After what seems like a long wait the Partridge Lakes Winter League has started. The previous week I fished the Sunday open drawing peg 61 on Covey 3. Previous results had this as a good area with a lot of water to go at being opposite the end of the spit and having more open water to the right. I set up usual rigs of bread dobbing, 2ft pellet rig, 3ft maggot/pellet rig and a maggot rig for the deep water at 5-6metres. Started on the bread rig about 4 inches off bottom, managed 1 small F1 from here at the start, but no more bites after that. So next tried the 3ft swim slightly to the left with double maggot. This was the best line from which I caught most of the fish. Fishing in the track towards the end only produced 3 or 4 fish. I ended the match with 19 fish for 35lb 12oz. I was the last peg in the section and was lucky enough to win the section by a good margin as the pegs in the 50's did not produce. In hindsight I should have fished a line more towards the open water to my right. During the match and especially at the end a lot of fish were topping in the area between the end of the spit and the open water. If peg 75 at the end of the spit had been used in the match those fish would have been pushed back towards me. As it is the fish moved into an area with less angling pressure on the day. Mid 40lb would have seen me get in the top 6 so maybe I could have caught some fish to the right instead of expecting the track line to work.
So on to the winter league. Since starting to organise our team for this league there has been a lot of interest from the POHAS members wishing to fish it. So trying to whittle down nearly 10 names to a team of 4 was a bit tricky. So team for the day was myself, Alan Lamb, Phil Clare and Jon Green, this was based on those who had been fishing the venue most and having some success with section wins and frame placings. At this time of the year and into the rest of winter it is really important to keep attending the venue to stay in touch with good pegs and methods.
I carried out the draw which gave Phil on peg 1, Covey 1, Jon on 46 Covey 2, Alan peg 56 Covey 3 and myself on peg 96 Covey 4. From our draw we were pleased with Phil's peg and we had Jon on the spit on Covey 2. The spit usually fish well as the water is more sheltered from the weather and the fish move into these areas when the weather gets worse. Alan's peg expected to struggle as he had fished 57 a couple of weeks ago and it was not very good. My peg was also a bit of an unknown, although I was next to a bridge the pegs on the spit in my section were expected to fish a lot better.
Again for this peg I set up the usual rigs, bread dobbing, pellet rig for across, 3ft maggot and track rig for maggot again. Plumbing up showed that the depths along the far bank varied a lot and it was difficult finding a flat area to fish to. I fished a maggot line to the right in the deep water and next to the bridge again in the deepest water. I started on bread against the far bank grasses. I did expect to catch here as it looked like somewhere some fish would be holding up. However I did not get any bites on this. Meanwhile Shaun Cooke on my right started to catch some of the recently added stock fish close to the nearside margin, so I tried an expander feeding a few micros next to the near bank rushes, from this I only managed a small F1. It was a very slow start and I don't need to go into much detail as my match never really picked up from there. I caught 3 small Rudd on maggot across and a couple more better size F1's from the maggot lines to end the match with a very disappointing 5lb 11oz. With such a low weight I got what I expected and was last in the section of 10. After the weigh in I was told by several other anglers that my peg had been poor in recent matches, but I did not think it would be 5lb poor. I expected to catch fish under the bridge, but I could get a run of fish together and also no matter where I tried along the far bank at 2 or 3ft I only managed those 3 Rudd, it was a really bad day
I was hoping that the others in the team had fared better, sadly this was not the case and we all suffered a bad match. Phil was our best performer with 29lb getting 7 section points. Alan caught 16lb for 9 points and Jon had 19lb for another 10 points. Leaving us in last position with a total of 36 points from 40 and already a little way behind the next team above us. Guru and Garbolino Elton tied first place with 11 points, well done to those guys.
After the match our discussion centred around what could have affected our poor returns. The weather had changed in the couple of days leading up to the match, very mild for mid November, being replaced with colder winds, rain and hail, as well as strong winds. On the day the weather was not too bad, wind was not as strong as expected, but the rain was persistent when it started. All these factors affect the fishes behaviour in one way or another. Most of the good weights came from anglers who managed to catch the new stock fish, as these tend to stay close to where they were introduced and usually respond to pellet fishing. Whereas to catch the established fish it is mainly maggot fishing. We also felt that our draw was not very good, several pegs were really up against it.
So all in all it was not the start we expected and hopefully we will have better luck in the remainder of the competition. The only way is up.
The next hard part is picking a team for the next match, I had already suggested that we drop the worst points scorer in order to give those interested a chance in fishing, but the first match result has put a right spanner in the works. The initial feeling between those that fished the first match is to keep the team the same as they are the most experienced on the venue and hopefully we cannot do any worse. So I have a bit of a dilemma to solve before the next match.
At present my gear has just about dried out from the weekend and I am hoping to fish the Sunday open at Partridge. Unfortunately the weather gods are doing us no favours by forecasting cold air sweeping down the country over the weekend, but need to keep going. The league matches are every 2 weeks, so I will update after each match.
Thanks for reading, tight lines.
No comments:
Post a Comment