Shiplate Farm Sunday Knock-up (Squire Pool)

After missing the match at viaduct yesterday as I was in no fit state to drive after spending the night out on the sauce for the wife's birthday on Friday but at least I wasn't in the state she was spending most of the night with frequent trips to the pan", I did have the decency to let Steve know early enough.

Back to today their were other matches taking place on the other lakes so it would my first visit to this smaller pond teeming with lots of small carp & goldfish" with a couple of better fish over the 3lb mark, With only four of us it was run as a rover format so I let the Wife Yvonne do the honours, She gave me choice number two but to be honest having not fished it I didn't know the best area's?

Resident Steve (Peanut) Howell had told me pegs 7 & 10 seemed to be the best island pegs & the straight section was also fancied, I opted for peg 10, but the other three went on peg 1, 3, & 5 on the opposite bank so did they know  something I didn't"??.

I planned a simple day having a 0.3g pencil float to fish 3 & 8mts at the bottom of the shelf off the small island on 0.13-0.11 & a 16 808 hook, The depth on both lines only varied by a few inches at just over 4ft or so, I had a 4x10 Chanti to fish hard & soft pellet closer to the island but it was much shallower, & finally a 0.2g rig to fish down the edge against the shelf in 3ft of water, My whole day would centre around soft pellet Or worm on the hook, Micro & 4mm's or chopped worm. I new it was going to be a bit of a fish race so didn't plan to fish any longer unless I had too. I started the day feeding the 8mt line with a ball of micros & some hard 4mms & fed a small amount of 4mms on the 3mt line & fed some chopped worm down the inside shelf. starting with 4mm expander at 8mts it didn't take long to start catching some of the small 4-6oz carp along with the odd similar size goldfish or fantail but I couldn't seem to get & better size fish, I did seem to be catching a few more than Peanut who was opposite me on peg 5 so stuck to this line for the first couple of hours whilst feeding the shorter lines, I did have a quick look on the 3mt line but I had to wait longer for bites & the fish were only small, On the longer line I had began to get the odd fish 10-12oz but still no signs of any bigger fish, By the halfway stage things began to tail off slightly & bites began to be really iffy, I had only topped this line up once since the start with another ball but decided to add a cad-pot feeding a small amount of micros each put-in, I was really starting to struggle & to make things worse Steve had started to catch further across to his far bank & had found some better fish over 3lb" I tried shallow for a while with hard pellet but only added two more goldfish & I kept trying short lines but just couldn't get anything to settle here, I had to try & catch a better stamp off fish if I was going to keep up with Peanut who was now catching well, I decided to switch to fishing a small segment of worm on the hook on the 8mt line setting the rig to fish around 6inches over depth, I had to wait a bit longer for bites I was getting regular fish from 8-12oz & did manage one around 2lb. Going into the last hour I had Steve down as winner as he was catching regular & had managed a few more bonus carp, I set the rig even more over depth as I was still getting false bites which seemed to improve things netting another 2lb plus fish & a fair few around the 1lb mark, Golly Jones had had a good couple of hours on peg 3 but things slowed down later on for him & I couldn't see Nigel on peg 1, Come the all-out I still had Steve down as the winner with his better fish making the difference, Nigel was first to weigh & put 37lb on the scales, Golly finished the day with 45lb odd before peanut went on to weight 58lb odd, I was last to trouble the scales & my first net of fish which I had in the first three hours weighed 29lb odd before my second net totalled 37lb,

  giving me a total of 66lb to snatch the £35 winnings in this small knock-up, I was quite surprised at my total & funnily I enjoyed my days fishing, It was quite hectic but I had to keep tweaking things to keep the bites coming, I would have another visit perhaps when their are a few more fishing but it was a good bit of fun between us with plenty of laughs & banter along the way.