Sunday 23/04/2017 - Windmill Fishery - Match Lake

First stop breakfast at Wetherspoons in Kingswood with the usual suspects. With four of us in convoy along the bypass where there would have been a time when we would have raced to see who got to the fishery first, but not now, our ages are starting to tell, a very subdued short ride.

Fifteen booked in today so first into the draw box and out came peg 28, a good winter Silvers peg so reasonably happy with it. For company I had Two Pots Bailey on peg 30 who had the curse of the Golden Peg!

A light wind was blowing into me which might be a help as the fish here are so much use to a right old tow on, so suspect the Silvers wouldn’t be going mad.

Three rigs: A 4x16 F1 winter to fish at top-set plus one at the full depth of 9 foot. A 4x12 F1 winter to fish also at top-set plus one along the LH margin in 3 foot of water. The short Ronnie Rig.

I fed the margin rig with meat and the deep rig with micro and started on the Ronnie rig with DR’s over loose fed DR’s. I had a couple of Ronnie’s when I spied a blow in the margin so went in with meat and had a 10lb Carp straight away. Back on the Ronnie rig which was really slow so tried the deep line with 4mm expander which resulted in just one tiny Skimmer. It was fishing hard at our end of the lake. I decided to go back into winter mode and fish DR’s over GB using the 4x12 F1 rig, I had another 10lb Carp in the LH margin along with some small Silvers. The LH died so opened up in the RH side again with GB and maggot. I spotted a blow over it and soon after hooked and landed a 7lb Carp. I went into scratch mode catching small Silvers which were mainly Perch.

I finished the match with 11lb of Silvers (my catch pictured right) which unfortunately left me Solvers second, if only I hadn’t gone for my back relieving walk I might have got the extra 9 oz to win! My three Carp weighed in at 26lb 8oz for a total of 37lb 8oz.

He match was won Joe McMahon (pictured right with the before and after life) with 93lb 9oz from peg 22. Joe caught around 60lb in the first two hours before it slowed, Joe fished 14 metres to the end of the island using 8mm banded pellet over loose fed 6’s. Joe fed around 2 pints all through.

The Silvers was won by Dave Willmott from end peg 13 with a few decent skimmers for 11lb 8oz.

There was a lot of complaints about the payouts at this fishery not being spread out far enough. Note to myself to discuss with Tom.

Full Result:

1. Joe McMahon 93-09-0 peg 22
2. John Osborne 92-0-0 peg 18
3. Geoff Francis 57-07-0 peg 8
4. John Clarke 52-01-0 peg 6

Top Silvers:

1. Dave Willmott 11-08-0 peg 13
2. Mike Nicholls 11-0-0 peg 28

Weigh Sheet: