Welcome to my fishing blog… November 2022

November 6th – Acove Poppy Match – Whitehouse Farm

This is an annual charity event, in which we raise funds for the Poppy Appeal. We were expecting 24 anglers so hoping to raise a tidy sum from the £10 per angler donation.

Now, I didn’t have a match last week so I decided to go to Whitehouse Farm and have a sneaky little practice session. I didn’t tell anyone… well at least nobody that might have wanted to come along to see what I was doing. When I arrived at about 8.15am I was the only one there. So, although I had the pick of all the pegs I decided to go onto peg 16 on Georges Lake… Why? Because I have never fished it… Why? Because I have never drawn it in a match or ever fancied it for a pleasure session. Oh yes! I was prepared to put myself through hell today just to figure out how this peg/swim worked.

On the subject of pegs and swims, I can imagine how confusing this might be for anyone new to fishing, and thinking what the feck is this guy talking about. So,  for clarity, a peg is where you fish from and a swim is where the fish live.

Okay back to today…

I think one person didn’t show up but there were still 20+ anglers so a good turnout. It was a misty old morning with clouds of mist rising from both lakes. Rain showers were forecast with winds whipping up too, so I was expecting a spell under the brolly today. So, on with the draw and I pull out peg Margaret’s 11. Well, a peg I’ve never fancied and guess what? I’ve never drawn it before either. Peg 12 had been in the news a lot lately, delivering some quality skimmers during the knock-ups so that was the quarry today.

As it happened peg 12 wasn’t drawn although peg 10 was. My plan was to fish at just 8 metres because it’s 9 feet deep here. I would then set up a rig for the right-hand side, just under an overhanging bush, and also a margin rig for the left-hand side, where I could search all along the edge of some overhanging trees.  There had been quite a bit of cold rain over the last few days so I was not going to fill it in. Instead, I would just use a cad pot and feed very lightly with micros, groundbait and dead reds.

At the all-in, I dropped 3 grains of corn and a few micros under the bush to my right but I didn’t feed anything on my left-hand side. Then I went out to the 8 metre line with a single red maggot. With no bites after 10 minutes, I put on a grain of sweetcorn. Again, nothing after another 10 minutes so next, I tried a 4mm expander pellet and once again… nothing. I dropped down to a 2mm expander pellet and still nothing. Then I tried dead red on the hook and FFS… NOTHING!

Right, out again and this time I had 2 pinkies on a size 18 Guru LWG hook… finally a bite from small roach. They were just not having it today so I rested the swim and had a look on the inside lines. Well, nothing. nothing, nothing. This was beginning to look like a kind of nothing day. Then the wind started to pick up and was blowing right into my face… lovely. So, back out onto the 8 metre line with double pinkie, feeding 3-4 pinkies each time. All I was getting was little blips and dinks on the float, nothing worthy of a strike. So I changed down to a size 20 hook and put one pinkie on the hook.

This amazing change in tactics (lol) brought an instant response from a small roach, followed by another and then another. Wow! I was onto something!!! Well, I could see Tony Welsby on peg 17 and he had already landed a couple of decent chub, followed by a carp. Now the rain started coming down. It was just going from bad to worse, with the wind and rain in my face and one hand on my brolly and another on my pole, I felt like I had had enough already. I could see Brian Lloyd had definitely had enough as he was packing up. I kept going, and praying for one decent skimmer but it just wasn’t to be.

I had a few more roach on single pinkie and I reckoned I had between 2lb and 3lb in the net with just 30 minutes to go. I spent the last 30 minutes trying for a carp down the edge and well, you can guess the rest. On the all-out it started to rain again and so I tipped back my wonderous catch and packed up as quick as I could. Tony won the match with just over 20lbs, Andy Brookman had just over 10lbs for second and there was some haggling among the 9 pounders for silvers and sections.

The most amazing thing was it only needed 5lb 15 oz to win on George’s Lake. That was caught by John Treasure. Well, I was really glad to get home after that forgettable experience. I’m hoping for better luck next week on the Poppy Appeal river match, and hopefully, I should have dried out by then.

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November 2022

   6th – Alcove Poppy Match – Whitehouse Farm

   13th – RBL Poppy Open – River Avon Waters

   20th – Winter League #1 – Whitehouse Farm

December 2022

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