Welcome to my fishing blog… May 2026

Sunday 3rd May – It Was The Same Old, Same Old At Windmill Fisheries, But A Plum Draw On Georges Lake, Whitehouse Farm, Throws Up A Welcome Winner… At Last!

So, another humdrum Windmill Costcutter 500 Qualifying match fell by the wayside last Thursday, thanks to the meanderings of my drawing hand. What that means is I fumbled around for way too long in the draw bag and pulled out peg 16, which is exactly what I drew the week before. I couldn’t just draw and go, like everyone else, I had to finger fumble about until I found a bottle top that felt right. Well, you canny change the laws of physics, or in this case… fate, so I got what I fooking deserved.

I actually like peg 16, most of the time, but I had struggled to buy a bite the week before and so this time I had to do something a bit different. But What? The peg has 2 lovely edge lines and so they would come into play later. With nobody on peg 17, I could fish a feeder to the edge of the island, like last time. And, instead of fishing at 9 and 11 metres, as before, I decided to fish right over at 14.5 metres. Did my long line approach make any difference? Nope! Not one fooking iota. I fished all along the far bank for 90 minutes without a bite or a liner. So, out went the method feeder. I had one on this last time, but after 60 minutes, there was nothing… not even a liner this time. I had brought some paste with me again and so I just had to try it… at 11 metres. Well, I did get a few indications but missed them all, so I gave up on that too.

So, I’m fast running out of options again, but then I thought a willy worm might bring a result and so out went some choppie at 9 metres. While I waited for that to settle, I baited up my edge lines, both with meat over micros. Right opposite on peg 6, was Chris Telling, who had already netted a few fish from right over but was now caning his margins. Funnily enough, the wind was blowing off my back and toward the far side of the lake and we all know what happens when the wind is blowing at you on this lake. It’s bag-up time.

John Williams was on favoured peg 14, but he too was struggling for bites with flat calm water straight in front of him. Peg 11 didn’t produce a single carp last week, but this week, with a ripple on the water, newcomer, J.Walker was strolling to a certain place on the podium. Other pegs in contention included 9, 1 and 3, on which anglers undoubtedly benefited from the favourable wind direction. The only exception was John Smith on peg 19, but then he’s a lucky chappie anyway.

So, having witnessed this wind phenomenon over the best part of 3 years, I am 100% certain that the carp in this lake follow the wind. Okay, so back to my 9-metre worm line… I put 2 halves of a Dendrobena on a size 14 hook and had a couple of very slow bites, but somehow I missed them. After a subtle change to the shotting pattern, the float dipped and I was in… to a 3lb bream. I was tempted to carry on and go for silvers, but there was no silvers pool today and so that would have been pointless.

So, it was onto my edge lines with meat. I had one bite from my right-hand margin straight away and missed it. FFS! Next, a look to my left with an 8mm pellet of meat and I finally caught my first fish, a carp of around 5lbs. I was mindful of the fact that last week I had 5 carp for 43lbs and so I was expecting a better stamp today. Well, I had 4 more carp from this edge and only one of them was nearer 9 lbs. I ended the session with just 5 carp and 1 bream for 33lbs. Shocking!

Club Match, Georges Lake, Whitehouse Farm

Well, just like Windmill on Thursday, I was here on George’s Lake last Sunday, so it did feel a bit like Groundhog Day… until I drew peg 6. I was on peg 13 last week and what a duff old peg that is. I’ve never done any good on that one. I guess I was hoping to draw either peg 1, 18 or 19 today, but I was more than happy with peg 6. I’ve always done okay off this peg. The angler who drew this peg last week really struggled (no names mentioned), but I was sure I would do alright, providing the carp showed up exactly where I expected them to be.

We had 12 anglers turn out for this one and with Jason Pitman ending up on the flyer peg 18 and I was sure I had lost a quid to him before the all-in shout went out. Andy Gard drew peg 1, which threw up the winner last week and ‘old hand’, Pete Preston was on peg 19. However, Pete has been off the scene for a while, so I suspected he might be a bit rusty. The other pegs of note were peg 17, which played host to Jon Amato, who was last week’s winner and peg 10, known for its resident chub shoal. Club bailiff, Mike Reid, was the lucky peg-plucking recipient for this one.

My peg had lots of options, including a short hop to the island, an overhanging tree to the left, a secluded fish holding area to my right and plenty of open space out in front. I opted for 2 lines out in front. One at 13 metres slightly to my left and one at 11.5 metres at around 2 o’clock. At 5 feet, it was the same depth on both swims. I had brought paste with me again today and so I would try this on the 11.5 metre line. On the longer line, I would try punched bread initially and then maggles if that didn’t work. In both cases, I didn’t plan to spend too long on these pole lines as they didn’t work for me at all last week.

I would start off the session by fishing a 4.5 metre whip over to my right-hand side for roach and quality rudd up in the water on a single maggle. However, my ‘match-winning’ plan was to fish meat over micros under the tree branches to my left. It was 3 feet deep here and I have almost always managed to find at least one carp here in the past. I’m not sure if the struggling Whiteacres ‘Match Ace’, Andy Brookman, tried fishing under the tree last week. Oops! Did I mention his name? Silly me! Swiftly moving on…

So, on the all-in, I began by throwing a few maggles over to my right-hand side. It averaged about 3-4 feet deep here, depending on how far from the bank I fished, although my rig was set at 2 feet deep. I did adjust the depth a few times, going a little deeper if it went quiet. I did expect the fish to come quicker than they did and they didn’t come right up in the water either, which is unusual. Nevertheless, I was catching fairly consistently and nobody else seemed to be catching early on. I gave it a full hour before venturing out onto my longer pole lines.

I tried the 13 metre line first with an 8mm disc of bread on the hook. I had already fed some liquidised bread here and got an instant bite but missed it. However, I didn’t get another bite on bread or maggles and so I abandoned this line early. Next, I tried a small ball of paste on the hook and lowered it in over the 11.5 metre line. I had already pre-baited with a few micros and a little Scopex groundbait and I noticed a few bubbles rising about 20 minutes later.

Anyway, my paste hookbait was soon snaffled and I had a good size skimbo on but it came off a few seconds later. After that, I had a few more very tentative bites but I couldn’t latch onto anything. This happened about half a dozen times and I’m sure it was skimbos doing the damage, but I couldn’t prove it as I had no conclusive evidence… a bream of any description would have sealed the case! Well, I got fed up with that malarkey and so went back on the whip. I had kept feeding this inside line to keep the small fish interested, but was surprised to catch a nice big skimbo of about 2 lbs.

The skimbo was well and truly in spawning mode and so that kind of explained why I, or anyone else for that matter, were not catching them. So, I carried on with the whip for most of the match, only trying both long lines momentarily without success. With just over half the match gone, I was aware that a few carp had been caught here and there and so I cupped in some micros and meat under the tree branches to my left-hand side. While I waited for that to settle, I chucked out the maggle feeder to the island and made a cuppa.

Tea break over, it was time to try my serious carp line. Over on peg 16, Don Searle had lost a couple of carp, Tony Welsby lost one too, including a section of his pole, which snapped in his hand. Jason had a carp and Andy Gard had at least one carp. Pete Watkins on peg 5 to my right had lost a carp, but landed a nice skimbo and Paul on peg 19 had a carp. So, it was carp or bust time for me. I knew I could not afford to lose any carp and I’m glad I had my old faithful Garbolino Astra margin pole with me today.

This pole has stopped many a twenty-pounder on both George’s and Margaret’s Lakes. It is a bit heavy at 8 metres, but it has lots of give and could stop an express train on its tracks. It is equipped with a 28 bungee elastic through two and a half sections and has an end puller kit fitted. A third of the top kit is painted green so that it blends in with overhanging tree branches, reeds or grass. It has never let me down and I’m always confident when using it on any carp water. You cannot buy this pole now, as it was discontinued about 35 years ago! They just don’t make them like that any more.

So, as I pushed the rig out under the tree branches, I had an indication. It wasn’t a bite, but a carp was definitely in residence. I pulled the rig back, lined up again and pushed the pole into position. A few minutes later, the float dipped and… fish on! Fook me! This was a donkey! It was a good 10 minutes before I even saw it. It was a big old pot-bellied mirror and it was another 10 minutes before I managed to slip the net under it. That was a match-winner. I almost dropped it back into the lake as the frame of my landing net crumpled under the weight. It went 19-05-0… luvverrrly!

With a spare landing net head fitted, off we go once more. It was a case of re-feed and wait before going in again a few minutes later. I didn’t have to wait long though, before the float shot out of sight and I was into another arm-aching beast. It had just started raining and this one just did not want to give up. Meanwhile, I was getting absolutely soaked through and so I had to be quite forceful, otherwise, I would have still been playing it now. Well, after another 20-minute tussle, I finally managed to slip the net (only just) under a big fat common. This one went 20 lbs exactly.

Well, that was it. All out and game over! I was pretty sure that with those two big specimens marked up on the weigh sheet, I might have sealed a win today. Sure enough, I had, with a total of 44-6-0. A much overdue result, plus I finally took a quid back from Jason… sweet! Well, apart from getting a complete drenching, I quite enjoyed the day. Well done to all the framers and commiserations to those who lost carp. Well, that’s it until next Sunday, when I’ll be long-pole-lining it on the Gloucester Canal at Purton. Keep you posted!

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