Welcome to my fishing blog… June 2023
June 25th – The Lido, Fishponds, Bristol – The Desert Island
We don’t have many matches on the Lido so it can sometimes be a welcome change from Whitehouse Farm. I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this venue… which is a long story and one for another day. It can be a very difficult venue but if you get it right, and draw on one of the right pegs, you could have a bumper day tench fishing. The lake has recently been re-pegged so there was some confusion at the draw. I drew peg 5, which is on the island (at least there was an island there once upon a time) and I was quite happy with that. I would have preferred any of the pegs that have large areas of lily pads because that’s where the tench live. One area you NEVER want to draw in Lido matches is ‘Cyanide Straight’, AKA Suicide Straight. It’s just way too deep there.
So, peg 9, (indicated on the photo as a little red dot) has a few options but with very few lily pads around, tench fishing isn’t one of them. My plan was to try to get the roach and rudd up in the water with casters and maggles and pick them off throughout the day. Plan B was to feed 2 lines on the deck for bream or skimmers. Now that’s easier said than done. The Lido has a deck like the surface of the moon so trying to find a flat area wide enough to deposit some feed is a task in itself. You have to spend a bit of time plumbing up so that you can get a clear picture of what the lake bed is like out in front of you.
I managed to find 2 areas that were relatively flat. One at 8 metres to my right and one at 6 metres slightly to my left. Both were about 10 feet deep. My ‘up in the water’ swim was at 4 metres and about 6 feet deep. So, the plan was to start shallow on the short line and then check the bottom every now and then. On both the longer and deeper swims I deposited some corn, hemp and caster. I left out the groundbait this time as quite often it can have a negative effect, especially when the sun is so bright because the water is crystal clear.
On the all-in, I began to loose-feed a few casters and then drop into the middle of them with my rig, which consisted of 0.1 gram slim chianti, 0.13 mainline and a size 20 fine wire hook to a 0.8 hooklength. Very often the better quality roach will come to casters but after an hour on this, all I had was 3 small roach. There was nothing on the deck either so it was out onto my right-hand line with double red maggle. I picked up another small roach here but it just wasn’t happening. I tried corn, meat caster, and expander pellet on this line too but all I got was a few little twitches on the float and nothing worth striking at.
Next, I had a look over my 6-metre line with corn and I missed a proper bite. A couple of put-ins later and I finally hooked into a decent bream. I thought it was about 5lbs but later the scales proved I was a pound over due to an overabundance of wishful thinking. Anyway, as much as I tried and wished, I couldn’t get another one from that swim. My last option was to fish tight against the few lilies that were in my left-hand margin, where I managed to pick off a couple of small perch for a few more vital ounces. Meanwhile, it was a bag of mixed fortunes around the lake for the other competitors.
Bill Ferris, to my right, had a few pounds of very small fish but lost a carp. Steve Dawson had a few tench from his lily pads and carp queen, Julie Taylor, had a few more tench from the other side of the same bed of lilies. Tony Welsby was in the tree swim to my left and had a quick run of fish… but not for long. Don Searle had drawn one of the hot fancied pegs and was caning it, landing a few good tench to worm, while those on Cyanide Straight were feeling suicidal due to the sheer lack of action. They all had a good view of the lake and could clearly see who was catching and who wasn’t.
Well, that was that. Don won with a nice net of tench for 24lbs, Julie was second with almost 19lbs of tench and Steve was third with 16lbs of tench. Just goes to prove you need to fish tight to the lilies to catch on this lake. I managed to win my section with 4lbs 8oz and picked up a few very welcome beer tokens. Well, my next match is at Todber Manor on Wednesday 28th, where I expect to witness a masterclass in carp bagging technology… keep you posted!
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About me
January 2023
February 2023
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
June 2023
11th – Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm
18th – River Avon, Crane, Keynsham
25th – The Lido, Fishponds, Bristol
28th – Fish-O Qualifier, Todber Manor
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
November 2023
December 2023
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June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
December 2022
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