April 28th – Windmill Fisheries – An Unexpected Silver Surprise Brightens Up A Tough Day

Welcome to my new-look fishing blog. I’m still working on updating a lot of the older posts but I’m gradually getting there, so please bear with me. Today, I have another 2-match report to share with you and… before I continue, I would just like to say a big thank you to all of you for reading my blogs, for all the likes, and for all the positive comments. It’s all very much appreciated. Well, I was back at Windmill again on both Thursday and Sunday continuing with my, ‘man with no plan’ approach. I’m finding that having an open mind to methods and bait selection is essential at Windmill because you never get 2 days the same. For example, on Thursday, hard pellet on peg 2 produced the winning weight. On Sunday, it was maggle on peg 14 with worm on peg 6 coming a close second. The mind boggles…

Thursday 25^th April

There were only a dozen fishing the match today. In recent matches, I’ve drawn pegs 1, 3 and 22, so I would have loved to draw anywhere at the bottom end of the lake for a change of scenery but it just wasn’t to be. So, into the draw-bag goes the hand of fate and out comes peg 23. I’ve drawn this one a couple of times before, once winning the top silvers prize with just 1lb 5oz of small roach and skimbos. That was back in February, on a day when everyone struggled for bites. Today however, was very different but it was still quite cold so it was anyone’s guess what might happen. I wanted to use today as a practice session as I’m trying to qualify for the Sunday Bonanza 1000. I really do need to make a mental note of what is working and what’s not, although that can change on a daily basis. Today, I just wanted to try out a few of the methods I wouldn’t normally choose on a match like this.

So, I set up 2 feeder rods today, one for the maggle feeder and groundbait feeder with a quick change option to fish a bomb. The other was for a method feeder, which I could also quickly change to a pellet feeder or hybrid feeder. My pole rigs comprised a full-depth rig (8 feet) with 0.5 gram pencil float, 0.15mm mainline, 0.10mm hooklength and a size 20 hook. This rig would be used at both 11 metres and 7 metres, both out in open water. Baits for this rig would be maggles and 4mm soft pellets. Rig number 2 comprised a 0.7 gram dibber for the margins at 3 feet deep both left and right. This was set up with 0.22mm mainline and a 0.17mm hooklength. My hook choice was a size 16 Guru LWG. My final rig was for fishing shallow between 12 and 24 inches. This one had 0.22mm mainline to a 0.15mm hooklength and a size 14 hook with a banded hair.

From peg 23, you’re able to cast to the edge of the island and into open water. However, today no one was on pegs 21,22, 24 and 25 so I had a large expanse of water at my disposal, which is not necessarily a good thing. There are so many places for the fish to safely back off to, so my practice session didn’t really feel like it was being fished under normal match conditions. On the all-in, I cast out toward the island, first with a maggle feeder and… nothing. Then after 20 minutes, I changed to a groundbait feeder and once again… nothing. With another 20 minutes on the clock, I changed to bomb and maggle… then bomb and pellet and finally bomb and corn. I didn’t get a single liner during the 90 minutes I messed about with these methods. Undeterred, I chucked out a method feeder.

I tried putting this feeder in several places from tight against the island to out in the middle of the lake and to around 10 metres straight out in front. I searched around the whole top end of the lake, changing to pellet feeder and hybrid feeder for more than 90 minutes. So, we’re now halfway through the match and I haven’t had a single bite on any of the feeder or bomb rigs. FFS! It was looking like it was going to be another tough day at Windmill… so no surprise there then. Well, the feeder rods were retired for the day while I now focused on the full-depth 7-metre line. I hadn’t fed any lines as this is something I would usually do and today was all about doing things differently. I began cad-potting a little groundbait and dead red maggles over the short line and soon had a small roach followed by a small skimmer. Well, silver fish are never going to make up the 100lb plus net you need to qualify for the Bonanza 1000 so that line was soon abandoned.

A look at the 11-metre line with 4mm and 6mm pellets produced surprise, surprise… nothing! So, with another line now closed, it was time to try the margins. I started down the right-hand margin with corn over micros and… you guessed it… nothing. I then changed to 8mm hard pellet and had a 2lb skimmer but there were no more signs of life there so it was time to move onto the left-hand margin. This margin looked the business with overhanging grass nearby, a small shrub about halfway and a large clump of reeds at the end. So, in effect, there were 3 potential catching areas. I dropped in some groundbait, corn, meat and micros to the shorter line, which was about 6 metres down the edge. Next, I cupped in a few micros only just under the overhanging branches of the bush, which was about 10 metres along the edge. I purposely didn’t put any feed in on the longer line, which was at 13 metres.

So, I started by fishing over the heavily fed area. There were no indications there so I moved onto the 10-metre line with corn on the hook and instantly had a liner. After a few minutes, I changed the bait to meat and finally caught my first carp of the day. Then no matter what bait I put on, I couldn’t get another bite from this swim or the heavily baited swim. My last option was to go out to 13 metres and fish tight up against the reeds, which were growing out at a right angle from the bank for about 6 or 7 metres. It was 4 feet deep on the end of the reed bed, shallowing up to about 12 inches at the bank end. I searched along the length of the reed bed and got an indication at about halfway at 3 feet deep. An 8lb carp couldn’t resist my 10mm meat pellet offering and soon carp number 2 was safely netted.  

There were obviously a few carp here as I was getting indications continuously. I then hooked and lost 2 carp on the trot, one was definitely foul-hooked as I ended up with just a large scale on the hook. To prevent catching carp one scale at a time, I shallowed up to 2 feet deep and soon latched onto another. However, this one was hooked in the tail and took me all over the lake before I was finally able to subdue and net him. Another quick look over the other 2 swims produced… nothing. So it appeared all the carp were hanging around the fringes of the short reed bed. Why? Who the fook knows? There didn’t seem to be any apparent reason for this but they were there nevertheless. The next carp I hooked was a big double, probably 12 or 13lbs I would say. How do I know? Because I had it in the landing net… briefly.

Oh yes! There was a fine display of bad netting going on right now as I struggled to get this fish under control. I missed him with my first attempt, which just pis*ed him off even more. Then I had him in the net only for him to struggle back out and finally, he got in behind my keepnets and left the hook embedded in the back of one of them. FFS! Well, it was nothing less than I deserved for being a plonker. I won’t forget that episode in a hurry and I’m going to be soooo determined to keep any hooked fish out in front from now on and not let them get too close to my nets. Well, with 3 carp in the net and just less than an hour to go, I decided to try fishing a metre away from the edge of the reed bed at half depth, which was about 3 feet. Well, if only I had started doing this…

I hooked 4 carp in the last hour, losing one and landing 3, fishing at 3 feet deep in 6 feet of water with a 10mm pellet of meat and no feeding whatsoever. That’s the way to do it! I finished my unusual practice session with just 36lb 8oz, which was enough for 6^th place but without any beer tokens today. I did learn a few things however, which I’ll take to my next match… Well done to Leighton Palmer who won the match and qualified for the Costcutter 500 with his 88lb net from ‘my bogie peg’ number 3. A special mention is deserved here for Gary Etheridge who put together a very impressive 30lb 6oz of silvers to easily take the silvers pool. However, it might all go towards replacing broken and lost pole sections thanks to a high-octane, hormone-fuelled, aggressive goose, which smashed into his pole during the match.  

Sunday 29^th April

We had a better turnout for this one with 16 anglers showing up, including RBL club mate Jason Pitman, and as usual, I wanted to be drawn down the bottom end of the lake… pretty please! Nope! I got peg 24… FFFS! I had peg 23 last time and now peg 24… WTF! I might as well pitch a fooking tent up this end of the lake the way it’s going… Well, at least I should have a good idea about how to fish it right? Wrong! For a change there was very little wind on the lake today but it had rained hard all through the night so the fish were going to be a bit moody… me thinks. Well, that’s just how it was. It fished ridiculously hard today and even the old stalwarts and die-hards (Gerry Welsh and Sean Townsend spring to mind) found it really tough going.

I haven’t fished peg 24 before but surely it couldn’t be much different from peg 23 I thought… could it? Oh yes it could (oh no it couldn’t). Actually, it was similar in some ways. Now, peg 24 has a lightly reeded margin on the left-hand side and as it happens it was alive with carp today so that had to be my first port of call. The right-hand margin looked very inviting and would certainly come into play later on. I noticed I was now looking at the rear of the same reed bed, from where I had caught a few carp on Thursday, so this would be a main target throughout the day. I had a straight chuck to the island but although I had set up a feeder rod, I wasn’t prepared to spend too much time on this as my previous practice session on this method proved fruitless.

In front of me was a fairly large expanse of water and so all I had to do was pick a spot and feed it. I selected to fish a comfortable 11 metres at full depth, which was 8 feet. I set up a shallow rig for slapping and mugging plus a serious edge rig for dragging the carp out and through the reed beds. On the all-in, I cupped out a 50/50 mix of sweet and fishmeal groundbait (experimental), laced with dead red maggles, plus a few 2mm and 4mm expander pellets and micros to the 11-metre line. No other lines were fed at this stage. I started off by gently lowering in a 10mm meat pellet to the edge of the reeds on my left-hand side. It couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes later and I was into a carp only to swiftly lose it in the reeds. Oh a great start! After that, I couldn’t get any more takers.

So, it looked like the only way I was going to catch here was to get right into the carp’s domain. With the reeds still moving about I probed the gaps between the reed stems trying not to get caught up and… yes… it just sooo had to happen. I got caught up! I had to pull for a break but luckily, I managed to get my float back. I can’t believe how much kit I’ve lost on this lake in the past few weeks, most of it in the reeds. So, after a few rig repairs, I’m now right back in the thick of it. It didn’t take long before I ended up ‘tangoing’ with another angry carp but for the life of me, I couldn’t get it through the reeds. And so another one was lost. Meanwhile, I’m very conscious of the fact that nobody else is catching… or losing anything.

Well, I carried on living life on the edge until I hooked another and FFS! I lost that one too! That made it 3-0 to the carp and I wasn’t prepared to let this fiasco carry on any longer. It could have ended up like 10-0, the way it was going. There had to be another way. I had a quick look on the bomb and pellet out toward the island while I contemplated my next move. 15 minutes later I’m checking out the right-hand edge. I spent a few minutes probing my way down the length of the margin, just as I had done on Thursday, and finally… Gotcha! I was soon able to get this one out into open water and safely netted it, which I’m sure at that specific time, put me way ahead. Well, at least as far as this end of the lake was concerned… but not for long.

Gerry Welsh on peg 1, managed to find one on the method feeder. Soon after that, Sean Townsend on peg 22 got one from his right-hand margin. However, everyone was feeling the pressure as bites were so hard to find. By this time, I had decided to abandon my left-hand edge completely, despite there obviously being a few carp in residence. It was just near impossible to get them out. Perhaps if I had brought my margin pole with me, I might have persevered… maybe next time. As it was so difficult to get any bites down the edge, I spent around an hour trying to catch a few silver fish on maggles from the 11-metre line but that didn’t work either. I did miss a couple of bites before hooking a tiny perch, which fell off as I was shipping back. So, I gave up on that too.

Running out of options, I started to explore the very edge of the reed bed to my right. This was a similar area to where I had caught carp from last Thursday, only from the opposite side. I tried a variety of baits but meat did seem to get more attention. Then, just out of the blue, the float shot under and I was in. Surprisingly, it was a big skimmer of about 2lbs… on meat! Well, today they were all welcome… carp and silvers. With about 90 minutes left on the clock, I then latched into another carp and managed to land that one without too much fuss. I reckoned my 2 carp were worth about 18lbs but I was losing the race now as Sean landed a couple more from his edge swims giving him 5 or 6 in total.

With about 40 minutes to go, I hooked into another fish from the same right-hand edge, which turned out to be yet another big skimmer. This one was nearer 3lbs! Gerry one peg 1 had a couple more carp and at least one skimmer, and I could see others catching down each side of the lake. So, all I could hope for was maybe a second place in the silvers pool with my 2 big skimmers. It wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping for but sh*t happens sometimes… especially at Windmill. Well, match over and what a strange one that was. It was won from peg 14 with 101lbs 7oz for Nick Sanders who caught all his fish on maggles. The next best weight was 75lbs of carp, which were all caught down the edge on worm! So, that’s another bait I’ll have to take along with me in the future. Anyway, I was quite lucky in winning the top silvers prize with my 2 skimmers, which went 4lbs 15oz in total. Hey Ho! And here we go… with a few more beer tokens… happy days!

Well, I’ll be back at Windmill again on Thursday for more much-needed practice in my pursuit of qualifying for the Bonanza 1000… hopefully… sometime soon. Keep you posted!

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