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Welcome to my fishing blog… January 2023

 

January 22nd – The Lido – Blankety-Blank!!!

 

Before they cart me off to the lunatic asylum, I’ve just got time to quickly tell you about how my last thrilling match panned out. This was the 3rd match in the current Alcove AC Winter League series, fished on the Lido in Fishponds. When we arrived, the lake had a lid on it, in the form of a thin coating of ice. Not so much cat-ice and more like coot-ice as it would probably only withstand the weight of a small waterbird. So, 12 hardy souls turned out of bed for this one and nobody was optimistic about the next 5 hours ahead. I didn’t really care where I was drawn, I just wanted to get the ordeal over with so I get could back home and watch the footie on TV.

 

I drew peg 5, which is the “pontoon” peg and so-called because there is a heavy wooden raft-type structure buried below it. This used to belong to ‘The Fisherman’ pub, which was situated on the bank of the lake some years ago and was subsequently demolished. However, the heavy wooden raft, which supported tables and chairs was just too heavy to get out of the water so we eventually dragged it over to the pumphouse bank and sank it under 20 tons of rubble. We all had some ice-breaking to do before the start, which in most cases, only required the use of a landing net.

 

The water was gin clear with not a sign of life anywhere. The best pegs were, without doubt, pegs 6 (Smithies Swim) & 7 (Tree Swim) because they had some cover in the form of a sunken tree and a duck island on peg 6, and peg 7 has some overhanging trees to the right-hand bank. So, if you were a little roach or rudd and you lived in crystal clear water and therefore were vulnerable to aerial attack by predators, where would you head for? Exactly! Kev Murch drew peg 7 and Bruce Taylor drew peg 6. Both attacked their swims with maggot and pinkie, catching on and off throughout the whole match. As for everyone else… we were just onlookers, innocent bystanders, non-participants!

 

There’s little point in reporting how I fished, hard on the deck and up in the water, eventually offering a tiny pinkie on a size 22 because no matter what I did, I could not get a bite. I even set up a waggler just as the remainder of the ice was thawing, in desperation of catching something, anything a little further out. It was all to no avail and it’s little comfort that 10 of the 12 anglers did not get a bite today. Should we really bother with using the Lido for a winter match??? (Answers on a postcard please.) So, Kev won comfortably with a whopping 1lb 14oz with Bruce second with 9oz. Congratulations to those who won and congratulations to those who won cash but didn’t catch… (lottery!)

 

Oh why oh why didn’t I just go and fish on some commercial fishery so that I could write up a nice story about how I caught 60lb of carp on corn just off the end of my top 2 kit… like other bloggers do? So, my next match will be at The Clamp on Thursday 26th. If I don’t catch then I’ll probably give up fishing, sell my gear and join a monastery. Expect I’d find a few ex-anglers in there :). Right got to go… the men in white coats have just turned up.

 

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