Landsend Saturday open 28/07/2018

Left home a bit earlier as I knew the motorway would be a bit busy because of the school holidays, but I wasn`t expecting that many Brummies to be heading south. Bloody caravans everywhere. Plus a couple of accidents added about 20 minutes to the journey. But there was still time for a very nice breakfast 😊. 11 fishing today and we were on Match lake again. I was first into the draw and pulled out peg 21. Pretty happy with that as its been a good area for a while now, holding a decent number of good carp. But when I got to the bank I was surprised to see how low the lake was. Its the lowest i`ve seen it in my 6 years of fishing this place. In many pegs the far top shelf was out of the water so the only place for the fish to feed was in the deeper water. Four rigs today A .15 Shalla Slim to fish the 6 inches of water I was lucky enough to have. A .3 Slim to fish  at an angle at the bottom of the far shelf. Another .3 for meat at 7m in the deepest part of my peg. And  a .3 SS Margin to fish to my left margin at 8m close to an inviting lily bed. I tried to plum up at top kit length to my left but was struggling to get a plummet through the snags. The match started and I fed my lines and started at the bottom of the far shelf. I was probably last to get anything at only 5 minutes but I managed to loose the first 2 then got one out about 5lb. Over the next hour I managed to put 4 in the net but had lost 12.  A few foul hookers, but some were in the mouth and just pulling out. Tourettes time. Dave Ings was catching a few next to me on 22, as was Martin Pettifer on 24. I could see Russ peck on 7 through the island gap, and it wasn`t long before he shouted that we should have a quid on it. I didn`t realise he had close to 50lb in the net by then, and agreed. Sneaky bugger, but that was his last laugh as his fish slowed up and I was later to overtake him by a bit. After about  90 minutes I saw the first swirl so I ditched the long line and dropped in by the lilies with 8mm pellet. It wasn`t long before a good fish was netted followed by another good un. I also noticed a swirl where the snag was to my left so I chucked a few 6mm`s just off the end of the overhanging branches . Straight away fish were on it. So i adjusted my rig to fish just over the ledge on the slope and got into a steady run of good fish. Just after half time I lost a couple of  fish right in the feed area and it went quite for ten minutes, so I thought I`d give the far shelf a go as when I fired pellet over it was like fish soup with up to ten fins as fish struggled to get to the pellets in the shallow water. So I switched to a long line rig so as not to spook them as some of the carp had their  eyes out the water looking at my pole tip, lol. This, In hindsight, was a bad move, as I spent 45 minute and only had 5 fish that were not that big. But there were so many there I couldn`t resist spending time there. So I decided to come back to my short margin line and it was non stop with carp lined up until the end and they were bigger fish. During this time I dropped my number three section off the right side of my platform so had to go in for it. But after I got my boots off and slipped in off the platform I found it was only about 10 inches deep that side and picked it up straight away. There was an advantage of the low water level after all. I was guessing at around 180-190lb at the end, but wasn`t sure as I think I missed a few on the clicker. First to weigh was Mark Walsh on peg 2 who put 190-08, all caught on paste, on the scales, including 12-14 of skimmers. Russ was a bit disappointed as he had slowed up, but still made it to 127-00. But I knew the gold was coming my way. Rod Wooton on 13 just topped the ton with 100-08, but was fishless for the first 2 hours. Then Derick Beard was next to weigh, and I heard he possibly had over the 200lb mark. He did and put 217-06 on the scales, again all caught on paste. My turn and I didn`t think i`d beat him, but was surprised to see my nets go  212-08 for second on the day. That messing about long lining  probably cost me as I recon the same amount of time down the edge would have got me a lot more if i`d been patient. Ah well we live and learn. But to say it fished well is an understatement with the lowest weight at 70lb. And Russ Peck, don`t leave the country, I didn`t get my quid. Full results below.