Wednesday 12 April 2017

Drennan Alders Pines Lake 110417

Things have been getting worse with my fishing lately, some poor draws which we all get now and again unless your name is Mick, some poor performances as well. It seems that I cannot string more than a couple of fish together, yes I am catching but no way near enough to even class it a day out. I feel that I am at a crossroads with my fishing, do I stick to fishing the corn which I feel I can do quite well, but it either works or does not. Or do I get my head down and try to learn how to fish and more importantly feed the pellet?Things are not looking good on the MK Nugget front either, slipping to a 4-1 loss at present.
Anyway enough of my ramblings, 14 of us graced the cafe at Alders Farm for the Tuesday Cost-cutter. The match itself was on Pines Lake and I was keen to correct some mistakes from the previous week. I was not too hopeful, after pulling out peg 19, the same peg Mick had last week and put 90lb on the scales and to round it off Mick drew peg 17. He did say that the fish came late in the day last week on maggot over pellet, so that was my plan. We had Terry Lancaster on 16 and Paul Hawkins on 20. Trevor Price had my peg 12 from the previous week so I would be interested to see how he catches and try to find out where I went wrong. Miles was on his own on the dam wall with Steve Potter on peg 1. Good mate and work colleague Vic Nugent was fishing his first match for over a year, but he still had a drawing arm on him on peg 7.
I set up five rigs today. One for the margins, another for 2+2 and one for 3+2 in case they backed off. I also set up a 11m line and a shallow rig. My plan was to fish maggot down the edge with GB. Maggot over pellet on my close lines and pellet over pellet on the longer lines.
After feeding my long line and edge swim I cupped in a half pot of 4mm fishery pellet onto 2+2 and started off there. 10 minutes in and nothing, 15 minutes and my first bite on double maggot, then nothing. Pushing the rig out to 3+2 and 6 inches off deck I hooked my first carp, back out and nothing. Out to 11m and pinging a few 4mms and fishing a 6mm banded pellet. A couple of small carp came to the net.
Mick was getting a few on the tip to the island and we were even in fish but his looked bigger. Paul was struggling, Miles was getting plenty of action on the dam wall. I could see Trevor in the distance netting odd fish and Steve Potter on 1 was also in action. I could hear Madd talking to the whole lake although I am sure it was not intended, anything from which bands Trevor was going to see, to the accomodation at Stafford Moor. Sometimes he does not realise how loud he can be. LOL.
A quick look down the edge saw me re-feeding after 10 minutes with nothing to show for the effort. I decided to have a look shallow, arming the band with a 6mm Jupiter I soon was picking off odd fish, pinging over the top. However I would get 1 or 2 and then nothing for 15 minutes, despite alternating the feed rate and depth. Mick was now catching fish on his 2+2 line so I gave it a go and saw my float sit motionless for the next fifteen minutes.
At the all out I felt that there were not enough fish close in to pose a decent threat to the weigh in and I spent too much time tring to get it to work. In hindsight fishing shallow for the whole match was probably, my best bet for the whole match.
Overall
1st Steve Potter 131-10
2nd Miles Philipps 130-03
3rd John Light 123-00
4th Trevor Price 117-14
5th Gavin Mills 113-09
6th Vic Nugent 77-14
My weight of 46-10 saw me finish nowhere, with Mick taking another Nugget off me with 64-02. Mick now leads 5-1, all of his wins coming at Alders.
Next day out for me is Meadowlands tomorrow to set up some rods in preparation for the upcoming Stafford Moor festival in May.

1 comment: