB short line with single dead without any indication, whilst opposite Geoff Francis had landed two Carp, as did John Osborne on next peg 6, but more worrying John Barker opposite was catch small Silvers regularly. So out on the pellet line and a 10lb Common came easily to the net. Perhaps Carp were backing off the Silvers. I stayed on the pellet line without any further indications. I then decided to feed a new Silvers line also at top-set plus three which had the affects of switching on the lights. I caught Skimmers to 2lb regularly for about 2 hours toping up with a knub of GB laced with dead reds after each fish. After 12 Skimmers the swim slowed so tried the pellet line which I had been topping up and had a 6lb Mirror Carp, which fought really hard. I tried the Silvers line again but reckon a large Carp was sat over the dinner plate. So went to top-set plus three with the GB and maggot and caught another 3 decent Skimmers before the all out.

My two Carp weighed 16lb 8oz and my 15 Skimmers 23lb 3oz totalling 39lb 11oz for both a Silvers and match win (Silvers net pictured right). I must say this is unusable to catch this many big Skimmers at this venue and is probably a one off due to the recent weather conditions changing from -7 to 10 degrees etc… Celsius in just a few days. I thoroughly enjoyed fishing this flyer today. Plus it was back to the Holly Bush with Mr ever improving Francis.

Finally: Ray Bazeley is running a series of Thursday matches at Windmill starting this week. If you don't kn ow his pone number just turn up.

Full Result:

1. Mike Nicholls 39-11-0 peg 8
2. Paul Baker 37-03-0 peg 28
3. Mace Graham 34-10-0 peg 30

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 23-03-0 peg 8
2. Mace Graham 7-0-0 peg 30
3. John Barker 6-10-0 peg 22

Weigh Sheet: