Landsend Fishery Saturday Open.

It's been a while since I had chance to return to this fishery and although I'm not familiar of the areas to draw of what to do exactly I was looking forward to the change, A good turn out of 18 fishing and the other a couple of lakes booked out with club matches saw us all on match lake. Into the draw and I found myself on peg 18 which I didn't have a clue about but after a quick chat with Andy Hembrow who knows the venue well told me a lot of fish hold up in the area but having the gap in the island can result in a lot of foul hooked fish so I was in for an interesting day?

 

Having to rely on information from a few regulars I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so chose to fish one rig on the deck over to the far bank at 16mts tight into a gap I happened to have being a 4x10 hand made float on 0.15-0.12 and an 18 wide gape pellet hook in just over 2ft of water, A 0.3g PB1 to use as a swinging rig on a longer line of the same size with an 18 808 hook to search off the point of the island in the open water, a 4x12 chanti to fish at 5mt slightly off to y right in the open water on 0.13-0.11 and an 16 63-13 hook, finally a in-line 0.2g rig to fish down my margin towards the tree stump on 0.17-0.15 and an 18 PR478 hook. For company I had match organiser Mike West on peg 19 and silver fish basher Nigel Garrett on peg 17. When I arrived at the fishery I realised I had forgot my waterproofs as well as some sweetcorn. Venue Expert Rod Wooten kindly lent me a bib n brace and Gary Cross offered to lend me a tin of corn.. The trouble is it looked like it had been in his net bag from the day he ever started fishing' as you can see by the pic it was some what out of date! did I use it? no not that silly I waited for him to go to the draw and swapped it for one of his new tins" ha ha.

 

Being a bit cautious to start with I fed a small amount of 6mm meat onto the 5mt open water swim and started the match on the swinging' rig with 6mm pellet on the hook over towards the island without feeding anything to start with. after 5mins of plopping the rig around I hooked my first fish, Up The Ass" not the start I hoped for but hey. After 3 more foul hookers and nothing in the net after 45mins it was time for a change. I swapped to the rig set up to fish tighter to the far bank on the deck cad potting nuggets of micro pellets over the top along with some 4mm hard pellets and fishing the same on the hook. It didn't take long for my first fish of 5lb followed by a fish of 3lb before I had foul hooking problems again'. I tried to fish up in the water but they just didn't seem to want to know so switched back to the long line rig off the point of the island. A quick fish followed then nothing as they were easily spooked but I stuck at it as apart from the pegs further down to my left I hadn't seen to much caught.

 

I tried all the baits I had available on and off the deck but I just couldn't get the fish to settle and after only adding odd fish and with a couple of hours remaining I had to hope my 5mt meat swim or the edge swim would produce?.

starting on a single 6mm cube on the hook I missed a bite before landing a 6lb carp soon after which got me excited but it wasn't as I expected as the match wore on I found it harder to get bites when I expected it to get better?

 

The last hour was spent plopping around the swim with the longer line rig to the far bank and the meat rig at 5mts but apart from the odd fish things didn't come alive. an interesting day never the less but I didn't expect to get in the money as a few angler had caught well later in the match. managing to get the kit in the car at the end of the match before the rain started I offered to assist with the board for the weigh-in, After a couple of weighs it was time for Rod Wotton on peg 8 who had a few' taking the scales around to 104lb catching across to the far bank on 8mm hard pellets, after two 90lb weights and an 80lb it was my turn and the fish I had were chunky giving me 50lb odd to add to my 5lb of silvers. as expected I never made the money today finishing 5th but it seemed most of the fish came from the lower number's and after a chat with Andy Hembrow after the match he told me there were a lot of fish at his end of the lake. I think my peg was worth a few more fish but after a few more visits hopefully I will get a better picture of what to do and put a few more fish in the net' Rod Wotton on peg8 showed what a class act at this venue he can be taking another win ahead of Jamie Parkhouse on corner peg 12.

Full results-

1st Rod Wotton (Clevedon A.A) peg 8, 104lb 1oz.

2nd Jamie Parkhouse (Burt Baits) peg 12, 99lb 4oz.

3rd Andy Hembrow (Clevedon A.A) peg 16, 96lb 3oz.

4th Rich Lovering (Clevedon A.A) peg 15, 84lb.

5th Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 18, 56lb 1oz.

 

Silvers - 1st Nigel Garrett (Thatchers Tackle) peg 16, 27lb 14oz.

2nd Gary Cross (Thyers) peg 20, 16lb 10oz.