Thursday 28/10/2021 - Ray's Rip Off - Windmill - Match Lake

Third to arrive in the dark. Had a walk around the lake in the gloom. There appeared to be some colour still in the lake but hard to be sure in the light or lack of it.

Rip Off was suffering from a good night out celebrating his 75th, so some confusion with the draw - all soon sorted.

In to the draw plastic bag and out comes peg 1. Happy with this but has been a bit of a carp peg all year with it winning last Sunday.

This peg is very deep with it 3 foot next to the bank steeply sloping off into 9 foot at one barrel. So set up the short Ronnie rig and a 4x14 to fish top set plus one barrel. In case the silvers didn't show I added a 4x14 Roob to the roost to fish down each margin set to 5 foot for the carp.

I started by feeding both the silver lines with GB laced with LP's. Started on the short rig with single LR and had a few tiny fish before I foul hooked a carp, landing a large scale which went in the carp net. New hook and couldn't get a bite. So went out with single LR on the two barrel line and had a 4 lb carp. I then had a 2 lb Skimmer which gave me the encouragement to stick with the silvers. After a long wait I had another 2 lb skimmer, so looking up on what was an hard day. I kept trying the short rig but couldn't get a sniff. Two hours in I had a walk down to Hughie peg 4 who was also struggling on the silvers. So made the decision to fish for the carp. Fed my line at three barrels down to the reeds with the same GB mix and fished single LR over it and had a response straight away landing a 10 lb Common. I had a steady 3 hours feeding LR's through the kinder pot catching carp to 8 lb. During the last hour the wind really got up folding the reeds over my line and dragging the rig up the shelf. I also made the mistake of feeding more GB which lead to a frustrating last hour pricking and foul hooking. This was caused by me feeding the fish up with the GB and the wind dragging the rig into the carp. I fairly hooked a 14 lb Mirror which just circled around in front - as the do - nearly had it in the net once and unusually it decided to storm off at a high rate of knots breaking the line. Soon packed up as it looked like rain plus Hughie and me had to weighed in our side of the lake.

My two skimmers and ballers weighed 4 lb 2 oz and my carp 56 lb 9 oz for a second overall total of 60 lb 11 oz. However, couldn't help thinking would I have had more big skimmers had I stuck it out at two barrels?

The match was won by Dave Willmott (pictured above) with 133 lb 15 oz from peg 24. Dave caught at four barrels down to his right up the shelf using his favourite meat attack. Dave fed three tins mainly through his large kinder pot which takes about 30 pieces of meat. Well done matey.

The silvers was won by Dave Poole (pictured with the match winner) with 9 lb 2 oz from peg 19. Dave caught on his long whip with a waggler rig fishing caster over caster. Dave fished it up wind picking up the against wind tow. Well done matey.

Back to the "Ringer" no sign of Rip Off as we were expecting him to by a birthday round 😏!

Result:

1. Dave Willmott 133-15-0 peg 24

2. Mike Nicholls 60-11-0 peg 1

3. John Smith 37-09-0 peg 20

Silvers:

1. Dave Poole 9-02-0 peg 19

2. Dave Haines 6-05-0 peg 5

Weigh Sheets: