Shiplate Farm Main Lake, (Monday).

Back on the main lake again today & with 16 of us fishing fancied it to produce a few fish as we had a late start, 10.30 draw & fish 12 til 6pm, Obvious we all wanted to draw the normal two hot pegs but didn't mind being in the middle of the lake as a fancied a few fish shallow here? Into the draw & out comes peg 9, Dire!" I keep hearing of fish in the area of the lake but yet to see it produce in matches, Last time Mark Jones called it a day here so wasn't that confident of catching much? It looks inviting with decent margins left & right & an island chuck some distance away being sat in the bottom bowl on the lake but the level was down last from last time with much of the undercut back showing so new it was very shallow tight across, 

I found a couple of areas down the edges, 13mts to the right & 12mts along the end bank to my left which were the same depth around 2ft, Had a rig to fish the open water at 9mts in 4ft or so of water, a long line/slapper rig to fish at 14mts & just one rod, a Method Feeder!" Yep I am Finally going to succumb to giving it ago". I had Steve (Peanut) Howell on peg 9A & Glen Baily on peg 8 through the gap to my right, We had the lakes aerator on between us as well as an overflow pipe running water in at 17mts along the left bank but agreed to keep them on rather than risk things switching it off as it had been on overnight.

I didn't go into details of my rigs because simple my day went like this, started short with banded 8mm feeding just the odd hard 6mm, Not a sign after 15mins so my first try on the method" Banded wafter on the hook, Micros around the feeder, 15mins I missed a right pull round the rod nearly went in! 20mins later this time fish on, All 2lb of it" & that was it for the rest of the day!! I Lost another on the method & had another snap me late in the day, never had a single sign of fish on any of the pole lines despite seeing the whole match out, I never saw a fish move except for one fish against the island & that was before I had one" so guess it could of been the same fish, It was rock hard are end, Nigel on peg 7 had around 2oz's", Glen had called it a day with two small tench with a couple of hours to go & went on Hawthorns, Peanut had one small carp I could see & a few silvers & Rich Hawkins on peg 10 had a couple of silvers so loads of carp are end then!" Walking back around Rob Birch who was on peg 2 told me how many carp had been hanging around him all day, even hooking them on expanders short whilst trying to catch silvers' Next to him Paul Faires was admitting to around 100lb so certainly at the wrong end yet again today, Didn't get the results sorry as made are way straight home to attend the dog as was fortunate the have the Wife's company the last couple of days with the time off work & great weather to boot, I nearly wet myself though when she was saying she wished the day hadn't started after spilling coffee on her leg on-route among other things only for seconds later her bed chair collapsed..!" Perhaps it was an omen??.

Full Results -

1st Paul Faires (Sensas 88) peg 2, 138lb.

2nd Mark Jones (Shipate Burger Van) peg 4, 112lb.

3rd Tim Ford (Thatchers P.I) peg 14B, 85lb.,

Silvers - 1st Steve Howell (Shipate Farm) peg 9a, 20lb 12oz. (Had More Than I thought) Lol.