Thursday 29/04/2021 - Shiplate Cost Cutter - Main Lake

John squeezed twenty of us in today, about the maximum number without repegging the venue. Second to have my peg pulled which saw me on peg 6. Happy enough with this as it is a good Silvers peg. However, the main shoal of Skimmers still seem to be sitting in the thirteens.

Peg 6 is an ideal peg if you want to keep out of the sun, I didn't as the wind was bitter which was veering in to me on occasion so found it necessary to put on an extra coat. I could see Rod Wootton opposite sat in his tee shirt!!

Set up the usual 4x13 MR red top to fish top-set plus two barrels out in front with GB and DR's. Also a 4x14 Winter Titan - black top to fish top-set plus three barrels at 1 0'clock for  Skimmers over Chopped worm and Casters later as a fall back but wont feed it until necessity calls. I had some paste left from Tuesday so thought it prudent to set a 0.3 gram paste float to fish near full depth on my top-set - I wasn't holding my breath with this one as the fish still reluctant to come into the margins at the moment. First mistake of two today not setting up the Ronnie rig!

All set up so having heard Tony Rixon was on peg 2 which is one his favourite types of pegs - fishing to the mud banks. So took the camera down and did a short video - below - he's a natural. I recently fished peg 3 and Tony was more optimistic than I would have been that he would catch Carp. See his blog to see if it went to plan.

Copy paste the link below into Google/or other search engines (MicroSoft stopping me adding the video at moment)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni0WkqN88Ik

Back to my peg and started short with GB and DR's and had a good hour catching about 10 lb. However, none of the bites were positive. It slowed so thought I would loose feed some Pinkie - mistake two - the Carp came to it and were swirling just below the surface and were really scatty with any movement from my rig and they would bow wave away. I really struggled form there on. Tried the CW and C never had a bite on it. Came in on the paste rig - nothing, but by swapping to whole worm caught a couple of Perch to 12 oz. For the rest of the match I only added another 10 lb, but from what I could see only Kev Winstone was catching Silvers which stopped me thinking about scratching around with the Ronnie rig. Interestingly I only foul hooked one Carp.

My Silvers weighed 20lb 8oz just 4lb off second, which I could have caught with the Ronnie rig. This isn't quite hindsight as I haven't been setting it up recently because if the absence of numbers of Ronnie's - next time.

The match was won by Gary Flinders (pictured right with four Carp that weighed 45 lb) with 106lb 8oz from peg 5. Gary caught most of his lumps fishing shallow with a bit of slapping at 14.5 metres. Switching to the method more for a rest than anything else I think. Well done matey.

The Silvers was won my Kevin Winstone (pictured right with the match winner) from fancied peg 13A with 32lb. Kev caught on maggot fished over GB. Well done Fella.

Result:

1.Gary Flinders 106-08-0 peg 5

2. Tony Thick 76-06-0 peg 9A

3. Norman Huggett 59-10-0 peg Zero

Silvers:

1. Kevin Winstone 32-0-0 peg 13A

2. Paul Fiaers 24-08-0 peg 8

Weigh Sheet: