Sunday 15^th February – Final Round, Winter League, Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm – Plus The First Windmill Costcutter 500 Qualifier & Silver Linings Galore

So, last Thursday, 12^th February, was the first of the Windmill Costcutter 500 qualifiers. Regular readers of my blog might remember that I didn’t qualify last year, although not for the want of trying. However, this year I WILL qualify… somehow. Watch this space! So, at this time of year, and with the fish not really settled into feeding, it was anyone’s guess where the top weight would come from, but that said, I still favoured a draw at the deeper, top end of the lake. So that included pegs 1 & 2, 20, 22, 23, 24 & 25. Peg 14 remains the exception for some reason, with good weights coming out week after week despite the conditions.

Well, into the drawbag of dreams and nightmares I go and out comes… peg 22. I was fairly happy with that, having caught 2 fish for 19lbs on peg 20 the week before, so I thought there could be a few biggies in the area. Also, the deeper water is where I would expect to catch a skimmer or two. Qualifier or not, I always have a silvers line set up in the hope I am able to salvage something from the match should the carp not show up or I’m not catching enough to make an impact on the final results. Well, peg 23 wasn’t in today and the nearest angler to me was Geoff Francis, who was drawn on peg 18, so I had lots of water to work with. I had Andy Bright for company on peg 24 and Pete Greenslade was on favoured peg 25. Liam Reynolds turned up late and so got the last peg in the bag, which just happened to be peg 1. WTF?

So, looking over my peg, there were no signs of life and so it was going to be another long waiting game. First things first was to get the brolly up and pegged down as it was raining and the forecast was for rain all day. Also, the wind was due to get up a bit later, so I had to bear that in mind while setting up. I opted for 2 lines out in front at 11 metres. One for carp at 10 o’clock in over 8 feet of water and a silvers line at 2 o’clock, in what was just a few inches shy of 8 feet deep. For my carp line, I set up a rig with a 1-gram Guru Diamond float, 0.17 mainline with a size 16 hook to 0.15 hooklength. Elastic choice was a 12-14 Slik. My bait offerings were 4mm expander pellets and red maggles. For my silvers line, I had set up a 1-gram Chianti float, 0.15 mainline, a size 18 hook to 0.12 hooklength and my elastic choice was a 6-8 Slik.

I plumbed up my 2 edge lines and set up a rig for them, but I wasn’t sure whether they would come into play, as I haven’t caught down the margins since last November! I also had a waggler rod set up and the mandatory bomb/feeder rod. On my bait tray I had a 50/50 mix of Scopex and Crushed Expander groundbait, 4mm expander pellets, red maggles, flouro pinkles, worms and meat. On the all-in, I fed a small ball of groundbait and 6 expander pellets to my carp line. Then I dropped in a small ball of chopped worm, groundbait and pinkles to my silvers line. I needed to give it an hour before going over these lines, so I chucked out the waggler to my left-hand side and fed a couple of loose maggles over the top. Well, the wind began to pick up and so I only gave it about 10 minutes before giving up on that method.

Next, I lobbed out a small maggle feeder to the edge of the island. The wind played havoc with that, too and I was unable to hit the same spot every time. Sometimes, I was way off target, much to the annoyance of Andy on peg 24. So, that method was put on hold, too. So, it was time to try the carp line with a single 4mm expander pellet. That wasn’t working and so I tried a maggle on that line… nothing doing. Then it was onto the silvers line with a single pinkle and I got an instant bite from a small roach. I had a couple more before putting half a small dendra on the hook. Five minutes later, the float slid away and I was into a nice skimbo of around 2lbs. I was hoping that would come in handy later. Anyway, apart from a couple more small roach, the action on that line faded.

So, it was back onto the carp line with pellet and then maggle. I had a small roach on a single red maggle, but nothing else, so a quick look down the edges. Nothing doing there… so back onto the carp line and bingo! A carp, but it was only about 4lbs and so nothing to get too excited about. I noticed Andy Bright on peg 24 landed a small carp and Pete Greenslade on peg 25 had a few small roach, but with a couple of anglers heading off for an early bath, it wasn’t looking good. In the last 90 minutes, I didn’t get a bite anywhere and so I ended up with just 1 small carp, a skimbo and about 6 small roach. Peg 14 had produced a 42lb weight for John Williams. Kev Bush on peg 6 found 50lb of carp on the waggler and peg 1 came good for Liam Reynolds, who weighed 52lb, but unlikely peg 4 threw up a winning weight of 55lbs for Nick Sanders, who qualifies for the final. Well done, Nick.

That just left the silvers pools. Well, Shay Gillman on peg 18 found a nice big skimbo and a few roach and perch to weigh 3-05-0, which was enough to take the top silvers. My net weighed 2-09-0, but Kev Bush also had 2-09-0 of silvers. However, Kev picked up a section win for his 50lb net and so I got the second silvers prize… happy days. John Williams won the other section. It was a really tough day for everyone, but all I’ve got to say is… Hey Ho!.. Silver lining. It defo pays to go for silvers if all else isn’t working.

Winter League, Whitehouse Farm  

On Sunday, the 15^th, it was the final match of the Winter League series and all was not looking good for me. Going into this match, I was lying about 6^th out of 15 and so there was no chance of making the top 3, which is where the wonga is. Nevermind, we still had a match to fish and there was still dosh to win from that. Somehow, we seemed to have lost a few competitors on the way to the final, with just 11 of the original 15 showing up, for whatever reason. The weather today was ‘orrible with rain and wind and it was fooking cold too! It was defo a day for getting under the brolly and keeping everything simple. We got the draw underway on time and I wasn’t too worried where I would end up, which happened to be peg 10. Hmmm… I had a practice session the previous week on peg 9 and had at least 20lbs but then we had a frost just a couple of nights ago and so I wasn’t expecting anything like that today.

I was on the deepest part of the lake and so that was a bonus and that’s all I can say about it really. It’s not my favourite peg, although Jason swears by it after catching around 35lb of silvers from it way back in 2024! There isn’t an island chuck from peg 10, although I didn’t think that would matter much today anyway. It was going to be all about getting a bite, pure and simple. So, with that in mind, I set up one rig for 2 swims at 8 metres. One swim to my left and one to my right in over 9 feet of water. To my left, I fished with a 4mm expander over micros and to my right, I fished maggles and pinkles over Sensas Black Lake. I plumbed up both margins, which were over 4 feet deep, but I didn’t put in any feed at this point. And that was it. No feeder/bomb rod today… just a simple one rig does all for out in front and a margin rig for both left and right.

On my bait tray, I had 4mm expanders, maggles, pinkles, worms and meat with a very small amount of groundbait mixed up. So, from the all-in and for over 2 hours, I didn’t get a bite on anything. Then I finally hooked a small roach on a single pinkle, having scaled down to a size 20 hook. I then had 3 or 4 small roach fall off and so I changed my top kit for a no. 4 elastic instead of a no. 8. I still lost a couple of small fish but managed to swing in about 4 or maybe 5 before I decided to change tactics. I changed up to a size 18 hook, chopped up some worm and dropped in a ball of choppie, groundbait and pinkle. I let that settle for almost an hour while I tried the margins… in vain. Then I put half a dendra on the hook, just as I had done at the Windmill match a few days previous and I got the same reaction. Within a few minutes, the float slid away and I was playing a nice skimbo of about a pound.

So, I stuck it out on the worm for the rest of the match, but I didn’t get another bite. I was really glad when the match was over, to be honest. It was one of the toughest matches so far for me and for all the others, with 4 packing up early. Well, it was raining when we set up and it was still raining when we were packing up. FFS! Getting really fed up with this weather now!!! Enough! Well, I hadn’t seen much caught by the other anglers. I did notice Kev Murch on peg 14 swing in a few small silvers, Jason on peg 15 had at least 1 skimbo and he lost one too, which was a shame 🙂 Tony Welsby on peg 11 had a couple of small silvers, but word came down that Steve Sewell had done okay. And so onto the weigh-in…

Steve was first to weigh and included an F1 in his match-winning catch of 3-01-0. I was next to weigh with 1-03-0. Tony only had 8 ounces and Kev Murch had 1-08-0. Jason had 1-02-0 and so a pound was coming my way… LOL! So, I ended up in 3^rd place but actually won the top silvers pool… Hey Ho! Silver lining again. As far as the Winter League was concerned, Jason came out on top, Tony was second and Steve was third. Well done to them! Overall and on reflection, I think this was the toughest Winter League series ever. The weather definitely played a big part in upsetting the odds and significantly contributed to some good anglers falling by the wayside. Well, I’ll be back at Windmill again next Thursday for another shot at qualifying or if I’m lucky… taking the top silvers pool… keep you posted!

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