Welcome to my fishing blog… February 2023
February 5th – Georges Lake, Whitehouse Farm – A Fist Full of Skimbobs
Well, it was a cold one and quite unexpected. I asked Alexa on Saturday night what the weather was going to be like for Sunday morning, and she said it would be dry, sunny and 1 degree. Lying bitch… it was minus 3 and I had to scrape the frost off my car windscreen. Just can’t trust these fecking robots.
Anyway, I arrived at Whitehouse Farm car park at 7.45am for the 8.30am draw and 6 of the expected 13 anglers were already there putting on their PPE’s and making small talk about Love Island and Dragon’s Den as usual. One confused-looking soul was suspiciously wandering around the nearby field with a bucket. Someone said he was collecting molehill mud, he said he was collecting water for mixing groundbait. Hmmm… all a bit mysterious if you ask me. I’ll let Miss Marple solve that one.
Of the 13 anglers, 10 are committed Winter League contestants, while the others are just out for a day’s fishing and to enjoy watching the rest of us sweat it out over 5 hours of constant pressure. Not at all mercenary, like you might expect… they’re just innocent fun seekers… right? Party hats at the ready!
So let’s get serious. It was into the draw bag once more and out comes peg 12. Not an unreasonable peg I thought but if those big skimbobs don’t show it could be red-face day all over again. The sun was just peeping over the horizon and would be in my face for the first 2 hours. Also, with it being so cold, I didn’t expect to see much action during the first hour at least. So…
…the plan was to fish bomb and bread out into the middle of the lake for the first hour. I set up two 13-metre lines, one to my left and one to the right, plus a short line at 8 metres straight out in front and also a throwaway inside edge line. I really didn’t expect to catch on this edge line but if the water warmed up enough, who knows?
I baited up my right-hand side 13-metre line with a few dead pinkles and a 50-50 mix of black milled expander and Supercrush bloodworm and fishmeal groundbaits. Just one small cup to kick-start the swim would be enough. On the left-hand side I cupped in a small number of micros only. On the 8-metre line, in went a few dead red maggles and a few dead pinkles. No groundbait or micros here.
The inside edge would get fed halfway through the match with maggles only. These days, I have several standard Whitehouse Farm rigs permanently set up and replenished as necessary. They consist of the usual Chianti style and pencil style floats, ranging from 0.3 gram to 1 gram, with size 20, 18 and 16 Guru hooks to 0.11, 0.15 and 0.22 Guru N-Gauge hooklengths.
So, at the all-in, I lobbed out a 1-ounce bomb rig baited with two 8mm discs of bread. After 10 minutes I reduced the offering to one disc of bread. A liner indicated that something was on the move but in hindsight, it was probably moving out of the area as I didn’t get any more signs after that. With 40 minutes gone, I switched to corn on the hook and then meat, all to no avail.
I noticed Steve Dawson, who was opposite, land a big Goldie and so I put the bomb rod down and picked up my pole. I filled the cad-pot with groundbait and a few pinkles and impaled a single flouro pinkle on my size 20 red maggle hook. It took about 15 minutes before I got my first bite from a tiny one-ounce roach. Well, I was off the mark at least. Not much was being caught anywhere as far as I could see.
The only angler I couldn’t see was Andy Brookman who drew against the island on end peg 10. I thought if anyone was catching, he probably was. To my right, I had Julie who was fishing a feeder towards the island and to my left I had Clive who seemed to spend more time clambering down the bank, unhooking his rigs from the undergrowth. He was having a mare of a day.
With almost 2 hours gone, I finally hooked into a decent skimmer of about a pound, only for it to come off as I was shipping back. In went another cup of groundbait and pinkles on that line, while I dropped my rig over the pre-fed micros line to my left. Nothing on this so a quick look on the 8-metre line with both maggles and pinkles but nothing, nothing, nothing.
I think I must have written the word “nothing” more times than any other word in all of my blog posts… sad isn’t it?
So, back out onto the groundbait line and another small roach came in quickly followed by 2 more. Then 10 minutes later, another good skimbob of around a pound and this time it was safely in the net. There was a lot of loud chitter-chatter on the opposite bank, led by Rich Payne, which was becoming a bit of a distraction. Then Glyn Sage’s account of falling over in flood water outside Premier Angling had everyone in fits of laughter… including me.
Meanwhile, back on the quiet, serious bank, Julie to my right had landed a small F1, while hiding away behind the cover of trees, Andy was banging out chub galore. He was fishing at 16 metres tight to the island and feeding maggles with maggles on the hook. Each chub was like 2lb to 3lb each, so unless anyone caught a carp, he was in for another certain victory.
With about 2 hours to go, I hooked into another skimmer, about the same stamp as the last one, and safely netted it. A few more small roach obliged before I hooked another biggish skimmer. With about an hour to go, I reckoned I had about 3lb. John Treasure was fishing opposite the floating pontoon and fished a feeder all day for carp. He didn’t get any but he did get 2 F1s, which I thought was enough to beat me.
In the last hour, I only added a small perch and another small roach to my net. I did try the inside edge for about 10 minutes but there was no sign of life there. I also tried fishing over the line I had baited with micros, using maggle, pinkle, corn and expanders on the hook but had no takers there either. The groundbait line was the most productive… if you can call it that.
At the weigh-in, Andy turned out to be the undisputed victor on the day, putting almost 20lb of chub on the scales and making it 3 wins from 4 matches. He is now uncatchable in the league. Alcove veteran, Steve Dawson had a good session with a mixed bag for 12lb and was second on the day. Renegade, Graham Beeval finished up in third place with 9lb, while John Treasure took the top silvers spot with his 2 F1s and a 5lb total. Section A was shared between Rich Payne and Bruce Taylor. Luckily, I won my section with 3lb 15oz.
All in all, it was another tough day at the office and the frost didn’t help matters but it was nice to see some sunshine for a change. My next adventure is set to take place down in deepest Somerset, where the cider apples grow. I’ll be on the river Tone with my band of hardy river warriors, the Legionnaires.
Look out for my next blog post and if you like reading about my personal angling experiences then please hit the like and share buttons below. It helps to spread the word. All for now!
Join our Facebook page HERE
About me
January 2023
February 2023
12th – River Tone – Taunton
19th – Rive Avon – Crane, Keynsham
26th – Margarets Lake – Earthcott Green
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
June 2023
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
November 2023
December 2023
…………………
June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
December 2022
