Sunday 18/04/2021 - Westerleigh Winter League - Round Four - Taylors Pool and Shipps Canal

With the nasty NE wind which has been pestering us for an age has at last abated so we were in for a proper Spring day. However, it looks as all the fisheries are suffering with poor results, so expect the same here today. I must say Mark Taylor is doing a great job with the fishery, sporting some new platforms.

My turn on Taylors Pool and was looking forward to fishing the waggler for the Silvers and small Carp with maggot, which would have been the way to go with the conditions. However, I pulled peg 18, which is in the top corner and Cormorant roped off, so no chance of fishing my preference. The regulars told me the fish are mainly at the other end in peg 24/25. So decided to have a Silvers line with Pinkie and GB and a Carp line with expander over micro. So just the two rigs - a 4x14 to fishing top-set plus three barrels in 7 foot and a 4x13 MR to fish top-set plus 2 barrels set to 3 foot down to the left.

Fed the inside line with Micro and a few expanders and the Silvers line with one hard ball of GB laced with Pinkie. Started on single DR and had a Rudd on the drop first put in followed by a small Carp and some hand size Skimmers. After refeeding the line I tried the expander and had one small Carp. At this time it looked as if at least three anglers were doing well on Carp. So my thinking to coin was to focus on the Silvers. So made the decision to convert the inside line to GB and Pinkie anticipating catching some Ronnie's. This to prove to be a mistake - should have kept with the expander, etc... I kept swapping between the two lines adding only one small Carp from the inside line, not one Silver! The longer line was by far the most productive. I did experiment with the feed - loose GB, loose Pinkie, hard balls with Loose Pinkie etc... the Loose was best I think.

My Silver weighed 5lb 7oz for the Silvers win and my few Carp 6lb 6oz for a third on the Lake 11lb 13oz. I think if I had stuck with the expander line I might have nicked second from Simon. Nonetheless a great day out with great company of experienced anglers.

My lake was won by Lynol (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with a spectacular weight on the day of 33lb 6oz from peg 25. Lynol caught 33 Small on 4 mm hard pellet over tight to the opposite island. Feeding hard 6 mm. Well done matey, nice to watch

Shipps Canal was won by Steve with 46lb 1oz from peg 3. I didn't get to speak to him because he was busy launching the life boat to retrieve his top four, but I can safely assume it included copious amount of liquidised bread. The Shipps gang pictured right man handling HMS Bela.

Result:

Taylors Pool:

1. Lynol 33-06-0 peg 25

2. Simon 14-08-0 peg 24

3. Mike 11-13-0 peg 18

Silvers:

1. Mike 5-07-0 peg 18

Shipps Canal:

1. Steve 46-01p0 peg 3

2. Martin 33-13-0 peg 2

3. Mark 29-02-0 peg 1

Silvers:

1. Ricky 2-02-0 peg 4

Weigh Sheet: