Rolfs Open Match

Weather Report for today was for a nice sunny dry day with very little wind

So as I had nothing else planned I headed off down to Rolfs for the Sunday Open Match

Reports from the open match on Saturday were not too promising as it fished very hard all round the lake and was won with 107lb from peg 7

I had hoped to draw in the little lake but true to form I drew at the complete opposite end of the lake on peg 15

In the winter league match last week only 8oz came off peg 15 but it certainly looks a nice peg

On setting up I discovered to my horror that I had left my bread at home on the kitchen work top and even worse my meat in the fridge

Looks as though Autumn has arrived at last and the leafs are dropping off at a fast rate

That's a mighty fine looking van parked in the front row in the car park




Well due to the cockup with the bait I'll be fishing pellet today and my plans to practice with bread ready for the league match next week are right out the window

On the all in I ship a pot of pellets out to 13m and another out to 7m and I start off with a 6mm soft hooker over the feed pellets at 7m

After a while the float slowly slides under and I lift into a skimmer of about 12oz not what I wanted but it was a fish at least

I fed a few more pellets and went back out with another 6mm pellet and again the float slowly slid under and I had another 12oz skimmer

I had a long wait before the float disappeared again but this time it was a slightly better skimmer of about 1lb

Unfortunately that was it the float never moved again

I noticed that Lloyd next to me on peg 14 was catching Carp on bread fished shallow at 14.5m as were a couple of guys opposite

As I only had my 13m pole with me I'd have to make do with fishing at 13m and so I put a shallow rig on with an 8mm hard banded pellet and shipped it out to 13m and started to spray a few pellets out to get the Carp feeding up in the water

After an age the float disappeared and my hydro shot out and I was into a Carp alough by the feel of it it was foul hooked so I played it very gently as I shipped down to the top 2 and lifted to raise the fish to net it the hydro snapped back into the pole and I was left with a large scale on the hook

From then on things just got worse the Carp were cruising around the surface totally uninterested in my bait I tried different depths, soft hookers, hard pellet, double pellet I couldn't buy a bite
With 20 mins left to go I managed to snag another Carp but that too was foul hooked and after a couple of lunges it was off and I was left with another scale on my hook
At the whistle all I had was 3 skimmers for 2lb 8oz not a red letter day it has to be said but that's fishing for you
The match was won from peg 34 with 185lb Lloyd on peg 14 was second with 115lb from then on the weights took a steep dip (the top 3 all fished bread shallow)
Still I'm back here next week for the Winter League 3rd round