Rolfs Spring league - Match 1

After the last 2 winter leagues I must admit I had decided not to fish the spring league and wait till it got nearer to paste fishing time

But my results can't get much worse this year so I gave in and signed up again for the Spring league of 6 matches following the same format as the winter leagues ( but hopefully not the same results)

At the draw John Bennett decided to give our team a better name in the hope it would spur us on to better results so this series we are Team Assassins and for match 1 the team consists of my self Steve Wilson and Mike Stimson

I decided to fish A section in the first match with Steve fishing B section and Mike fishing C section

I drew peg 4 out which is another peg I haven't fished yet so I set off round the small lake keen and eager

My plan today is to just fish for silvers at 6m I also intended to set up a line at 11.5m to fish pellet and also another pellet line at 3m along the bush to my left I also set up my feeder rod just in case the Carp appeared in the small lake

My main rig for the silvers was a 4x12 Maver black ice on 0.10mm Silstar match with a 0.08mm hook link to a size 20 Kamasan B611 hook and I set the rig up on a match top with a No5 solid elastic

I also set up 1 pellet rig on 0.12mm Silstar straight thru to a B911 16 hook on a match top with blue hydro and a second pellet rig on 0.14mm Silstar on a power top with black hydro to fish the margin swim

On my main 6m line I intended to fish red maggot over a 50/50 mix of Sensas Roach and crushed hemp groundbait

So on the all in I shipped 2 small balls of groundbait out to 6m and a pot of pellets out to 11.5m and a handful of hemp along the bush to my left then I went out on the 11.5m line with a 6mm soft hooker on the hook hopeing to snag a bonus fish after about 20 mins with no action I gave up and went out over the 6m line with a single maggot on the hook and was straight into small Roach and skimmers

From peg 4 I could see all the other pegs in A section except for peg 7 and from what I could see peg 34 wasn't catching nor peg 37 and Phil on peg 40 had had a few Roach and a decent skimmer and Perch and peg 2 had had 2 small Roach so from what I could see I was about level with Phil on peg 40 so I stuck with the 6m line by changing to 2 red maggots on the hook and fishing over depth by 2 inches I managed to find a better stamp of skimmers and things were starting to look up as I took 3 net fish in quick succession

Talking of peg 2 the lake owner Rolf is fishing for 1 of the teams this week to fill in for a missing member and he drew peg 2

Then after about 2 hours the swim just died and I couldn't find a bite anywhere

About then a large Carp rolled out on the bar in the middle of the lake so as nothing was happening with the silvers line I cast a feeder full of bread crumb out to the bar with a piece of bread flake on the hook in the hope of catching it

peg 34 still hadn't had a bite 37 had had a couple of small skimmers and Phil on 40 and Rolf on 2 were searching around trying to find a bite the same as me

After about 20 mins on the feeder I gave up on the Carp and tried the margin swim but had no joy there either

So I went back out on to the 6m line with a single maggot after sitting watching a motionless float for 10 mins it suddenly dipped then disappeared and as I struck my worse nightmare came true as I felt a very solid very heavy fish but I'm assuming that I had foul hooked it at it didn't run it just carried on with its slow swim past me and round the corner to peg 6 with my No5 elastic having no effect on it I was just reaching for the rest of my pole to add a few sections when the elastic snapped back into the pole and all I had to show for the encounter was a straightened out hook

I tied a new hook on and went back out with another maggot and sat watching a motionless float In the last hour the guy on peg 37 hooked and landed a Carp of 9lb which beat both me and Phil in 1 stroke all of a sudden my swim came back to life and I had 4 or 5 net skimmers on the trot then I notice Phil on peg 40 playing a decent fish and he had just got an Orfe of about 6lb on the surface and sliding it towards the net when the hook pulled

I continued to take small Roach and skimmers right up to the whistle during which time Phil had a decent perch of about 2lb which knocked me further back in the points then with a few mins to go till the whistle Frank on peg 34 landed a 10lb Carp

And that was that Rolf blew the whistle I packed all my gear away and stuck it in the van then headed of round to help with the weigh in

Frank on peg 34 weighed in 1 Carp for 10lb odd the guy on 37 weighed in 1 Carp and a couple of skimmers for 9lb Phil on peg 40 weighed 6lb 6oz Rolf on peg 2 had 2oz and my net weighed in at 5lb 6oz and as usual peg 7 stole the show with 12lb 4oz

From the rest of the sections the only decent weights came from peg 17 with 75lb and peg 24 with 106lb 12oz

As for Team Assassins well the name didn't help we still came last my 5lb 6oz from peg 4 gave me 2 points for 5th in section Steve had 5lb from peg 30 for 1 point and last in section and Mike was top scorer with 41lb from peg 18 for 4th in section and 3 points giving us a total of 6 points today

Not the best of starts to the league but as it warms up it can only get better