Foxcotte Lake from the top bank.My first trip to Foxcotte for a while and I was looking forward to some roach fishing. The weather had been changeable the week before and with a few hard frosts the fishing could be tricky. I pulled 17 out of the hat and made my way there. With Nick for company on 16 hopefully there would be some fish in the area as Nick always draws on fish!
Peg 17 on the left with 16 in close proximity.The water had a slight tinge to it, and whilst plumbing up I found a lot of weed in the peg and it was very difficult to find a clear area to fish. Nick on the other hand caught a fish on a bare hook, I knew he would have a load of fish in his peg! With so much weed in the area I decided to fore go any rods, and set up a couple of rigs on the pole. I found a small hole to fish in at 12m straight in front of me, and one at an angle to my left. I set up a 0.3 gram DS9 0.10 to 0.08 611-20 to a pink hollow, and a 0.4 gram DS9 0.12 to 0.10 611-18 to a yellow hollow. I also plumbed up next to the tree on my left at 6m. I decided to fish over groundbait in front of me and to put some chopped worm and caster in on the left angled swim. A 50/50 mix of black lake and match blend well riddled was the mix. I had worm, caster and maggot as bait. At the all in i cupped in three balls of groundbait with some caster in straight in front of me and half a pot of chopped worm each on the other 2 swims.
The first ten minutes were a bit of a disaster, with me faffing about, the float wasn't quite sitting correctly and I was putting on and taking shot off! I managed to settle down and hooked a couple of small roach. Nick was getting a few, with some netter roach in there for good measure. The bites were slow in coming and the weed was a problem, I did manage to catch another couple of fish when I decided to fetch a finer elastic out of the bag as the pink hollow was to heavy for the small roach that I was getting. I took off the rig from the pink hollow and put it onto a top set with 3 elastic. After I did that I couldn't get a bite! Swapping to the other lines didn't improve matters, with nothing forthcoming. I dropped a down to a finer hook and hook length but it didn't make a difference. A good hour and a half had passed before I caught another small roach. Nick was still getting a few but the whole lake seemed to be fishing hard with some anglers walking. I could see James catching steady on the sluice, and Buzz next to him catching the odd fish. I was struggling now with the weed, so when Nick went for a walk I fetched an on the drop rig out of the box and attached it to the 3 elastic, with the plan to fish above the weed.
I started pinging caster and maggot and kept lifting and dropping the rig in, this worked to a degree and I started to string a few fish together, only tiny but at least it was something. I would get a couple then it die for some time, it was difficult to keep them coming. I did this for the remainder of the match as it was the only way I could get a bite!
Hard work for not a lot. The scales came round and I weighed a massive 1lb 2oz, 21 small fish, good enough though to take the section by double default! Nick had 2lb 8oz for third, and James and Buzz either side of the sluice were 1st and 2nd respectively, all in all a very hard day for all.
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