21st May, New Lakes - Sessay

With no club match this week I decided to chance my luck on the Sunday open at the Oaks. Last time I fished the new lakes I came third overall and won my lake so I was hoping for a repeat, or at least a decent days fishing. With the draw not being until 9:30 it was nice to have a bit of a lie in, especially after playing gigs on the Friday and Saturday night. By the time of the draw there were 23 on, with a top 4 payout and a section a lake. My hand went into the bag and I managed peg 22 on Beech. From keeping up to date with the results I knew Beech 7 was a bit of a flyer and my peg was opposite this so hopefully they’d come across. The wind, as per the last few weeks was blowing in my face and from my right to left so presentation may be an issue but that would be the case for most apart from the top pegs on Beech where there was no wind and it was flat calm, these two pegs being taken up by Dean Smith and Shane Atkin, and with Gandhi on the next peg to my right I’d have to keep a calm head to get anything from the match. I only set up two rigs to keep it nice and simple, these were both my homemade slim pencil floats, a 0.4g for 11m and an 0.2g for 13m, these were both on 0.12 mainline, 0.10 hooklength and size 18 Gamakatsu Pellet and Paste hook, both finished with a doubled five elastic. The 0.2g rig would also do for down the edge. Bait today I had 4mm and 6mm expanders, soaked micros for feed and also a few 4mm hard pellets to throw down the edge. Gandhi bellowed time at 10:30 and we were away. On plumbing up the wind was quite strong at times so I decided to start at the base of the shelf at 11m as it would be marginally easier than holding 13m. The lad opposite me on peg 6 was in straight away and looking at the length of his rig I think he was fishing on top of the shelf. My float soon went under though and it was game on. By varying the feed from a full fruit shoot to nothing, and everything in between I kept the fish coming, and at the half way point in the match I had 32 fish and seemed to be doing OK. I always do half a match in each net on these lakes as I think it gives you a good idea of how you’ve caught as the days gone on. Switching nets seemed to be the kiss of death though, In the next hour and three quarters I managed six fish! I couldn’t understand it, from feast to famine in a blink of an eye. I put a shot directly under my float to enable me to check my depth is still correct and after a few bites with no resistance I had a look and my float had moved a couple of inches over depth, hopefully adjusting this would see me back amongst the fish? No, still liners, so I shallowed up a floats depth and the bites stopped altogether, I gradually altered my depth half an inch at a time but the liners eventually turned into a motionless float. I tried a few times on the 13m line but only managed a couple of fish, they were far from queuing up! Bob and Mick on the end pegs to my left were now catching me up, both fishing down the edge. I’d been feeding the odd few pellets down there and I had nothing to lose. It turned out to be the right decision as it was solid, I managed 18 fish in the last hour and a quarter and finished the day with 56 fish. I was pretty sure my fish averaged about 12oz so that would give me about 42lb. I knew I'd done OK but thought that the bad middle of the match would cost me today. I packed up all my gear and followed the weigh in round, Simon Medd was leading with 63lb, there was a 49lb and then Bob on my lake weighed in 50lb, so I knew my chance had gone, the lad opposite me on peg 6, who I'd caught a similar amount to weighed in 43lb so I thought my estimation was about right. Shane Atkin had tipped back off the end peg, Dean Smith on the opposite end peg weighed 55lb, then Ghandi weighed a high 40lb. Next up was myself, the first net, with 32 fish, weighed 31lb 8oz! So maybe they were a bit bigger than I thought, my second net of 24 fish weighed 21lb 12oz giving me a total of 53lb 4oz! That pushed me up into 3rd place so I was hoping the rest of the weights were obviously less than mine! Unfortunately Mick to my left had sacked up in the second half of the match down the edge and weighed in 58lb, massively making up for his slow start and a cracking result on his first attempt at these lakes. I'd not heard of any other weights so I was hoping to cling onto 4th place, until Ant Stock weighed 53lb 5oz, ouncing me into 5th! Back in the cafe and I'd managed to secure 5th place overall and also won my section by double default. The top 5 looked like this: Simon Medd - 63lb 10oz Mick Grant - 58lb 2oz Dean Smith - 55lb 8oz Ant Stock - 53lb 5oz Steve Lupton - 53lb 4oz I can't fish next week due to other commitments, and we've no club match the week after either, so I might be back on the new lakes again!