Summerhayes Midweek Open

After a brief intro tonight's blog will take a different layout than my normal..

Had a lift with Tony Rixon in his bluemobile (colour and language both fit) and shared the seat with Fabio and I felt like a rose between two thorns ;-)  A nice breakfast in Shipham and then onto the venue to see how many locals were there. I had not fished this place for a few years, and so bad was my prior experience I had vowed never to return, but as Bob Gullick told me 1 visit doesn't give a true picture. Drew my peg (24) and asked venue regular Jamie Rich (via social networking) what was it like, he said it was a carp peg so no silvers rigs today.

Arrived at the peg and it looked nice with a nice looking far bank and the wind blowing into it. (Took photo lost it due to new phone back up shit I don't understand!)

Also the near margin had a tree over the water, it gave some shadow over the water but did stop me from fishing further down the bank which would have been nice as I had lots of room!

It is pointless me telling you about the rigs I set up, here goes a sort of timeline as best I recall it, of today's events.

11:15 All in Fed some pellets to margin right, and across by island. Started on paste at 9m, no bites.

11:30 Try across tight with depth rig, miss lots of bites / indications and lose two foulers. Snag up on underwater reeds / roots.

11:45 Try shallow rig, a few indications but no fish or foulers.

12:00 Deep rig on again across but more missed bites and snags. Wind changes direction and blows from left to right.

12:45 Wind making it impossible to fish across hooking more snags, tried margin and had a carp less than an ounce.

13:00 Set up method feeder in desperation. Left some micros to soak fo rtwo mins, shit forgot about them soaked to long.

13:10 cast out 15gm method, realised it was too small as could not cast accuarate, changed to a 30gm. Also pellets all wrong on feeder so knocked up some gbait to mix in.

13:15 Two hours in pole blown off rollers whilst about to cast out. Need to bin tripod rollers!

13:20 gbait and micro mix works well and first cast a small carp is landed

13:25 second small carp on method

13:35 A 3lb carp on method feeder.

13:50 All indications on method stop

14:15 now bored with method and no bites feed pellets to margin left and go for a walk.

15:00 3lb carp jumps out of keepnet into gbait bowl and into lake.

15:15 3lb Carp first drop next to pallet

15:25 Lose a fouler next to pallet

15:35 Lose a fish under pallet

15:40 hook snag lose hook length

15:50 hook snag lose hook length

16:00 Right hand margin produces nothing, fill it in with the gbait / micro mix

16:05 hat blows in lake, try pallet again with paste rig, hook a snag.

16:10 try across in a lull in the wind, catch 1 skimmer on 8mm pellet.

16:15 into RH margin maggot gets ragged, steal some dendras off John Bradford and catch a small carp.

16:20 catch a perch.

16:25 3lb carp jumps out of keepnet, getting pissed off now.

Switched to paste rig in RH margin hooked about 10 carp landed 6, plus a skimmer.

17:15 match ends, chuck back fish and pack up.

Fabio was opposite me and had the wind in his face, he won the match with 72lb.

Time to give it a go on the river I think, at least there I can fish like a buffoon with nobody watching me lol!