Sunday 1^st February – Round #5 – Alcove AC Winter League – Georges Lake, Whitehouse Farm

Well, good riddance to January with all its ice, cold winds and more rain than we could ever have possibly expected. On top of that, with virtually no interest, the Thursday Costcutter Open at Windmill Fisheries was cancelled last week. So, that just left the next round of the Alcove AC Winter League to prepare for. The dire results of the previous match on George’s Lake was still very much etched on my mind, even though I won my section, although I only weighed 5 ounces! So, I wasn’t really looking forward to this one and thought I’d better make sure I had some light silvers rigs made up, alongside a few of my standard setups. Well, we’ve had a lot more rain during the week, but it had been quite mild, which I thought might spur a few carp to feed, so a couple of margin rigs were added to my armoury too.

So, it was onto the draw. Once again, we had a couple of stand-ins for some who were unable to make this one, but we were still down to 12 instead of the usual 14 names in the league table. I drew peg 17 last time and although the carp failed to put in an appearance, I wouldn’t have minded too much drawing the same peg again, or maybe peg 18, 19, or peg 1. Well, peg 18 was drawn out for Jason (Match Secretary) and peg 19 was drawn out for Tony (assistant Match Secretary for the day). Well done to Mike Reid for handing them the 2 best pegs on the lake. (Back-hander comes to mind… LOL) Pete Watkins drew peg 17 and Clive Hewson drew peg 1. I drew peg 5 FFS! There hasn’t been much caught recently from the top end of the lake, with Steve Sewell blanking from peg 5 last time. On peg 6, I had “Wonder Boy”, Andy Brookman for company… He was about as overjoyed as I was with the draw… LOL!

Well, the plan was to fish long at 14 metres in the hope of a skimbo or two, with a shorter line at 9 metres for anything else that swims. With very little wind on the water, I also set up a waggler and a whip. I didn’t really see anything coming from the edges, even though I did set up a short top kit for a dabble if all else failed. I think Andy had set up for a similar number of lines plus a feeder/bomb rod for fishing out to the small island. On the all-in, I cupped out some maggles, pinkles and a nugget of groundbait to the 9-metre line, sprinkled a few pinkles over the 14-metre line and then chucked the waggler out about 30 metres. My new Guru catapult proved a good choice as I sprayed a few loose maggles over the top with ease. Andy went straight out on the bomb to the island. On peg 17, Pete Watkins hooked and landed a 13lb carp on his first put-in. WTF? I spent 4 hours trying to catch a carp from that peg last time and he gets one on his first attempt. Meanwhile, I wasn’t getting any bites on the wag and so after 30 minutes, I gave up on that.

Next, I lowered my rig in over the 9-metre line with a single red maggle on the hook. Then I spent another 30 minutes alternating between pinkle and maggle with no signs of life whatsoever. So, it was out onto the 14-metre line with a single pinkle on a size 20 hook, 0.8 hooklength, 0.12 mainline and a number 4 elastic. I spent another 30 minutes on that with nothing to show… not one single indication. FFS… what to do now? Well, Andy had gone down his right-hand edge and managed to find a small roach. That was soon followed by one of the tiniest roach ever… LOL! I quickly set up a light rig for the margin and gave the left-hand margin a try. I did get a very tentative bite but missed it. To my right-hand side, there was a bush with lots of small branches reaching out into the water. I wondered whether there might be a few fish sheltering under those branches and so I cleared a couple of them out of the way.

That enabled me to get right in close to the base of the bush with just a top-kit. Actually, I was holding the top kit at about two-thirds along, so not a complete top kit length. It was 3 feet deep, so a nice depth for winter margin fishing. I decided not to put in any feed at the start and just baited my size 20 hook with a single pinkle. I had a bite on the first put-in and hooked a small roach on the next one. So, with over half the match gone already, I thought I’d just stick to small silvers fishing as nothing else was doing. Meanwhile, carp were being caught on pegs 18, 19, 4 and 5. But I was now focused entirely on silvers. I began getting a bite at every put in and so started feeding 2-3 pinkles after every other fish. That kept the fish coming, although it did die off a little toward the last 20 minutes. Then the rain started and we all got a soaking while packing up.

Steve Sewell was on peg 4 and had a carp plus an F1 and couple of silvers so I was hoping he would frame so I would take the top silvers pool. Well, I finished up with a grand total of 2-03-0, which amounted to about 30 fish! It turns out that Steve’s F1 and a few bits also weighed 2-03-0, so we ended up sharing the silvers prize. (The weigh sheet shows me as winning a section, but that was later corrected.) The top man today was Tony Welsby (peg 19), who netted 5 big carp for just over 50lbs caught on expander pellets. Jason on peg 18 was second with one carp and some good-sized silvers for 17-12-0. Mitch Sewell, on peg 4, found a lump of a carp weighing 16-02-0 for third place. Pete Watkins’ only fish, a carp of 13lb, caught in the first few minutes, got him a section win, I think. The section pay-outs are a bit of a blur from that point…LOL. Anyway, Jason also picked up another quid from me… FFS!

Well, it looks like Jason is out in front now as far as the league is concerned, and I have no way of getting into the top 3. I think I’m lying in 6^th place going into the final. Our last WL match will be on Margaret’s Lake in 2 weeks’ time. It should be interesting as all the trees have been cut back on the island, allowing for some up close and personal feeder fishing. Before that, I’ll be back at Windmill Fisheries on Thursday 5^th and then I might be going out to fish on the river at Bradford-on-Avon next Sunday with the Kingswood RBL… providing the river is still within its banks. Otherwise, it’ll be a Margaret’s Lake practice session. Keep you posted!

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