Rolfs Winter league - Match 5

The forecast for today was for torrential rain and severe winds

I don't mind the rain but the wind is a total pain especially on a pole only venue

Any way as I arrived at Rolfs the rain stopped and for the time being it didn't look to bad

As I got out of the van I saw the lake and it was up 4 foot over the platforms

And Rolf had had to put some fencing behind peg 20 to stop the fish from swimming off into the field next door

On the upside as I hadn't been fishing since my last visit Rolf let my nets off their usual vigorous dipping which saved my hands getting frozen in the rinsing tank

This week I'm fishing A section which is the little lake and general opinion is you need peg 34 or peg 7 any thing else and your going to be a spectator so true to form I pulled peg 38 out of the bag

Plan today is to fish 16m down towards the corner and fish just in front of the clump of grass by the reeds

I decided to use pellet, bread and corn as hook baits and feed micro pellets I also set up a second line at 7m straight in front of me to fish for silvers just in case it got dodgy as its a team match and points make section places

For the silver fish line I had red maggots and casters to use on the hook

On the all in I shipped a small pot of pellets out to 16m to my left just in front of the reeds tight to what used to be the bank and went out over the top of them with a piece of bread flake on a size 14 B911 hook tied direct to 0.18 Silstar match on a loose set purple hydro float was a Malman 4x14 Thicko set to fish at dead depth

Holding the pole at 16m in the strong gale force winds that had sprung up on the whistle wasn't too much of a problem for me as the wind was blowing down the lake from right to left so I had it on my back and running down the pole so I had fairly good presentation only thing I didn't have were any indications of fish no bites no movement no nothing I tried both corn and pellet but still could not get a bite

I noticed that the Steve on peg 37 was catching a few slivers out in front of him now and peg 7 was taking decent carp at regular intervals as was peg 34 but everyone else on the small lake seemed to be sat watching dead floats

After about 1 1/2 hours I decided that I needed to forget the 16m line and get something in the net and maybe give the 16m line a go in the last hour for a bonus fish so I swapped to my 7m line out in front of me and on my first drop in with a single red maggot on a size 18 B911 I had a small Roach and same again next put in so I stuck with it and the small Roach kept on coming at regular intervals it felt a bit weird fishing a big Carp Mecca like Rolfs for little Roach but no one else was catching Carp other than Peg 7 and 34 in our section so I thought I'd stick with it

By now pegs 36,37 and 40 were all going for the silver fish and from what I could see I was catching a lot faster than the rest

In the last couple of hour's pegs 2,4 and 6 all had a bonus Carp each in fact I think peg 4 had 2 Carp

In the last 30 mins I gave my 16m line a go to try and mug a bonus fish but had no joy and to my horror Steve on peg 37 landed a decent Perch of about 2 1/2 lbs

Round about then Rolf made us all stop and I packed my gear away just as I was taking it to the van Rolf came round weighing in clockwise for once

Peg 34 weighed in 34lb peg 36 weighed 1lb and peg 37 weighed in 5lb 4oz I was surprised to see how many little Roach I had when I tipped them into the weigh sling but even so they still only weighed 3lb 8oz peg 40 had 1lb 10oz then the others in the section had a Carp and bits for mid teens weights round to peg 7 who had 60lb

Word round the lake was that there were a couple of good weights on the main lake but most had struggled to find any fish although 4 poles were broken today with the mix of strong fighting fish and howling gales 1 Carp also won a top kit and rig off Paul Dann who fished a blinder for Team Desperate Danns today and made up for his last two blanks by winning his section and the match with 144lb from peg 23 for 9 section points Chris had 8lb 5oz from peg 13 for 8th in section and 2 points and I had 3 points for my 3lb 8oz and 7th in section giving us a total of 14 points today and 5th place on the day and 7th place overall in the league

Winter League 2006

Team---------------------------Total

RS Baits--------------------------101
Rolfs Team Gold----------------.101
Hayes------------------------------83
Fisherman's B --------------------76
Rolfs Team Diamond------------. 75
Fisherman's A-------------------- 68
Desperate Dann's ----------------64
Musketeers------------------------54
Throwbacks-----------------------42

Looks like it may be a bit too late now for a late rush at the title but my first winter league at Rolfs has been good fun so far and with 1 more match to go any thing could happen as Rolf is allowing running line for the last match