Thursday 23/07/2020 - Shiplate Farm - Cost Cutter - Main Lake

Happy Birthday Mum, Thank you.

Back to Shiplate for the cost cutter and stopped near to the fishery to take a picture across to Brent Knoll and Hinckley Point - a lot to take in. It's a nice area to spend the day especially the fishery. It's one of those fisheries where it's so pleasant it doesn't matter if you don't catch anything - which by the way is near on impossible. The usually friendly greeting from Goldilocks. - but where's the Gamekeeper, always worth knowing where he is and if he's got his gun.

Nineteen booked in and today and I was able to draw my own peg again. Out comes peg 14 on the far bank. The regulars will tell you that the far bank is the better bank. However, I do like the near bank, so probably doesn't matter where you draw it's up to the fish where they want to be and feed. For company I had match organiser Gary Flinders on peg 14 B and Rich on peg 13 A. Junior had drawn sought after peg 15.

Had a chat with Gary who was on the peg that won the Silvers on Sunday and said he would fish for them. I said that even though the Lake hasn't been fished since Sunday the Silvers wouldn't feed especially as extra cold water has gone in and I would fish for Carp. It's funny how things turn out and today was more proof that fishing is not prescriptive as the complete opposite transpired.

I set up two paste rigs - one to fish top-set plus one barrel of the Drennan margin pole and one for the margin gunned up with 0.22 and 25 Drennan elastic - no prisoners. Hard 4's and some micro on the table. Started by potting in one pot of micro on both lines as a kick starter and planned to drip feed the 4's over the top for the remainder of the match.

First put in I had a Skimmer on 18 mm piece of paste. Five more in consecutive put-ins, but was suffering missed bites. So I decided to reduce the paste size to 9 mm which was an improvement and no longer accidentals!!! In the first hour lost one foul hooked Carp and put 30 lb of Skimmers in the net. So head down and was having a great match until the Carp decided to have a munch and totally buggered the Skimmer fishing for an hour. In that time I lost a right lump which broke me, three more foul hookers landing five Carp and a PB Grass Carp which I estimated to be 12 lb (my only other Grass Carp was 1 lb!). However, having got the species confirmed by Rich was returned immediately and counted as 8 lb! For me a good bit of fishery management as "ALL LIVING CREATURES LIVES MATTER" .

I managed to get the Skimmers back and had a bonus 2 lb Perch - rather the Carp sloped off. However, with 30 minutes to go I lost my mind and put a pot of 4's in and hooked another Carp which broke the rig at the connector and couldn't be bothered to put on another rig so spend the rest of the time in the margin and had one Ronnie!

My Slivers weighed 82 lb 12 oz and my six Carp 61 lb 4 oz for a total of 144 lb. This put me first in the  Silvers and fourth overall. I'm sure if the Carp hadn't arrived and/or I hadn't put that pot of 4's in I would have done the ton - that's fishing. Nonetheless a great days fishing and another memorable day with great company.

The match was won by venue expert Gary Flinders next to me on peg 14 B (pictured right) with 178 lb 12 oz. Gary started on the method over to the island whilst he primed his 14.5 metre line to fish shallow later. After a few on the Method and a few shallow he switched to 5 metres with 8 mm pellet and didn't look back catching well including some big Carp (judging by the blaspheming all round was also losing some lumps). Well done matey and thank you got pulling my nets out.

Next match Sunday at Chiltern Trinity - Woodlands.

Result:

1. Gary Flinders 178-12-0 peg 14 B
2. Gary Bowden 154-11-0 peg 15
3. Colin Fellows 147-12-0 peg 1
4. Mike Nicholls 144-0-0 peg 14
5. Tony Rixon 126-09-0 peg 10 (Again)
6. Lee Williams 111-02-0 peg 5

Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 82-12-0 peg 14
2. Andy Fry 30-14-0 peg 7
3. Tony Rixon 21-14-0 peg 10 (Again)

Weigh Sheet: