After last week’s triumph I was ready to tackle the Sunday open at the Oaks again. After a minor personal victory last time around I was ready to right a few wrongs and put some more ideas into practice. There were 23 fishing today, a good turnout for a cold November day! Gordon and Rab had also made the journey so the quid was on once again with Mr T.
All 3 lakes would be used so we would all have plenty of room. I managed to snare Sycamore peg 21. I always prefer being in the middle of these rectangular lakes, similarly to Woodlands, the ends can often be hit or miss. After parking at the wrong end of the lake, two trips saw me eventually get all my gear to my peg. This week I hadn’t had chance to set up my top kits the day before which meant I would be rushing to get a decent amount of time to plumb up.
I only set up two rigs today, one for on the shelf at 13m and one down the track at 11m at the bottom of the slope. I wasn’t too confident in my ability for fishing on the slope so decided to pin my faith in these two lines instead.
There was a thick mist hanging over the whole fishery, this light grey sky would initially prove a nightmare for seeing a float at any distance, thankfully the black marker made a welcome appearance from the bottom of my box! I had the same rigs as two weeks previous, but this time I used a doubled 5 latex for the shelf and a solid 8 for down the track.
Bait wise I had half a pint of white maggots, some black swim stim, some micros, some 4millies, and 4 & 6mm expanders.
At the all in I went onto the deep line where I was expecting to catch most of my fish today. It probably took 15 minutes before I hooked into my first fish after a few tentative nibbles. The chap opposite on his debut on the lakes had already caught about 4 I think! I could also see Chappy, Ghandi and Josh Newton putting a few in the net. I stuck with this line and in the first hour managed 12 fish. The second hour slowed somewhat and I only managed 8, though because I was still doing OK in the grand scheme of things I stuck with it for the third hour and managed a further 10 to take my total to 30 fish in the first three hours. It didn’t quite feel right and the fish weren’t of a great average stamp so I fed a fruit shoot of bait on the shelf and left it for ten minutes before going over it. This turned out to be a bad move, I stuck at it for an hour which was far too long, I only managed 4 fish and so decided to go back down the track. Looking back I should have stuck at it down here or had a go on the slope as a practice as I was far from contention.
The change to the deep line proved a good one and in the last ninety minutes I had a further 16 fish taking my tally to 50 for the match so I’d beaten my fish quantity since the last time by 11 fish so I couldn’t grumble at that, though I knew my weight would be less. The average fish size I was getting was far less than on Beech!
At the weigh in I managed 36lb dead, Chappy won our lake and the match with 62lb. Rab had 42 fish for 40lb from the last peg on Sycamore, a much better stamp than I was getting? I did however beat Mr Thackwray for another pound!
An interesting point on average fish size though. Phil Sellars on Beech 7 where I fished a couple of weeks ago had 48 fish for 56lb, this works out at 1lb3oz per fish, this tally’s with my 39 fish for 45lb8oz, again 1lb 3oz. Whereas my 50 fish today averaged only 12oz! If my 50 fish had have averaged that 1lb 3oz I’d have had a weight of 62lb!! I’ll have to have a think on why I only managed to attract smaller fish into my peg, too much feed? Too little feed? Wrong type of feed? All good questions, questions I’ll hopefully answer next time I’m on the bank!
The top 4 looked like this
John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 62-14-0, carp to 2 lb on 14 m pole and pellet, Sycamore 5
Phil Sellars (Garbolino Elton) 56-10-0
James Woods (Oaks) 56-1-0
Chris Hall (Oaks) 54-2-0.
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