Thursday 28/02/2019 - Plantation - Tony Rixon and Paul Faiers Silvers Only

On my own today as Geoff preferred the Windmill match. Stopped at the Bridge Hotel for breakfast, not knowing what the food will be like, as it can be variable to say the least. Luckily the Chef that can cook was on duty today so an enjoyable breakfast. Arrived at the fishery in plenty of time for a quick look at the Lake. With it overcast with a bit of rain expected and the temperature still up for the time of year I expected some good weights and predicted 30 lb would be needed. There was some wind on the Lake with the worse blowing into pegs 4,5 and 6 so would hope to avoid these.

Into the draw box and out comes peg 5!  For company I had Mike "Curley" Jones and Andy Gard. I set up the waggler, the Ronnie rig and a 4x12 Winter Titan to fish at top-set plus 4, which was about as far as I could hold the pole in the wind. Due to the wind the Ronnie rig was a no hoper so abandoned. I started on the long line with Pinkie over GB laced with Pinkie and had a few small Skimmers and a couple of Ronnies. I was soon apparent that the Ronnies had shut up shop. I persevered with the Pinkie but it wasn't happening. The rig was hammering though with the wind which was ever increasing. I could see those out of the wind catching Skimmers so knew I was out of the running early on. The wind was very frustrating. I decided to have a play with the 4 mm expander fished on the same line over micro and blow me I caught a 12 oz Skimmers first try on the drop. It didn't last. So I mixed up some different GB to feed the micro with. This worked well enough catching five small Skimmers. I persevered with this line until the wind got the better of me, so threw the towel in and played around with the waggler. The presentation further out was much better and fishing single LR over loose fed LR's resulted in another skimmer and some Ronnies. I experimented by putting an expander on the hook of the waggler and providing it stayed on after casting I would get a bite immediately. I missed most of them Ronnies me thinks. I did have another Skimmer messing around with the expander. On hindsight I should have anticipated the increase in the wind and had a line closer in where I could have presented better. The waggler also might have been a better option to fishing long.

I finished with 14 lb 6 oz and also ran but did beat Two Pots. I hate the wind especially when it affects my fishing.

As I predicted it fished well with a lot of 30 lbs. The best being Tony Rixon (pictured right with his catch) with 39 lb 4 oz from peg 2. Tony caught long on the caster over GB laced with caster....see his blog for further details.

Most of the framing weights came to caster hook bait.

Result:

1. Tony Rixon 39-04-0 peg 2
2. Rob Wotton 33-06-0 peg 14
3. Dave Wride 32-12-0 peg 17
4. Dave Willmott 30-0-0 peg 15

Weigh Sheet: