Shiplate Farm Open (Hawthorns Lake).

It was a case of a sausage sarnie at home this morning with Shiplate being right on my doorstep, Thankfully the overnight rain had cleared & the wind had dropped so it looked as if we were going to be in for a chilly but pleasant day again, The match was to be spread over Hawthorns & Westpool but with a few drop outs owner Steve decided just to use Hawthorns with thirteen of us fishing, I was in the middle of the drew ending up on peg 3, I had Russ (Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap Pecker on peg 2 & Dave Romaine on peg 4 who had the bonus of & empty peg between him & resident drawbag" Steve Peanut Howell on peg 6, I set a rig up to fish in the deeper water across around 5ft deep at the bottom of the shelf being a 0.3g AS2 on 0.13-0.11 & an 18 F1 pellet hook, A rig to fish tighter towards the far bank in a couple of feet of water being an 0.2g hand made float on 0.13 to an 16 f1 pellet hook, & Finally a 0.4g rig on 0.11-0.09 & an 18 63-13 hook to fish at 9mts down the track for silvers in 6ft or so of water, I began the day feeding two balls of G/bait with pinkees & a few casters added down the track, No sooner had I cupped the first ball in Dave was already playing a carp from his far bank" I fed a small ball of micros in the deeper water across & began the day fishing tighter over in the shallower water with hard & soft pellet on the hook. In the first 15mins Dave had netted three fish but both myself & Russ hadn't caught, I tried a few areas of the far bank at different depths but I just couldn't get a bite even when switching to maggot on the hook, After 45mins or so I decided for the time being I would try & catch some silvers, I started down the track with single maggot but couldn't get a bite on it, I switched to double pinkee & took a few roach to 5oz but after a few bites they would switch off, I re-fed another small ball & decided to feed some chopped worm & casters towards the far bank in the hope of pulling some chub into the swim.

It seemed to be a case getting a couple of bites then having to change depth to put anything in the net but I wouldn't get a run of fish together for some reason, I decided to feed another line down the track after a couple of hours & try to keep putting a few fish in the net, It seemed the only silvers willing to feed were roach as I hadn't had a sign of any skimmers or bonus chub.

Dave Had now starting catching a few down his inside edge on bread & Russ had started to get the odd fish on pellet across but was also getting a few foul hookers, It wasn't until around two hours to go I had a run of fish including a couple of roach pushing 10oz but just as I though things were going to get better it died completely & I struggled to get a bite off either short line. I had a go with a small piece worm on the hook across where I had fed earlier which produced another 10oz roach but then all I had were some small roach on the caster, The last hour was a real struggle with just the odd roach off the short lines. Come the end of the day I reckoned on having 5-6lb of silvers which I didn't think would be much good but you never know, I wasn't far off on my estimate when the scales went 6lb 4oz which turned out to be the top silvers weight on the day after all so I ended up with £35 back, The match was won By Dave next to me who finished the day with 10 carp for 59lb ahead of Steve Howell on peg 6 with 43lb so obviously the gap helped" It was hard for most but the water level had gone up over a foot in the last few days with the heavy rain which was never going to help matters. Back to Viaduct for the silvers league next Sunday but unsure on my plans for Saturday as yet.

Full Results -

1st Dave Romaine (Bait-Tech Viaduct) peg 4, 59lb.

2nd Steve Howell (Shiplate Farm) peg 6, 43lb 6oz.

3rd Russ Pecker (Thatchers Tackle) peg 2, 35lb 15oz.

Silvers -

 1st Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 3, 6lb 4oz

2nd Julian Pinkett (Wormheads) peg 12, 5lb 10oz.