Sunday 22/09/2019 - Windmill Open - Match Lake

Back from four days in sunny Cornwall on a walking holiday with the Special One, covering the seven bays. Absolutely beautiful scenery. My legs were a bit stiff so a day sitting on the Lake side was just right today. Some heavy showers today so with very little wind I would be able to sit under the umbrella.

Dave Haines drew the two golden pegs - peg 8 and would you believe it peg 14 again. I was hoping for peg 20. Peg 14 went to matey Glen Bailey so expected another Golden payout. My day would be spent on peg 1, which I haven't fished for some time. Certainly the Sedges weren't so overgrown. The only person I could see was Junior on opposite peg 23, who seemed to be eating pasties for most of the day! I could hear Dave Willmott huffing and puffing on peg 3 whilst fighting the reeds on the island.

Simple plan which I now wish I stuck to. First half fish for Silvers with the Ronnie rig with LR's over GB laced with LR's and Carp the second half with paste down the RH edge. I was hoping to get close in as possible to the bank but whilst plumbing up I kept catching the underwater Sedges so was forced out deeper than I would have liked. I fed the two lines and caught small Skimmers and Ronnie's regularly until I foul hooked two Carp which disrupted the peg for a while. By leaving the feeding alone I got the Silvers back. After 90 minutes and with 5 lb 4 oz of Silvers I saw signs of Carp in the margin and made my first mistake in being tempted away from the Silvers by switching to the paste catching a small Carp first try. There were plenty of Carp about so decided to stick with it but I was landing one for every two foul hooked which was very frustrating. The foul hooking directly due to the depth I was forced to fish. With an hour to go I gave up on the right side and plumbed up the left hand side finding a clear spot in the ideal depth so fed that which lead me to hooking the Carp properly. So second mistake was being too lazy to have a proper plumb around.

I finished with 5 lb 4 oz of Silvers which was only 1 lb out of a pick up - first mistake. The second mistake probably cost me third overall as the peg was certainly worth at least twice my weight of 42 lb 1 oz of Carp for  total of 47 lb 5 oz. Lessons learnt - doubt it at my age!

The rain stopped midday and all my gear had dried and ten minutes before the all out it hammered down and I got soaked - bugger.

As I predicted Glenn Bailey (pictured right) won the match with 94 lb 7 oz from Golden Peg 14. Glenn got his 14 metre section stuck which meant fishing down the edge difficult so he switched to fishing over to the island using his favourite paste attack. Well done matey.

The Silvers was won by Dave Haines (pictured right with a similar stamp of fish I was catching) with 8 lb 9 oz from peg 19. Dave caught on caster over loose fed caster.

The top three weights came from the three far end pegs. I think this is because the water is shallower making the fish more catchable. although the results don't reflect this I'm sure there is as many Carp at the near end.

Result:

1. Glenn Bailey 94-07-0 peg 14
2. Ray Bazeley 79-04-0 peg 12
3. Steve Venn 78-02-0 peg 10

Silvers:

1. Dave Haines 8-09-0 peg 19
2. Dave Willmott 6-04-0 peg 3

Weigh Sheet: