Wednesday 05/06/2019 - Sedges Fishery - Cost Cutter - Tile and Brick Lakes

Glenn (with two nn's or Two Pots) and me decided to fish Wednesday this week, so choose Sedges which is one of my favourite fisheries. I've not been there for some time so was looking forward to it.

Arrived at the fishery to the usual warm welcome and with some nostalgia. Matey Merv "Topper" Haskins in the early days use to arrive at matches on his motorbike, which you think impossible nowadays - apparently not - see pictured right.

A good turn out with 22 fishing so match split over three banks. Into the draw bag and out comes peg 40 on Tile Lake - a very sought after peg. After seeking recent form I found that the Monday Silvers pegs 40, 39 and 38 had the top three 40 lb weights. So my plan was to initially fish for Silvers and switch to Carp if they showed up. To these ends I set up a 4x16 Winter Titan to fish for Skimmers at top-set plus two and a 0.3 gram paste float to fish top-set plus one down the LH edge. Simple. Whilst setting up I got a dusting down from the industrial plant next door to the fishery - couldn't stop coughing. Luckily it didn't last too long, covering Two Pots new luggage with a fine dust!

I started by feeding the margin with hard 4's which I would continue to loose feed over the top whilst fishing for the Skimmers. I fed the Skimmer line with GB laced with micro and with 4 mm expander on the hook initially caught small 4 - 6 oz Skimmers regularly. In Between these I would get the occasional 1 - 1 1/2 pound fish. I was surprised how many of these Skimmers take to flight - it may well be due to the Lake being deep. I hooked one Skimmer of about 12 oz which ran straight to the bank jumped out and landed in my empty Carp net - Result. I carried on fishing then decided I should remove the Skimmer incase I caught a Carp so took out the net and fish and during transfer to the Silvers net dropped it back - Bugger. By regularly topping up I kept them coming for about 4 hours when I foul hooked four Carp in quick succession. Tile Lake wasn't fishing to it's usual high standards for Carp but noticed a few anglers also stating to catch them. So reckoning I had about 40 lb of Silvers switched to paste down the margin with plan to cover some other winning options. First put in I had a 6 lb Carp followed quickly by three more I then had a spell of foul hooking. Because of the Reeds it's impossible to get out of the deep margin which was about 3 1/2 foot, which is too deep for this type of fishing. However, I did put about 60 lb in the Carp net loosing five foul hookers.

My Silvers weighed 39 lb 11 oz just one ounce behind first place!! My Carp weighed 63 lb 12 oz for a sixth overall weight of 103 lb 7 oz and second in the section. A very minor bit of bad judgement - perhaps.

The match was won by Two Pots (pictured right) with 177 lb 2 oz from brick Lake peg 3. Pots caught on .....well ... paste at 13 metres from two lines - left and right.

The Silvers was won by Phil Clapp (pictured right with the match winner) with 39 lb 12 oz from Tile peg 35. Phil caught on 7 mm meat fished over meat.

So what's changed since my last visit: Not too much as it is a very well managed venue. Certainly lots more Skimmers in Tile - very good news, improving what was already a superb Silvers venue. I thought the Carp mouths were a bit battered. Not sure why this should be, but noticed there were some anglers using very large wagglers (if that is what they are called) with tops as big as ping pong balls. For some reason fisheries limit the size of wagglers to 5/8 " diameter or size of the middle finger. Can't wait to get back again only wished it was closer to home.

Result:

1. Glenn Bailey 177-02-0 peg 3 Brick (Paste)
2. Bill Hopping 138-10-0 peg 9 Brick (Paste)
3. Mark Bellringer 121-10-0 peg 33 Tile

Silvers:

1. Phil Clapp 39-12-0 peg 35 Tile (Meat)
2. Mike Nicholls 39-11-0 peg 40 (Expander)
3. Jess 38-04-0 peg 22 (Meat)

Weigh Sheets: