With just 8 fishing today we dropped pegs 10 and 11 from the draw as they were a little overgrown ...plus the furthest walk..! I left myself the last peg in the bag and peg 7 was one I was happy enough with as I had fished it a few times before. Also it was today's golden peg so there was an extra $75 going a begging.
With just 8 of us we all had plenty of room and options on every peg today and my own has a a few different lines to fish from. Straight out in front of me at 11 mts I had an even 3 1/2 foot of water at 11 to 14 mts and had a green J Range elastic on a pulla kit, .18 line to a .3 gram BGT "Shallow", .16 hooklenght to a tubertini 175 no.3. My plan for here was to feed light at the start on here and kinder for the match at 11 mts and probably fish at the back of it later on. At 13 mts to my left at about 10 o'clock I had about 3 foot of water and had a similar set up for here but used a Hillbilly "Grizzley" .3 gram and a B911 14. This line I was going to feed heavy at the start with 4 or 5 balls of crumb and alot of chopped worm and some corn and was leaving it for a while to see if any catfish turned up today. There are a few catfish in here and they average over 2 lbs so can be helpful during quiet spells. I have found you need to feed different here than for carp to attract them. Little and often or constant feeding over their heads always seems to push them away. I have found the best way to feed for them is by placing a bed of food down and leaving them a while to settle, you can pick up 3 or 4 in as many put ins before they back off and then top up. If no catfish turn up I can still use this line to rest my mainline later or maybe scratch for eels over it by the end if it's hard..! I had two margin lines to my left and right at 8 mts but sometimes they turn up here others not. With my peg being in the corner I also had the bank to my right and had another line to fish under a bush later into the match at 14.5 mts as it warmed up. It was already over 30 degrees and was only 7:30 am.......! I had 18 inches or so of water under the bush about 6 inches from the bank and was going to feed 2 full cups of corn, hemp and some meat there but spread it out abit. Rig for this line was on purple hydro to .18 line straight thru to an animal 14 with a "shady shallow" float getting a run around today. I set up a waggler and small method feeder also but hopefully was going to be too busy on the pole for most of the match to use them.
Ivan had drawn next to me on peg 5 as we had to drop peg 6 because of a coot or moorhen nesting there and we didn't want to disturb her. I couldn't see much more except just get view of "Sticky fingers" Health who was on peg 4. By the time the all in went at 9 am it most have been close to 35 degrees and there wasn't hardly a breeze. I nearly dropped my pole from my hands as I started cupping in my lines it had got that hot in the sun. I was thinking we should re name this league of our to the "extreme league" as so far we have had the full weather extremes for it. Wind, rain, heat and once again a struggle for a bite for the first hour and 35 minutes. Despite quite a few fish cruising and splashing around everyone was struggling to get bites. It was almost 2 hours before I got a small carp at 11 mts in front of me after trying all my lines and it came to a little bread punch and feeding a few maggots. I had one about 1lb on the waggler 20 minutes later and it seemed to be one of those days where you had to just keep moving from line to line and picking the odd fish here and there. They just didn't seem to want to feed at all. I done this for the next 2 hours and picked off 8 more fish but nothing over 1lb. A quick phone call to Sticky fingers and he only had 4 fish and no one seemed to be catching out there either. Ivan had 4 fish too and even with the Duck Brigade out practicing beside him and a few mouths slurping close to him was also struggling for bites. I couldn't even sneak an eel out from my worm line never mind a sight of a catfish. I re fed a ball of light groundbait on all my lines and a half a cup of corn and hemp on my long margin line but had been firing 2 cubes of meat over it every 8 minutes or so all match before then catching a small eel and another small carp on my 11 line. A quick drop in with some punched meat on my long margin line and I had a liner straight away. 2 minutes later a sharp bite and I had purple hydro stretching all.........of 6 inches..............an effing turtle hooked in the feet..claw.,, ?....whatever it is you call the little buggers mittens but as I lifted the nuisance to the surface I had a huge swirl and bow wave in my swim...this was definatly not from another turtle...it's lucky for this little fella turtles are protected here or he would have been drop kicked out past the lake into the car park. Usually the turtles move off when the carp show up so hopefully this was the only one there and back out I went but with corn on the hook this time and almost as soon as it settled had fish on. Even with just over 1 3/4 hours to go and maybe a little early to start plundering my shallow margin swim I decided after dropping a 3 lb carp in the keepnet to go at it for a bit. Nobody else seemed to be catching and if I could get 2 or 3 more it maybe enough for today.
It wasn't hectic or fast but up till the end I manged to get another 10 carp out of this swim with one close to 5 lbs but some smaller ones too on either corn or punched meat. I did lose one ghosty well over 8 pounds which I foulhooked and also had 2 small fish on my 11 mt line after that. I gustimated to have between 18 to 21 lbs as I wasn't too sure with the small fish. I was on the scales and walked around to pegs 8 and 9 to start. They really struggled here with just a few pounds of fish as did pegs 1 and 2 which are usually good pegs on this lake. John on peg 3 had 9 lbs of really small carp and then "Sticky fingers" himself weighed in 19 lbs even. I hadn't been watching him the last 2 hours as I was turned away to my right but he started to put a few small fish together so it was going to be close. Ivan had just short of 13 lbs and came over to weigh me in...
Phew..., that wasn't as close as I had thought..I ended up weighing in 23 lbs 12oz to make it my 3rd win on the trot here and more important second win in this league...plus a golden peg pot so have a few extra beer vouchers now for our trip to Canberra next week
23lbs 12 oz............Our next "extreme league" match isn't till January but will be the height of summer by then so at least we wont have snow or ice....maybe tornado, a bush fire...who knows ? Canberra starts next Friday and myself and Ivan are heading down on Thursday for a quick session there so will write up a full account of how we got on when I get back
No comments:
Post a Comment