Thursday 28/05/2020 - Lert's Match at Farleigh Woods

To keep fit during the lockdown I have been walking 10k most days. However, today having fished my first proper match I realised I should have sat on my seat box every day for six hours waving my arms around. Getting off my box today I was doubled over.

Chris Ollis was keen to run a match at his favourite venue and so were twenty others. Chris was emphatic that government guidelines were to be maintained. So to ensure no gatherings a rolling draw was ran by Dave Poole. So on arrival we threw our £20 in a bucket and the draw done for us and called out by Dave. We went straight to our pegs. The permanent pegs are at least 10 metres apart. The weigh in was done using the bucket system (Chris homemade pictured right), now used by many fisheries. So the bucket would be placed on the ground and the scales man would step back 2 metres whilst the angler put his fish in the bucket, he would then step away and the scales man would weight the fish and safely return them. Larger Carp would be weighed individually if the bucket would distress a number of fish. No following the scales rule was observed. All went to to plan.

I was shouted peg 21. The least popular area in my view. However, I was able to reverse right up to my peg. For company I had Paul "Cucus" Clayton who has been doing well on the Silvers of late - still not sure it's anything to do with the cucus he feeds though. The other side was gentle giant Lee Massey.

Our pegs were back in a bay/corner and mine sightly back further. I must admit the margins looked like they may do the business on Carp later in the day (pictured right) in the meantime it would be the small Silvers with the occasional Carp tester. I initially set up a 4x12 to fish topset plus three in 4 foot of water which was full depth in this part of the lake. Unfortunately due to the conditions and the sun being in the eyes I could barely see the float even after trying various colours. So I set up the Ronnie rig to fish shorter where visibility was much better. I set up the waggler to fish for Silvers in case it got really hard. And finally my banker a margin paste rig taking four number 11's. I prepared my bait but found it impossible to pump my expanders, thought it was the pump so borrowed a new one from Paul and found it to be the expanders probably due to being in the bait bag for so long! Anyway just used them soaked.

I started by feeding a small ball of crushed expander GB laced with dampened micro on the Ronnie rig line and with 4 mm expander on the hook started to catch stunted Skimmers to 4 oz. I managed to keep them coming for about two hours by loose feeding small balls of wetted micro over the top. After which the silvers faded. I noticed Paul next door was struggling on the Silvers. So having been feeding the margins with 4 mm pellet tried the paste which just sat there until it faded away. Switch the Silvers line to loose fed maggot and caught a few Ronnies which were bigger than the Skimmers. This died far too soon for my liking. In and out the margin which just didn't look as if the Carp would not put in an appearance. So out on the waggler with single maggot and had my biggest Skimmer of about 1 lb. I then had a run of Ronnie's before it went quiet. Soon after I hooked a Carp which I thought was foul hooked, but wasn't. Estimated to be about 8 lb and gave me a torrid time in and out of the bankside reeds before it escaped - fair play it worked hard for it. Spent some arm folding time on the paste as I had to given up on the waggler as I couldn't see it. No Carp. I think if I could and wanted to fish the method I would have caught well over to the island which was about 40 metres away.

My Silvers weighed 11 lb 2 oz. inconsideration that I was between two DNW's I was satisfied that I left very few Silvers in the peg.

The match was won by Harry Muir (library pictured above) with 64 lb 2 oz from peg 15. Harry caught on the method over towards the island.

The Silvers was won by Dave Willmott (pictured right with his catch) with 34 lb of Skimmer and Roach. Dave fished short starting on maggot and later switching to caster. Dave certainly got the Silvers sorted on this venue. Well done matey.

Considering the conditions and that it has been fished quite a lot recently it fish better than most expectations. With more matches the venue will improve even more. The fish definitely need feeding up.

Result:

1. Harry Muir 64-02-0 peg 15

2. Luke Fothergill 56-06-0 peg 13

3. Mark Tanner 51-04-0 peg 3

4. Clive Glisson 34-02-0 peg 23

Silvers:

1. Dave Willmott 34-0-0 peg 17

2. Chris Ollis 19-03-0 peg 9

3. Dave Lewis 18-10-0 peg 2

4. Andy Pratten 13-0-0 peg 14

Weigh Sheet: