Sunday 9^th June – Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm – Getting The Best From A Bad Peg

On Thursday 6^th June, I fished the Costcutter 500 at Windmill. However, this was D-Day 80, which I’m sure you all know means the 80^th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. My mind was full of stuff like, “Imagine if we had lost the war and didn’t have the freedom to just go off fishing whenever we wanted to.” We have so much to be thankful for and I’m sure many of us take our freedom for granted. Please try to remember one thing next time you are out enjoying your fishing or partying or simply socialising. The freedom we all enjoy today was won by brave young men who gave their lives so that we could be free.

I’ve been a member of the Royal British Legion for some 40 years and I’ve been chairman of the Kingswood RBL Angling Club for almost as long. The Legion does great work in helping to look after our cherished veterans from numerous past and present conflicts. Please remember them and give generously to this year’s national Poppy Appeal. Thank you for bearing with me!  

So, on with the show…

So, I drew an absolute flyer in peg 11, which is the same peg I qualified from but I had set my sights on silvers today. The previous week I had caught a couple of nice skimmers on small balls of paste so today I wanted to see what would happen if I fished paste all day at 6 metres. TBH my thoughts were focused on that £100 bonus for a 50lb net of silvers but I know from painful experience that my best-laid plans can and often do backfire. Still, I was prepared to throw caution to the wind today.

When I got to my peg and surveyed the surroundings I could see 3 or 4 carp near the surface close to the right-hand reed bed. Well, I just had to have a go at these first as they looked like easy pickings. I set up 2 rigs for fishing out in front at full depth for silvers at 6 metres and 9 metres, and a slapping rig for those carp to my right plus a margin rig for my left-hand side. On the all-in, I offered an 8mm banded pellet to the edge of the reeds and was soon rewarded with a carp of around 4 lbs. I carried on for a full hour and had 2 more before they all retreated to the safety of the reed bed. Needless to say, I lost a couple in the reeds too.

So, it was time to try my silvers lines. I had already primed both lines with sloppy paste and micros so I wasn’t too surprised when I hooked into a small skimbo on the first put-in over the 6-metre line. Next came a small roach before I hooked into and quickly lost a carp. I topped up the swim with some more slop and moved out onto the 9-metre line with a pea-sized lump of paste on the hook. Surprisingly there was nothing doing on this line. Don’t you just know when it’s going to be hard?

Well, another look at slapping close to the reeds produced nothing and a look down the edge to both my left and right-hand side produced zilch too. When I checked the time I couldn’t believe that half the match had passed by already. FFS! What had I been doing all this time? Faffing about that’s what! I decided I would spend the rest of the match totally focused on catching silvers… which is a great idea so long as there are silvers in your peg. So, I kept trying both lines with all types of baits until finally, I hooked into a good skimbo of about 2 lbs.

This was one of those flying fish. It must have leaped about 6 feet out of the water when I first hooked it. It frightened the bejesus out of me! After that, all I could get on the short line were tiny perch on maggle. Another look over the 9-metre line on paste brought the best and last carp of the day, a fighting-fit 8-pounder. For the last 90 minutes, I couldn’t get another bite no matter what I did. Well, what a contrast that was compared to the day I had 88lb of carp here. My total weight today was under 20lb, which was quite sad and pathetic really.

My Legion clubmate, Kev Murch was drawn on peg 14 and had a nice net of silvers to show for his efforts, easily taking the silvers pool with 11lb 10oz. Overall winner today was Liam Reynolds with 85lb 7oz from peg 6.

Silvers Galore From Margaret’s Lake But A Groundhog Day For Me…

On Sunday the 9^th I was at Whitehouse Farm for the match on Margaret’s Lake. I was here only 2 weeks ago when I drew Peg 15 and weighed 22lbs for 4^th and a section win. So what would today bring? There were 13 anglers fishing, which I think was the same number as last time except we were missing the ‘happy wanderer’ (lol). As always, I wanted to draw any peg that had an island chuck because the big chub were due to show up. My preferred peg is 17 but with a badly damaged platform that peg had to be left out as was peg 6, which is an absolute flyer.

So, into the bag of hopes and dreams and out comes peg number 16. FFS! Just one peg to the left of where I drew in the last match. The only consolation was that there would be nobody on peg 17, but it was still no island chuck for me. Well, in all the years I have fished this lake I cannot remember anyone ever winning from this peg. So with that in mind, I decided this would be a silvers match for me. I set up a rig to fish full depth, which was 7 feet, at 10 metres in front to my left and to my right. So, each swim was about 10 metres apart.

On my left-hand swim, I baited up with Thatcher’s Original, maggles, corn and micros. To my right-hand swim, I baited up with the same groundbait plus soft pellets and micros. I also set up a rig for fishing maggle short and shallow at 5 metres. The edge lines always have to be tested just in case and so I had a proper margin rig set up for fishing meat and pellet to both left and right. As I was getting set up I noticed a couple of cruising carp so I reached into my holdall for my slapping rig… just in case.

On the all-in, I cupped out a generous portion of groundbait and particles to both 10 metre swims. While I waited for that to settle I began loose-feeding maggles to the 5-metre line. I fished a single live maggle to a size 20 hook tied to a 0.08 hooklength. My float choice was a 0.1-gram (3×10) slim Chianti-style float. I started catching small roach right from the off but I was in need of bigger fish if I wanted a proper weight at the end of the day. So, after 30 minutes I went over to try the 10-metre line to my left.

This rig consisted of a 0.4gram (4X14) pencil float, a size 16 Guru Super LWG hook to a 0.15 hooklength. You’ve got to give yourself a fighting chance should you hook a carp so this is a compromise. Well, after 30 minutes I had 3 skimbos on red maggles but couldn’t get a bite on any other baits. A look on the right-hand swim produced nothing, not even an indication so I ditched that line in favour of the left-hand swim. Over the next hour, I probably added another 5 skimmers to the net. A look down both edges produced nothing and once again there were no indications of life there.

So, we’re 3 hours into a 6-hour match now and I reckoned I had about 4lb of silvers in the net, which was not too impressive but to be expected from this peg. It was then that I noticed a couple of carp at about 13 metres just mooching around under the surface. So, I picked up my slapping kit, baited the band with an 8mm pellet and began performing the ‘dance of the slappers’ lol. Well, just 5 minutes in and I had a carp on, which looked to be about 4lbs. I carried on and before long I had another about the same stamp. Then the wind picked up a bit and they all disappeared. It was a really cold north wind and I guess they felt the chill too so went deeper.

I went back on the 10 metre line for another look but they had all packed up and gone too. There was still nothing going on down the edges either. Looking around I could see Jason Pitman on peg 13 banging out chub for a pastime and Andy Gard on peg 14 was hitting into some nice big silvers and carp. Kev Murch was on peg 15 and he was targeting the silvers down his right-hand edge, catching a few quality skimbos. Opposite me on peg 9, Pete Watkins had just weighed a big carp, so that meant he had at least 15lbs.

With all that going on, I decided to carry on slapping right till the end. When the wind died down a little I set the depth of my rig to 12 inches and when the wind picked up I dropped down to 20 inches. In hindsight, I think this should have been nearer 30 inches. Anyway, I had a few more carp and lost a couple, finishing up with 6 in the net by the final whistle. With the wind blowing down the lake all day and probably for a few days before, the deeper pegs were the ones to draw on today.

On the weigh-in, Jason had a big 25lb net of silvers, consisting of mainly big chub from the island and a few quality carp, one of which went 17lb 10oz. He finished up the overall winner with a total of 59lb 15oz. Next door on peg 14, which is one of my favourite pegs, Andy Gard weighed in a total of 50lb 1oz, consisting mainly of carp for second place. Pete Watkins on peg 10 had a 16lb 4oz carp in his total weight of 41lb 6oz finishing in third place. Kev Murch on peg 15 hammered out a big bag of silvers totalling 24lb 15oz to take the silvers pool. I weighed in a mixed bag total of 29lbs 3oz for 4^th on the day and picked up a section win. Another Legion clubmate, Ian Brice, also collected a section win for his 16lb 13oz of silvers from peg 4.  

Well, finishing 4^th on both Whitehouse matches and picking up a section win for each does feel a little like Groundhog Day. It was certainly nice to see so many silvers showing up throughout the lake and I’m really looking forward to the next one on Margaret’s lake at the end of this month. I’ll be back at Windmill Fisheries again on Thursday for another mess around and then I’ll be back on the river Avon at Keynsham on Sunday the 16th for the start of the new season with the Kingswood RBL. Keep you posted…

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