First blog for a long time, sorry about that have been very busy!
Not really done a lot of fishing as have been working most weekends, so it was nice to get out and try and catch a few fish under match conditions. So it was off to the very picturesque Dandy's Ford Fishery for the re-arranged teams of 4, as Witherington was still flooded. I picked up John in the van, and headed for breaky before arriving at the fishery. The weather forecast was good, ( makes a nice change ! ) and despite a couple of hard frosts I was hopeful for a few bites. ( A few of us had been down for a sneaky bit of practice mid week! ) I was on Lodge lake, and got drawn peg 17, it is tucked away in the corner, but not right in the corner. I was not entirely happy with the draw, as I was the only one on the lake without an island chuck! And as it turned out I could only fish the pole at a maximum of 7m!
I sat on my box for a few minutes to asses what I was going to do. A 7m margin swim in front of the pallet on my right, I would of liked to of gone longer into the corner but the angle of the pallet made that impossible. Fish were moving in the reeds beyond it, so I was confident of a few moving over that swim. A 4m margin swim to my left, and three 7m swims around the clock, in front of me. I couldn't go anywhere else, even if I wanted to! Margins were 0.16 straight through to a 911-16, attached to Browning green hollow, fairly tough for the time of year, but if I hooked any I wanted them out! Open water swims were 0.12 rigs to a yellow Browning hollow, 911 f1-18/20.
Lodge lake, peg 17, top left hand corner for my sins! ( courtesy of google earth! )
I was going to keep it simple on the feed front, micros and expanders on the open water swims, and maggot or corn in the margins. At the all in I cupped half a pot of micros and expanders into the open water swims, and some maggot to my left hand margin, and some corn in front of the pallet on my right hand side. I rotated between the open water swims for half an hour, not so much as a float tremble! So I slipped a grain of corn onto my margin rig and lowered it in front of the pallet swim. It buried after a minute, and after a short struggle a nice 2lb er was in the net. That fish instantly put me second on the lake as no one else ( apart from the the far end peg ) was catching anything! I had another go down there, it took 10 minutes or so to get a second bite, this time a nice fish of 5lb. Apart from the odd small roach not a lot else was being caught, so I made my mind up to attack the margins and do a waiting game, especially as I had a couple of fish in the net.
It took a good hour and an half before the next bite, that turned out to be foul hooked and I lost it near the net. I did keep looking in the open water swims, but they were a non starter. Half way through the match and I hooked quite a lump which gave me the runaround, I got it out from the pallet just, and subsequently lost it in some Lilly's! ( rusty!, or just crap! ) after that commotion I let the right hand swim settle and had a look on the left margin. I hooked a fish of 4lb on the maggot instantly, which turned out to be only fish out of that swim all day. Dave Tucker came wandering around, and after a bit of a chat I set up a shallow margin swim right next to the bank, next to the pallet. It was about a foot deep, it was very clear, but I could see carp floating around under the pallet and hoped I could fool a few in coming my way!
I trickled some maggots into the swim, the silvers weren't feeding so getting pestered by them wasn't a problem. It took a while before the float dipped, buried and hell broke loose! The water erupted as I was attached to a very angry carp that didn't like being caught in a foot of water! After a struggle I slipped the net under a nice fish of 7lb. It was definitely a waiting game and the swim had to settle for some time before I had another angry encounter! They definitely don't like getting hooked in that shallow water! Luckily for me ( or good skill! ) I got them out into the relative safety of open water, and away from the pallet. I had three fish out of there all of a similar stamp, and they all gave me a good tussle. No bites in the last half hour, was hoping for one more as I was catching the end peg up!
The scales came around and I weighed 32lb 4oz. Good enough for second on the lake, and a pick up! I needed one more for a lake win, but felt I had done well out of a very restricted swim. The team had had a good match, top points scorers on the day, and put us back in to contention in the league, with three rounds remaining. Witherington should be fishable by then, if the rains let up!
