Sunday 28/04/2019 - Windmill Open - Match Lake

Met up with Geoff and others at the Staple Hill Wetherspoons, and another hotish breakfast. Arrived at the fishery to find the carp park unusually full. match limited to 23 so only those that booked in got to fish. One angler turned away! Is the sudden turnout due to the £300 double peg Golden Peg - not sure, that wasn't why I was here.

I had the honour of drawing the two golden pegs - 5 and 9 came out so no hope from these pegs at the moment. I was last but one into the draw bag and out comes peg 24. Happy with this as the fish appear to be at this end at the moment. The colour of the water and a few dyeing Silvers told the tale of the Silvers having spawned. For company I had Geoff Francis on peg 23 and Dave Willmott on peg 25 so must be loads of fish around.

The formula at this fishery is the a few Carp feed early with plenty feeding late with plenty of thinking time in between. So the plan was to initially fish for Silvers to try and secure some coin and to quickly switch to Carp if and when the showed up.

I set up a paste rig which was a waste of time. A 4x16 to fish top-set plus two in 9 foot of water for the Skimmers, a waggler again was a waste of time and a 4x12 Roob to fish in the RH margin at top-set plus one my Carp banker.

I fed a small ball of GB laced with maggot on the Skimmer line and fed some wetted micro into the margin. I did feed maggot on the waggler line, no more on this. I started with a single LR on the hook and started to catch Skimmers from 2 oz to 2 lb regularly which necessitated topping up just as regularly whilst the rest of the anglers were sat motionless. After two hours I reckon I had enough for the Silvers coin and with three carp winning the match I switched to Carp after the bigger coin. Into the margin on double LR's and the float buried and I was playing a right hard fighting Carp which broke a 0.16 hook length!! Fair play, it deserved to escape imprisonment. I then had a decent Skimmer and a Rudd! Then nothing for an hour. For the sake of boredom I went back fishing for Skimmers and had a couple more before I hooked another Carp which this time was landed. I felt I was still in the running with a 20 lb of Skimmers and the one Carp so sat the rest of the match in the margin catching one more Carp. It had fished hard as every fishery in the country has.

My two Carp weighed 10 lb 8 oz and my Silvers 19 lb 8 oz for a Silvers win and a fifth overall weight of 30 lb. I must say I did enjoy the Silver fishing today, however, a lot a anglers struggled for a bite, the Lake still hasn't recovered from all the netting the Lake has undergone.

The match was won by matey Geoff Francis (pictured right with his catch of Carp) with 49 lb 10 oz from peg 23. Geoff struggled for most of the match and with two hours left of the match and only one small Skimmer in the net Geoff switched to the straight lead with banded pellet over loose feed and caught two Carp. However, it wasn't until he switched to the waggler again with banded pellet that he caught some doubles which significantly boosted his weight. Geoff along with others struggled during the last 30 minutes. Well done matey pity it wasn't the golden peg.

It was back to the pub with the usual suspects. Great end to another day in paradise.

Thursday I'm off to Shiplate Cost cutter, spending Friday preparing for the Todber 3 dayer staying locally with Martin  Rayet and the McMahon's.

Result:

Weigh Sheet: