Sunday 18/07/2021 - Tony Rixon's Float Only - Round Four - Sedges - Brick and Tile Lakes

I had planned to be in Brighton this weekend with my Son Mark and family, so got Martin McMahon to stand in. However, my Granddaughter got sent home from school and had to self isolate, so we cancelled. Luckily there was a spare space so I was able to fish one of my favourite venues which I haven't done for a long while.

Travelled with Glenn Bailey and arrived to the usual warm welcome from Denise. We had a walk around to find lots of fish up in the water. Not a good sign for me but good news for the 16 and 17 metre Slappers.

Having lost most of my margin Bullet paste floats at Landsend Ryan Jordan (RJ) made me some more. I must say they fit the bill perfectly - pictured. Wire stem self cocking them to the eye with the paste taking it to half the tip. Perfect for margins up to 2 foot deep.

Joined the nearly orderly queue for the draw and pulled peg 29 on Tile. Right Lake and right side for me. That said, it seems peg 38 has recently been the most productive for Silvers. For company I had the affable Steve Seager on end peg 30 and match organiser extraordinaire Tony Rixon on peg 28. Steve's peg was black with Carp on the surface as was most pegs on our side of the lake, the other side was to fish really hard. It was clear I wouldn't be able to compete with the long pole merchants for Carp mugging, especially the mugging/"stalking" master Tony Rixon. So I decided to target the Silvers until the Carp came down into the margins.

Umbrella up as it was to be a right swelter which helped me feel comfortable for most of the day.

The set up was a margin 0.3 gram paste rig which suited both right and left hand sides, 4 x 16 Titan to fish top set plus one barrel just up the inside shelf out in front. The short and long Ronnie rig with caster over caster.

Started on the Titan rig with expander over micro, whilst shipping out noticed Steve, Tony and Arron next to Tony were all playing Carp! To my surprise I had no indications on this! Switched to the short Ronnie rig with single caster over loose fed caster in both margins and that's where I stayed catching some decent Ronnie's, Rudd and some proper Skimmers. I did get a bit frustrated when I had three fly off the hook. All OK until the last 90 minutes when both margins completely died. I could fathom out what had happened. Thought Carp had moved in, so tried the paste both sides and nothing not even a nibbler. With 10 minutes to go I dumped a pot of LR's on the long line in the hope of one of the big Eels in this Lake with triple LR's on the hook. It did work as I has an Eel of 6 oz and a small Skimmer. Hindsight tells me I should have switched to this as soon as it died, but wont beat myself up over it. I fed about 3/4 pint of caster.

My silvers weighed 43 lb  8 oz for a Silvers win, my one accidental Carp weighed 3 lb 12 oz - smallest in the Lake me thinks. Just a tad disappointed I didn't get the 50 lb. I think with none of the anglers around me not feeding helped me.

The match was won by Joe McMahon (pictured with some of his catch) with 232 lb 13 oz from Tile peg 22. Joe caught mugging with 8 mm banded pellet. Well done matey a worthy winner. Other than Joe's weight the match was a close affair with most framers catching shallow.

From the talk along my bank apparently you can mug fish with either both eyes open, one eye open or with both closed!!

Glenn Bailey won is section opposite me with on peg 33 with 61 lb, so double bubble van catching five decent Carp very quickly late on. Once again the M5 motorway was rammed, so had to get off again and use the A roads. Very refreshing to get that first cold one in hand.

I think I will give Acorn a miss Tuesday as it will be another hot one.

Result:

Weigh Sheets: