Witherington Farm pairs- 14/2/09

With nothing on this Saturday I was happy to fill in for Nick Lund in the Pairs match at Witherington Farm . I turned up at around 7.45 in plenty of time for a wander around and I was a little suprised to find half of the lakes frozen, with Tony the owner turning the aerators on as I reached Sellwood. Only half of each lake was frozen and it was only around 1/2 an inch thick so nothing too serious. Into the cafe for a cup of tea and a quick chat to my parnter Colin Sellwood revealed he was happy for me to fish Cottage as I've never fished it and fancied a change. Into the buckets I went for the draw which placed Colin on Sellwood 12 and me on Cottage 2. Peg 2 is to the right of the aerator,but atleast I was on the side of the lake that was ice-free which would save some time. Apparantly peg 2 wasn't great with little form, but Colin filled me in and revealed that there was a plateau running between peg 2 and 3 and it was worth fishing at the base of this. I decided to fish a line at the base of the bar at 13m, with a waggler and lead line to the island which was around 20m away. I expected it to be very hard with the ice on the water so set up to fish quite light. My main line was around 3ft deep so I set up a 4x10 KC chimp on 0.14-0.12 and an 18B911. I initially set this to a 10 latex but changed to an 8 just before the all in- something that proved to be a good decision. I also set up my 11ft carbonactive- 3lb Maxima-0.12 and a 20 Drennan Eyed Barbless with a Mosella micro pellet band on a hair. The lead rig consisted of a 10ft Carbonacive- 6lb matchwinner with the same hooklength as the waggler. Both rods were set with Daiwa TDR 2503CU reels. I wasn't quite ready at the start but when I was finally ready 10 minutes late no-one had caught a fish so I wasn't worried. I started on the 13m line with a 4.5m coolwater pellet and cad-potted in just 4 micro pellets. After 5 minutes I had a positive bite and soon netted a brown gold-fish of around 8oz. 2 more in the next 2 drops was a good start,especially as no-one had caught a fish by this point. After a 10 minute quiet spell I potted in another 4 micro's and started to pick up a few fish- mostly goldfish of all colours with the odd skimmer thrown in. After about an hour I had 6lb in the net and bar the odd plip no-one had caught so I decided to get my head down and ignore the island for the time being-although I had been pinging the odd 4mm pellet across. I continued to pick off the odd fish but it was by no means frantic andnd I had to keep lifting and dropping for every fish. The guy to my right had started to pick off odd fish that were a good stamp but I could see I was still winning the lake after around 2 hours. The guy to my left then went down the edge to the aerator and had a lump- followed by 2 more in the next 10 minutes! This was where I made a mistake as this unsettled me and I decided to set up a new rig and fed a line at 13m down the edge to my left. This meant I was not fishing for 10 minutes and lost my rhythym a bit. A quick look on the waggler with 4mm pellet saw a nice skimmer and a tench before I hit a lump that suddenly went solid half way in as it snagged me and broke the hooklength! Back on the pole line and I was now catching regularly by lifting and dropping and feeding minimal amounts- not big fish but I was constantly adding weight to the net. The guy to my right (Gary-didnt catch his surname)had switched to 17.5m against the island and was sacking- after around 3 1/2 hours he over took me. I then had a spell where fish were coming off the hook,not foulhooked but not feeding confidently. I cad-potted in 6 4mm pellets after every fish which seemed to sort it as I got into a rhythym again and kept putting fish in the net. With around 2 hours to go something strange happened,all of a sudden there was elastic out everywhere as everyone seemed to hook decent fish. I decided to concentrate on putting whatever weight I could in the net as the odd look over the edge line hadn't produced anything. A quick look on the lead saw a wrap around that broke me- if I had known it would fish so well I would have fished a bit heavier. With 30 minutes left it was clear I needed a decent fish as everyone had 2 or 3 by now so I put a full cad pot of pellet in and went over the top with a 6mm pellet. As expected this slowed the bites but after 5 minutes the float disappeared and I soon panned a nice 3lb ghostie. I thought this would lead to a good spell but the next fish was foulhooked,that's the trouble with feeding a bit more. A skimmer netted on the whistle finished off a great day with loads of bites but I didn't know how I'd got on as everyone caught lumps late on. As I was on scales duty I was first to weigh and my 9lb odd of silvers and 22lb of little carp and goldfish went 31-3. Gary on my right then put 50lb odd on as his island line got stronger as the match went on and he sacked in the last 2 hours. The next guy weighed a low 20,then the guy who hadnt had a fish going into the last hour had 4 for 31-8, OUCH! Then there was a 30,a 32,21,34, and a few lower weights. The guy to my left had a few more lumps for 41lb and second on the lake. All in all it was a lovely day as the sun was shining and I had bites throughout. I was disapointed with my eventual 5th in section of 11 as another fish would have seen me 3rd,and I easily lost enough to get 2nd. But still,with half the lake frozen they were cracking weights.