Sunday 05/09/2021 - Ivy House Open - Old Match Lake

Glenn and me decided on a visit to Ivy House, this time the Old Match Lake, our preferred lake. Glenn for his paste and myself for the Silvers and paste fishing, get the choice. We even pushed the boat out and had a breakfast - very nice too.

Eighteen pegs on this lake so with twelve fishing plenty of room for all. There has been some large weights of Skimmers to 60 lb coming out recently, but I was out of touch on how they were being caught, so some observing and learning today, up against the regulars in this respect. The Silvers was won the day before from peg 1.

I drew myself peg 16 which is a good Silvers area. For company on peg 14 I had Smiffy whom I have renamed "Cornucopia" and the affable Stu Foale on end peg 18. 

Spoke to Smiffy who has been doing well on the Silvers. Checked his bait tray which contained 2 kg of wetted micro and guessing 4 pints of corn with another 12 tins in his bait bag. Catching on corn then!

Set up the waggler for the LR's to the island. Two paste rigs one 0.3 gram RJ "Nude" for out in front at top set plus two barrels (fishing long today), and one for the RH margin, the last rig was a 4x13 MR for the Skimmers at the same distance as the long paste rig. One thing for certain I wasn't going to compete with Smiffy on the amount of corn feed as I only had one small - "just in case" tin of corn. Stu did offer me another tin, but would try and make what I had work, especially as I expected the paste to catch the better Skimmers.

I fed the margin with GB, micro and DR's and the long paste line with a pot of micro and started to loose feed 4's over the top. After 15 minutes with no bites I wrongly decided to switch to the corn over kindered corn and micro and started to catch the occasional hand size Skimmer plus one 4 lb carp. Meanwhile Smiffy was loose feeding his peg regularly with the equivalent of my one tin every time!! I kept feeding the margin to be faced with tiny Ronnie nibblers. Tried the wag and mag to only catch small Ronnie's so that was holstered. I stayed with the corn as I was getting bites.

Had a called from Glenn who had 45 lb on his clicker and from what I could see he was well ahead of he field,  certainly expected him to to go on and win with paste doing best in the last knockings. Stu was doing next best catching regularly, until I found out he was catching small Stock carp.

It wasn't until I had run out of corn that I switched back to the paste fished over kindered hard 4's and started to catch some better Skimmers and some recently stocked carp. However, I had left it too late to catch up with Smiffy. Got it wrong today switching from the paste far too early which should have been fished all through. I really started to enjoy the day especially as it was a lovely warm dry day having got rid of the clouds that has plaqued us over many weeks.

My Silvers weighed 34 lb 10 oz for second silver some 15 lb behind Smiffy. My total amounted to 56 lb 10 oz adding my few carp. Andy Lloyd told me after the match that I should have fished the LH margin, he wasn't wrong as I couldn't catch from the RH. I learnt a bit today, but wont be investing in copious amounts of corn!

As expected the match was smashed by Glenn Bailey (picture - prepared earlier) with 123 lb from peg 7. Glenn caught on - well - paste over soaked 4's.

Smiffy (pictured right) won the Silvers with 50 lb 4 oz from peg 14. He caught on corn short fished over copious amounts of loose fed corn. Well done matey.

Glenn and me had a cold one on the way back to round off a lovely warm productive day out.

Result:

1. Glenn Bailey 123-0-0 peg 7

2. Alan Oram 95-0-0 peg 4

Silvers:

1. Alan Smith 50-04-0 peg 14

2. Mike Nicholls 34-12-0 peg 16

Weigh Sheet: