Fishing Report – Sunday 24th June 2007
Following my private lesson from Steve Ringer on Thursday I was keen to put into practice what had been learned. I drew peg 12 on the Saturday open. It’s not really a method feeder peg but it had been fishing pretty badly using conventional float tactics so I thought it was worth a go on the method. Now Steve had shown me that his method feeder groundbait is quite wet, he’d told me that you have to add quite a lot of water to get the right consistency and that it needed to be mixed on the night before the match. No problem there then. It did seem VERY wet when I mixed it but I took him at his word, he’d promised that it would soak up the water overnight. I guess there’s a difference between very wet and totally bloody drowned. My beautiful Ringers groundbait was in one big wet lump, it could well be a great new paste. I certainly hope so, because I’ve got several kilos of it !!.
Luckily I had a bag or two of dry groundait in the car, so hastily mixed that up and got ready for my days bagging. Hmmm 4 casts without any indication, that’s not following the script. The 4 casts then became 10 casts then 20 casts, you’ve got the message, it just didn’t happen. I did catch two fish out in the middle and 4 or 5 casting along the laft hand bank next to the road, but all in all it was a dismal performance. That end of the lake seemed completely fishless (the Cod in peg 13 caught just one carp). Incidentally, Mick Seymour who had sat with me for most of the day whilst we watched Steve Ringer won the match fishing the method feeder in peg 23, obviously somebody took in what we were being told.
Today we had a Leatherhead club match on Top Lake. With only 17 fishing, rather than the 24 or 25 of yesterday, we were able to spread out the pegs. It was an awful day weather wise with continual rain throughout the day but the overcast conditions certainly seemed to encourage the fish to feed. The full result is in the results section and I know that we fished a marathon 7 hour match BUT eight weights over 100 lbs is good fishing by anybody’s standard. I drew peg 22, probably the most consistent peg on the whole complex but one that has been out of sorts for a week or two. I would normally fish the pole and cat meat down my bank towards the bridge but I was really keen to have another go at fishing the method, so spent most of the day doing that. I weighed in 118 lbs which was only good enough for 6th overall but thoroughly enjoyed catching loads of fish on the method feeder. Maybe I’d have done better fishing the float but I really needed a confidence boost after my disaster of the previous day. The weights were spread all around the lake, really excellent fishing. Now I just need to get my gear dry ready for Wednesday !.