September 10, 2011

• Private Lake, East Sussex.

  Bill G’s Float Store Series

  Match 5

  

  I’m off down to the Private Lake in East Sussex today for the 2nd Saturday running. This time I’m guesting on the fifth of Bill G’s series of Float Store matches. I haven’t been able to fish the series because of date clashes with The Jinx Series, but with a free weekend I can fit this one in . A quick glance out of the window this morning just confirmed it was going to be one of those changeable days weatherwise, so with the car loaded it was off to East Sussex via a stop off at McD’s for a bit of breakfast .
  
  An easy run down saw me arrive around 8·30am at an already crowded car park, where there were both old and new faces as I strolled down to let Bill know I was there and pay my money and dip my nets. Despite being billed as a 9·30 draw it kicked off early at around 9am as people were obviously keen to get to their pegs. Peg 3 stuck to my hand, the willow peg in the corner that Clive had won our club match from last Saturday and one I was more than happy with as it had the wind blowing into it .
  
  Dave Collier had drawn Peg 2 and for company today he had fellow club mate Chris Withall who broke his arm a couple of weeks ago who had come out today to escape the tedium of being stuck at home . Plenty of time to get set up today and I decided to take a pretty single minded approach to the peg and concentrate on the area where the willow branch trailed into the swim and with that in mind I just set up 3 rigs which were all basically similar. Two of them were 0·3 NG Edger’s on 0·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 16 Guru MWG’s, while the 3rd was a slightly smaller 0.2 NG Edger on 0·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 16 Guru MWG for tight into the margins. Bait was simply 6mm pellet for feed with some 8mm pellet for the hook along with some 8mm GOT Baits Ghost pellets.

  

  With plenty of time to spare I took a stroll to see how the others were doing before returning for the All-In which Bill called at 11am. I fed a couple of pots of pellet along the line of the willow branch and a handful into both margins before shipping out a banded 8mm just in front of the branches. The float settled then buried and a lift had me connected to my first fish of the day. One thing about the fish here is that they do put up a fair old scrap, but I soon had it under control and safely in the landing net. A nice chunky Mirror around the 3lb mark .
  
  Back out and I was treated to a repeat performance with the float burying once more, followed by a brief tussle before a Common popped to the surface and into the waiting landing net, slightly bigger this one at around 4lbs. Third put in and I was in again, another Mirror of around 3lbs, a dream start to the day for me and one that didn’t pass without comment from Bill opposite me over on the roadside bank, who’d also got off the mark with a quick fish .
  
  Unfortunately the next two fish that I connected with proved to be foul hookers, the rig returning both times with just a scale on the hook . Dave had taken an early look down his margin and taken a small carp, but in general it was quite obvious that most were off to a slow start. I’ve not fished the lake a lot, but I have noticed that when the weather is changeable it can become quite moody and the fish seem to shut up shop. Was today going to be one of those days?
  
  I managed another couple of Carp before Chris popped round for a chat. I could see the odd carp moving in and out under the willow branch so fed another small pot of pellets then took a look down the right hand margin. The float buried straight away , A common proving to be the culprit, but no more followed. Back out to the branch where I managed to catch another 3 Carp before Chris returned with the news that indeed it was proving hard for most, though Jonny Watt on peg 5 appeared to be putting a few together . I managed another fish after that, making 10 by around 1pm.
  
  After that however it went very quiet. Dave strolled round for a chat and remarked that there was nothing but pellet on my side tray, and I explained that I was just keeping things simple. From that point on though my bites dried up though from what I could see everyone else seemed to be in the same boat. Looking across I could see Brodie, he’s been well in contention in the series and with Mick McMillan missing this match was hoping to capitalise with a good result, but he was struggling like the rest ……

  

   

  A little further along was the vision in red that could only be Matt Love, and he was staring down the barrel of possibly his worst result of the series ……

  

   

  Next to Bill G was Steve Oswick, “badpegpicker” as he’s known on the forums, and it certainly wasn’t looking like his drawing arm had done him any favours today ……

  

   

  With the sky getting darker and the wind rising we were then treated to rain just to dampen peoples moods a little further. However with the rain came a bite for me, a nice chunky Common of around 6lbs, and as I netted it I noticed it’s tail hanging out of the bottom of the net The landing net had ripped and I didn’t have a spare. However a bit of a boy scout job with some spare catapult elastic soon had it repaired. After that I managed one more fish before the rain stopped along with the bites again.
  
  Opposite me Bill had gone for a death or glory approach and had balled in three babies heads on his pole line and then gone over it with paste and initially it seemed to do the trick as it produced a couple of quick fish before dying on him again…….

  

   

  The only other person I could see that was having any joy was Dave Hough on Peg 1 who seemed to be picking up the odd decent sized fish as the match wore on . Dave had no joy from his margins and had gone back out, but it had only produced a couple of smaller fish for him ……

  

   

  With about an hour and a half to go it was just a question of sticking at it, trickling a bit of bait in and rotating the lines. Both margins refused to produce anything at all, but I managed another 4 fish before the Sky’s started to darken again with 15 minutes to go.
  
  Dave’s daughter Chrissy had popped down with her daughter Lillie to so she could see Grandad fishing, and just after that I was into my best fish of the day, a nice chunky Mirror that must have been around 9lbs and that was followed by another of around 6lbs just before Bill called All-Out at 4pm .
  
  I felt I’d got around 80lbs in the nets, but just wanted to get the kit packed up and back to the car before the heavens opened and soaked us all, which I managed to do along with most of the other lads .
  
  The Weigh-In started from with Dave Hough’s 54½lbs, Dave’s 4 small Carp came to 14lbs 6ozs when Chrissy announced “Come on Lillie, lets go and see some big fish caught by Peter”  daughters can be so cruel to their dads sometimes .  My 2 nets came to 88½lbs. As the weigh-in carried on round Jonny Watt put 61lbs on the scales. Andy Green weighed a level 65lbs and Al tied with Dave Hough on 54½lbs. Matt had a ‘Mare’ with just 8lbs 10ozs to show for his efforts.
  
  Back to the car park and the heavens did indeed open, leading to hasty exits by most. As it turned out the guests had taken the spoils as I took the win on the day and Andy Green was second Jonny Watt finished third and was the top angler from the Series on the day .  Thanks to Bill for the invite, and Good Luck to all the anglers fishing the Series for the final match .

  
   

  Position	Angler	Weight
  1st	Peter Morton	88lbs 08ozs
  2nd	Andy Green	65lbs 00ozs
  3rd	Jonny Watt	61lbs 00ozs
  4th=	Dave Hough	54lbs 08ozs
  4th=	Al Loader	54lbs 08ozs
  6th	Toby Wells	35lbs 10ozs
  7th	Pete Growns	34lbs 00ozs
  8th	Steve Oswick	27lbs 08ozs
  9th	Mick Rumford	26lbs 00ozs
  10th	Brodie Vowles	25lbs 12ozs
  11th	Keith Powell	25lbs 04ozs
  12th	Bill Gibbins	24lbs 00ozs
  13th	Don Hunt	20lbs 08ozs
  14th	Eddie Costain	16lbs 08ozs
  15th	Derek Lockwood	15lbs 08ozs
  16th	Dave Collier	14lbs 06ozs
  17th	Matt Love	8lbs 10ozs

   

  

  

   

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