Shipate Farm (Westpool Lake).

After working overtime yesterday I was looking forward to a days fishing' It was a bit chilly when we arrived but at least it was dry & after walking the kit around before the draw the whole lake seemed sheltered from the wind, I was desperate to have a change of scenery as the last four times I've fished this lake I've drawn peg 4" in which is the narrower bit, Even the Wife refused to draw for me today encase she picked it' So left to me owner Steve informed me it wasn't in today just pegs 1, 3 & 5' so what do I draw' peg bloody 3! Owe well, Not to see the wider part again then".

It was 13mts to the far side so a comfy days fishing at least as I felt with it now being a bit cooler this is where most fish would be? I plummed up a couple of lines just short of the far side in around 3ft of water, Had a 4x12 chanti to fish in the open water left & right at 11mts again where I found the same depth around 4ft which I would feed differently & that was it really as I didn't have an inside as such just open water but a bit shallow I thought, I did set up a 0.2g rig to fish bread (Dobbing) if I couldn't get bites but it still seemed to have a fair bit of colour to the water so hopefully I could catch on the deck across.

I started the day feeding the 11mts lines, Left with corn & right with some micros & damp 4mm's fed a small amount of corn & 4mms across to my right & started the day across infront of me with 4mm expander over tiny amounts of micro's & the odd 4mm hard pellet, I was quite surprized to get indications after a couple of minutes & started to put small carp from 1-2lb in the net, In the first hour I thought I had around 20lb of carp & a few skimmers, Things slowed a bit so I tried the other lines quickly but no early signs so stayed back on the far line where I was still getting the odd fish, I had to start working the rig up the shelf to get bites, if  I left it on the deck I struggled for bites, I caught a couple of fish a couple of inches of the deck but most bite were just as the rig settled on the shelf.

After three hours things had slowed up but I thought I had close to 48lb, After this I really had to work hard for bites, I started a couple more lines across searching for bites but this only produced a fish off each line through the rest of the match, I never had a bite on the small fed corn/pellet line across, but did catch two skimmers in two dob-ins on the 11mt corn line then never had another bite on it!, & the other 11mt line failed to produce a bite all day", I spent the remainder of the day mostly across still with expander & feeding with the cad-pot small amounts, It seemed best in the end to get the rig just touching the deck the feeding & waiting for bites, It turned out to be a lot slower & I really had to wait for bites but still recon on adding another 34lb of carp & some more skimmers before the all out so had a nice days fishing.

When the scales arrived Mark Jones was leading the way with 116lb from peg 10, I knew I had nowhere near that but was pleased to finish with 78lb odd of carp & 8lb of skimmers for 86lb. Back at the results & Mark won the day mostly catching across on corn & a few fish down the edge on maggot over micros later in the day, My weight turned out to be enough for 2nd picking up £35 as Steve paid two out in the silvers again today but at least its something back & the peg produced much more than I anticipated so another enjoyable match.

Results -

1st Mark Jones (Shiplate) peg 10, 116lb 13oz.

2nd Dom Sullivan (Mosella) peg 3, 86lb 7oz.

3rd Julian Pinkett (Wormheads) peg 12, 81lb 8oz.

4th Kurt Pinkett (Wormheads) peg 7, 33lb 12oz.

Silvers -

1st Ray Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 1, 18lb 2oz.

2nd Glyn Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 13, 16lb 4oz.