Thursday 02/05/2019 - Shiplate Fishery - Costcutter - Main Lake

Back to Shiplate Fishery for their very popular costcutter, I can't keep away. Nineteen fishing today. This fishery is such that you can choose whether to fish for Silvers or Carp as each peg has them in numbers. I arrived in plenty of time for a cuppa and a chat.

Most fisheries are fishing funny at the moment probably due to the up and down weather we're having. I expected similar today.

Into the draw box where there was three pegs left - 1, 3 and 15. All good pegs. In I go and found myself on peg 15 again. Of course I would be excused for thinking it would fish the same, but I knew better. I had a great view of the Gamekeepers Gaff from my peg - not bad methinks - pictured upper right.

I'm going to cut to the chase. After three hours I had set up allsorts of rigs including the waggler, some during the match to try and catch a fish. This resulted in one 4 oz Carp and seven Ronnies!! So I went for the proverbial banana walk and discovered it was fishing hard - no surprises there. However, both pegs 1 and 11 had high double figure catches of Carp on the method with Gary Flinders having 76 lb. Back to my peg and I decided to pack all my rigs away except for the paste rig which I switched to the Drennan margin pole with the orange 25 elastic to 0.2 GLine and a 12 - 911 hook. I sat there just up the inside margin at top-set plus three for the remaining three hours kindering hard 4's with each blob of paste. During this time I had one Tench and seven Carp to 20 lb. I only caught when the wind blew into my peg which wasn't often enough. It wasn't until the last 5 minutes the Carp arrived in numbers foul hooking and losing two in this short time!

My seven Carp weighed 90 lb and with my few Silvers took my weight to a match second with 93 lb 14 oz. Very enjoyable day, but felt a bit like a bivvy angler today.

The match won by Gary Flinders (pictured right with some of his catch) with 179 lb from peg 11. Gary caught on the method fished to the opposite island with banded pellet hook bait. Gary said unless he got in tight to the island in 6 inches of water he didn't catch.

The Silvers was won by Jim Doughty (pictured right) with 16 lb 2 oz from next peg to me 14B. Jim caught short on the pole using 6mm meat fished over hard 4's. Well done to him especially as it fished really hard for the Silvers today.

Another great day at his fishery.

Result:

1. Gary Flinders 179-0-0 peg 11
2. Mike Nicholls 93-14-0 peg 15
3. Mike Hill 91-04-0 peg 1

Silvers:

1. Jim Doughty 16-02-0 peg 14B
2. Keith Fisher 14-15-0 peg 12
3. Mike Jones 13-05-0 peg 10

Weigh Sheet: