Welcome to my fishing blog… March 2023
March 19th – Bitterwell Open Match – Sweet Success At Bitterwell
With no club matches this weekend, I had the choice of fishing either the Saturday open at Bitterwell Lake or the Sunday open at Windmill Fisheries. As I couldn’t make my mind up on which one to choose, I decided to fish both! However, my preference was for the Bitterwell open as this was an all-silvers match, which in my view would be much more enjoyable. Some good nets of silvers have been showing up over the past few weeks, so I was confident of catching a few.
I got to the lake nice and early and had a walk around. I could see carp everywhere. There were groups of 4 to 8 carp dotted all over the surface of the lake, like little gangs of hooligans hanging about on street corners. My first thought was they were beginning to think about spawning, although it was still a bit early. But then when you consider the weather has been all over the place recently, I expect they were a bit confused as to what they should be doing. Well, my main job today would be to try and avoid them by not attracting too much attention.
So, onto the draw and I’ve got myself peg 23 to work with, which I’m quite happy about as it’s the end peg below the top car park. As I arrived at my peg there were about 5 or 6 carp there already just waiting to greet me. I decided to fish 3 lines, one at 13 metres right out in front and one each to my left and right at 9 metres. I would ignore the inside lines for the time being unless I was struggling for bites because there just might be a carp or two lurking in those shallows.
As I plumbed up, I deliberately spooked the carp and they all moved away. I had about four and half feet of water all round, which is less than I expected but as the weather was warm, I knew depth wouldn’t be a problem today. My bait choice was dead red maggles and pinkles, I also had some live ones too plus worms, expander pellets and meat. It seems I left my sweetcorn behind though and that was troubling me as a lot of fish were coming to corn during the previous week. No matter…
At the all-in, I cupped out a ball of groundbait onto the 13-metre line. There was no feed added to this as I wanted to first see what I could catch on the 9-metre lines. To my left-hand line, which was at about 10 o’clock, I cupped out a small ball of groundbait laced with micros and to my right-hand line, I cupped out a small ball of groundbait together with dead reds and pinkles. This is where I intended to start. Groundbait today was a mix of Green Swimstim, Black Milled Expander and SuperCrush, in equal proportions. A lovely mix for skimmers.
So, out to my right-hand swim with a single dead red to a size 20 hook, 0.11 hooklength, and a 0.3-gram pencil float. Five minutes later I had a small roach of about 3 ounces. I began topping up with a cad pot and didn’t have to wait long before I hooked a decent skimmer of about 12 ounces. Then I got into a rhythm with bites coming quite regularly and skimmers queuing up including some around the pound mark. Then for some strange reason, I lost 2 much bigger skimmers in quick succession. They just came off the hook while I was slowly shipping back.
That was about 4 pounds gone forever! I changed up to a size 16 hook and began fishing with double dead reds, which seemed to have sorted the problem. I landed a couple of bigger skimmers around a pound and a half before I began to lose a few more. I also noticed that bites were becoming much more finicky now. I had shotted the float right down to as low as it was possible to see but I was still losing the odd quality fish. It was time to try the right-hand swim.
On my first put-in with a soft pellet, a skimmer obliged, only to come off. FFS! What was going on? By this time I reckon I had about 10lb in the net and lost about 10lb of fish too. Next, I baited with 2 dead reds and lowered it in over the groundbait and micros. Within a few seconds the float shot under and I was into a serious fish. At first, I thought it was a carp but as I managed to get a quick glimpse as it swirled in the water, I could see it was a big tench of about 4lbs. I couldn’t afford to lose this one!
I took my time and played it until it finally gave up. Phew! What a nice bonus fish. The tench had run riot all through my 3 swims so I had to top them all up and then have a cup of tea, allowing them a little time to settle. With tea break over, it was back out onto my right-hand swim with 2 live maggles but only a tiny perch was interested. A switch to 2 dead reds brought an instant response from… another tench. This one was smaller at about 2lbs. I then had another even smaller one at around a pound before bites slowed down again.
A switch to my left-hand swim and within minutes I had yet another tench on. This one was a real brute, stretching my size 7 elastic to the limit. All I could do was hold on and wait until it began to tire, which took at least 10 minutes. Finally, it surfaced and I could see it was well over 5lbs. It was a really nice specimen both long and deep in the body displaying a lovely glistening green colour. As I pushed my landing net out towards it, it made another run for freedom and it won… FFS!!! It came off. I was absolutely gutted and I’m now about 15 pounds down.
After that episode, bites were hard to come by so I went out on the 13-metre line and probed about with various baits. There was no response at all. So, I started loose-feeding live maggles down the edge to my right, while I had another lovely and refreshing cup of Tetley tea. Then I dropped in my rig, which was baited with a single live maggle, over the loose feed, and wham! Carp on! I knew I shouldn’t have done this but you have to give all your options of last resort a try when bites dry up.
After what seemed like an age, I slipped the landing net under an 8lb angry common. Well, my swims were well and truly fecked up now! A quick look to my left only brought another carp, which thankfully came off after about 4 or 5 minutes, followed by another from my right-hand swim. It seems the carp had moved in and the skimmers and tench had moved out. So, in the last hour of the match I only managed one small roach and two more, smaller skimmers.
Had I done enough? Well, I reckoned I had about 18lbs in the net and would rue those that I lost, which must have totalled another 16-18lbs. I could see that Pedro, well over my right had been catching steadily all day, and Clive, who was drawn next to me, on my right, had caught a few decent size fish. Well, when the scales got around to me I had 21bs 14oz to beat. I was sure I hadn’t done enough but surprisingly, my net of quality fish weighed 22lbs 6oz. It was a close call but considering how many fish I lost, I think I should have had nearer 40lbs in the net. (Video of this match coming soon).
Well, a win is a win, even if it’s just by an ounce! So job done at Bitterwell. In my match on Sunday at Windmill, I only had 13lbs 10oz and actually, on a rock-hard day that wasn’t too bad. I finished 4th, so I was relatively happy with that. My next match will be at Whitehouse Farm next Sunday. This one is a rover, so I want a low number… please.
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