What a difference a day makes, back to winter with a bitterly cold 25 mph Easterly wind blowing. Another good turn out. I drew peg 56, which is just at the back of the furthest most island. Not too disappointed with this draw, but would have preferred to have been out on the main body of the lake for silvers fishing. Started at 7 metres with 4mm expander over ground bait and caught small 4 oz Skimmers for two hours, after which the Skimmers did a disappearing act and on came the Ronnie Roach. So I decided to switch to caster on a new line. I stayed on this to the end catching some quality Ronnies to 12oz until the end.
I weighed 25lb 6oz for top in the silvers, just pipping John Bradford by exactly 2lb! This also gave me joint fifth overall and a pick up of £25 (not bad for a £5 bet).
Nice to see my good mate Terry Bruton (pictured top right with scale perfect Common) back in form. Terry won the match with ease (practice makes perfect) from peg 50 with 98lb 10oz of quality carp. Terry fish hard 10mm drilled pellet over loose fed 8mm hard pellet out to the end of the island, down the shelf and also down the shelf of the right hand margin.
Full Result:
1. Terry Bruton 98-10-0 peg 50
2. Pete "The Meat" Bryer 50-0-0 peg 68
3. Pete Philips 42-0-0 peg 43
4. Phil Coulam 34-12-0 peg 47
5. Mike Nicholls 25-06-0 peg 56
5. Terry Church 25-06-0 peg 51
Top silvers:
1. Mike Nicholls 25-06-0 peg 56
2. John Bradford 23-06-0 peg 61
At last drew Specimen Lake peg 34, and my good friend and travelling partner Darren Gillman drew next door peg 33 (corner peg). I new I was up against it on the silver pool, however, corner pegs aren't usually that great for silvers. Will I beat Darren on silvers?
I set up three 4x14 Jolly floats, one black top for 11-o-clock and one yellow top at 1-o-clock due to differing light at 9 metre. The yellow top also plumbed up for my top set caster rig. I also set up another black top for the margin with small pieces of paste over my new ground bait mix, just up the inside shelf. The plan was to feed at 11-o-clock then fish the 2-0-clock and vis versa. I started by potting in 250ml of ground bait at 4 metres down the peg. I then started to loose feed caster at top set distance directly in front. I started at the 11-o-clock with 4mm GOT expander, which resulted in some Crucians and Skimmers. I knew at this point that the bright sun was going to be a problem for the fishing in general. I kept switching 11 to 1-o-clock and managed to keep the odd Skimmer and Bream coming. I switched to my top set line over the catser which resulted in 15 small Perch and three 1lb Roach.
I switched back to the 7 metre line which taught me why the lake is named Specimen. My next three fish weighed 48lb 8oz which included a personal best Mirror of 18lb. I landed another five Carp by the whistle.
At the weigh in I thought both Bill Ferris and Darren had beat me on the Silvers. However, thanks to Darren losing a Tench near the end I beat them both by one pound! I weighed 20lb 9oz of silvers for third in the silvers and a winning total weight of 102lb 12oz and a pick up of £80. I have now qualified for all of the three Carps AC mania's.
John Bradford pictured (top right) had peg 20 on Match Lake drawn for him and he doubled the next silvers weight with 41lb 6 oz of mainly Roach! John caught on caster shallow and also qualifies for the Carpsmania final.
Full Result:
1. Mike Nicholls 102-12-0 peg 34
2. Rod Wotton 96-04-0 peg 32
3. Bob "The Bread" Price 42-03-0 peg 15
4. Glenn Bailey 41-15-0 peg 13
5. John Bradford 41-06-0 peg 20
6. Steve Evans 40-12-0 peg 6
Top Silvers:
1. John Bradford 41-15-0 peg 20
2. Bela Bakos 23-03-0 peg 19
3. Mike Nicholls 20-09-0 peg 34
4. Bill Ferris 19-4-0 Peg 36
We were promised sunshine and showers - where was the sun? A good turn out once again. I drew peg 8 which is one of the disabled pegs on the road side. For the second time I drew next to Harry Muir, I love the banter and humour of the Irish, great bloke to draw next to. I had not fished this peg before, but the peg was in open water opposite the end of an island, open water is always good for Silvers - my quarry. I plumbed-up and found the bottom of the near shelf at 7 metres, which was seven foot deep. This was to be my Skimmer line. I also set up a caster margin rig for the Ronnie Roach. Although I had paste I decided to try and avoid the Carp today. I started by feeding one 250ml cup of micro pellet into my Ronnie line. I then put four tangerine balls of my new Skimmer mix of ground bait in to the 7 metre line. I started on the Ronnies by loose feeding caster over the micro pellet, which resulted in one Ronnie. I quickly switched to the Skimmer line. This was productive on the the GOT 4mm expander with Skimmers to 1lb. However, it wasn't long before the Carp move over the feed and pushed out the Skimmers. After about ten minutes the Skimmers were back for another twenty minutes. This ebb and flow went on for about two hours, at which time I fed three more balls of ground bait. Then switched to the Ronnie line which resulted in four Tinca tinca for about ten pounds. The Ronnies weren't really feeding, so switched back to the Skimmer line which resulted in ten or so more Skimmers.
I weighed 26lb 8oz which won the Silvers by 16lb 8oz and a pick up of £25.
Pete Bryer (pictured top right with 15lb Mirror Carp) won the match from peg 26 with 99lb 3oz - with just thirteen Carp! Pete fished at 4 metres to his left using his favourite bait - Cat Meat.
Full Result:
1. Pete "The Meat" Bryer 99-03-0 Peg 26
2. Pete "The Real" Phillips 70-13-0 Peg 28
3. Keith Firks 69-05-0 Peg 18
4. Bill Ferris 54-0-0 Peg 24
5. Bob "The Bread" Price 47-07-0 Peg 19
6. Terry Bruton 46-04-0 Peg 15
Top Silvers:
1. Mike Nicholls 26-08-0 peg 8
2. Ian Sheppard 10-0-0
Why is it that venues which you hate are always kind to you. Bullocks Farm is one such venue for me. From the photograph (bottom right) you might think it idyllic! I have fished the venue four times and framed three times. So today was no different I drew permanent peg 22 (for the second time) - a good draw!
I set up one rig a 4x10 Jolly with no 11 shot spread out over the full three foot at 10 metres. I Plumbed at 12-o-clock and 2-o-clock and found 10mm difference. The twelve-o-clock was deeper due to anglers naturally fishing out in front, caused by fish "feeding-out" the silt. I expected to catch more at the 2-o-clock position.
I decided to try my new mix of ground bait which I fed through a kinder pot at 12-o-clock. I caught Crucians steady on 4mm GOT expander for while but it was not really working well enough. I switched to the 2-o-clock where I fed 3mm expander (five pellets every fish). I caught Crucians steady for the rest of the match. I think this worked much better due to:
1. The expander pellet feed falls slowly.
2. The Crucians are taking the feed pellet whilst moving (on the drop).
3. Not fishing in a "hole".
I finished the match with 25lb 13oz of Crucians for second overall and second in the Sivers and a pick up of £30.
Young Gun Tom Thick photographed with his catch of mainly Crucians (top right) won both the Match and Silvers with 28lb 2oz, qualifying for the Wednesday Silversmania. Tom caught on single maggot over swim-stim ground bait from peg 25.
The match proved to be a close affair for the top six.
Full Result:
1. Tom Thick 28-02-0 Peg 25
2. Mike Nicholls 25-13-0 Peg 22
3. Dave Wride 19-05-0 Peg 18
4. Bill Ferris 19-0-0 Peg 10
5. Andy Gard 18-08-0 Peg 26
6. Colin Golding 16-09-0 Peg 12
Top Silvers:
1. Tom Thick 26-10-0 (Wednesday Silversmania Qualifier)
2. Mike Nicholls 24-04-0
John Bennett invited me to help one of the Carps AC new juniors at Shangri-La, which I agreed to do. For those that have not fished this nine peg pool I have attached a photograph (right). The house and pool is owned by John's son Martin. I can remember Martin fishing for the Flowerpot back in the "real" winter league days. The pool is stuffed with Carp varying from 2oz to 20 lbs. There are also Tench and Chinese Koi. Shangri-La is the venue for the Carps AC Thursday evening league.
The junior was fourteen year old Ryan Houghton who had not caught a fish before. Colin Golding kindly gave Ryan an old Trabucco 13 metre pole. I set him up with a 4x14 Carp float he had in his box to 0.22 G-Line straight through to a 16 Colmic Nuclear hook. The swim was five foot deep (twice that of Bullocks Farm!). Decided that it would be best to fish corn at dead depth at 7 metre (there is a 10 metre maximum rule). Cupped in twelve corn kernels. Ryan's first put-in resulted in a three pound Mirror Carp and Ryan's first fish in the net! As the picture (bottom left) shows Ryan was really pleased - what a smile - makes it all worth while. Ryan and I decided that the best feeding pattern was three fish for every twelve kernels of corn. I must say I was impressed how quickly Ryan adapted to pole fishing (one to watch for in the not too distant future). Ryan fished for five hours and weighed in 43lb 12oz. The photograph (bottom right) shows part of Ryan's first Carp bag.
Note: Juniors fish for free with Carps AC and get one to one tuition! For more information go to http://www.carpsac.co.uk
My birthday today so I decided to bring along some cakes to the draw for my fellow anglers. So happy birthday to all those born on 02 April, which includes John Baker, the previous Carps AC Treasurer and one time National Angling Champion. It was nice to see Andy Britt bring his Dad Bryan with him for this match (Bryan won the last Bathampton AA pensioners match from Withy Pool). The match was pegged a big strange to say the least - in blocks of sevens and fives which only occupied 50% of the lake, what a waste! I drew peg 57 which was 6 metres wide to an island - but an end peg (thank god).
I set up a Skimmer rig which was a 4x14 Jolly with no 20 Tubertini 808 to 0.14 G-Line hook length. The depth was about five foot down the track, which I decided to fish at 10-o-clock at 9 metres. I also set up a caster rig, for fishing over to the island with kinder potted caster, and single caster on the hook. I also setup a paste rig for down the left hand margin a 4 metres.
I started on the caster and had one small Roach which came off. Decided early to started over my Skimmer line with 4mm GOT expander pellet and didn't look back, I caught Skimmers from 3oz up tp 2lb all match. I foul hooked one Carp, which came off in five seconds and broke on another. Caught nothing on caster or paste, but both were fished half heartily.
I weighed 24lb 9oz for first in the Silvers and second in the match and a pick up of £35. Tom Coulston won the match with four Carp on bread on the straight lead and a few Skimmers for 38lb 11oz from peg 54
.
Chris Fox (pictured) was second in the Silvers with 17lb 6oz of quality Roach also from an end peg 41. Chris qualified for the Wednesday Silversmania by default.
Full Result:
1. Tom Coulston 38-11-0 Peg 54
2. Mike Nicholls 24-09-0 Peg 57
3. Colin Golding 23-00-0 Peg 45
4. Chris Fox 22-15-0 Peg 41
5. Dave Bacon 16-02-0 Peg 44
6. Bill Ferris 12-04-0 Peg 43
Top Silver:
1. Mike Nicholls 24-09-0
2. Chris Fox 17-06-0 (Qualifies for the Wednesday Silversmania)
What a difference a day makes, back to winter with a bitterly cold 25 mph Easterly wind blowing. Another good turn out. I drew peg 56, which is just at the back of the furthest most island. Not too disappointed with this draw, but would have preferred to have been out on the main body of the lake for silvers fishing. Started at 7 metres with 4mm expander over ground bait and caught small 4 oz Skimmers for two hours, after which the Skimmers did a disappearing act and on came the Ronnie Roach. So I decided to switch to caster on a new line. I stayed on this to the end catching some quality Ronnies to 12oz until the end.
