Whinwhistle Open Match- 31/05/09

Late on in the week I decided I would fish the Sunday open match on Keepers Lake at Whinwhistle as I had no other plans apart from packing for my holiday on the Tuesday. Saturday was spent holiday shopping with my girlfriend in Southampton which earned me enough brownie points to fish on the Sunday!

Arriving at the venue at around 8am I tucked into the obligatory breakfast and had a chat with a few of the lads. The venue as a whole had been fishing poorly for a while so no-one was sure how it would fish, especially as it was scorching hot and flat calm with bright sunshine- far from ideal. I went into the bag and pulled out peg 14- a fairly average open water peg in an area that had a top weight of around 4lb the week before. The ony 'feature' in my peg were a couple of straggly lilly pads to my left margin. I decided to approach the match quite negatively with a view to catching anything that swims as every ounce is usually crucial at Whinwhistle. My first line was at 3m where I had around 5ft of water at the bottom of the near slope. I planned to fish caster exclusively on this line and set up 3 rigs. Firstly for fishing on the deck I set up a 4x12 KC Porth on 0.12-0.10 and a 20 Gama Maggot. This was shotted with a spread bulk of no 10's and matched to double 5 slip. I also set up two shallow rigs- both 4x10 Chianti's on 0.12-18 Drennan eyed barbless and matched to doubled 4 slip. The first was set at 18 inches and the second at 12 inches. I then set up a pellet line at 13m where I had around 6 and 1/2 feet of water. A 4x14 KC Chimp on 0.14-0.12 and an 18 Gama Pellet shotted with a bulk of 10's and one dropper matched to yellow drennan bungee covered this line. Finally I set up an edge rig to my left at 7m- a 4x10 Scone Jubleez on 0.16-size 2 Tubertini 175 matched to red vespe. For bait I had a couple of pints of caster,some feed pellet,a tin of corn and a few hook pellets.

The all in was called and I flicked a few casters in at 3m before putting a full pot of pellet out at 13m. I didnt really expect to catch on the pellet and wanted to leave the line settle for atleast 2 hours. Straight away I was into a few dumpy roach in close but it was very slow. A 6oz fish shallow got my hopes up but it was a false dawn and I was struggling for bite's. I wasn't too bothered as many anglers were still blanking and I was doing better than anyone I could see. After an hour with 8 fish in the net for probably 2lb I decided to shallow the rig slightly and fish at 3m to my left amongst the few straggly pads. I was hoping to find a few perch here after flicking in a few casters for the last 15 minute's or so. The float barely settled before it shot under and around 2ft of elastic exited the pole before the hook pulled-bugger! I decided not to take any chances so changed to a new hooklength and repeated the process. This time I made no mistake and soon had a 10oz perch in the net. After a couple of smaller 4oz perch it went quiet for 5 minutes. I layed the rig slightly further up the slope and a few seconds later the float vanished and I had yards of elastic streaming from the pole. After a few tense moments on the lightish gear I netted a decent tench that I guessed was around 4lb-a very useful bonus on such a rock hard day. Over the next couple of hours I rotated the two lines and continued to pick off some decent roach and perch but it was far from bagging. However I was beating everyone I could see and a quick check with Andy Shanks at the bottom end (flier!) confirmed that everyone was really struggling and no-one had caught a carp-just what I wanted to hear.

With 2 hours to go the two near lines had completely dried up so it was time to try the long pellet line. No bite's on pellet made me decide to start pinging casters out with a view to picking up a couple of fish shallow. It was hard work at 13m but I found the odd small roach but something didn't feel right. By now the sun was blazing and there wasn't a breath of wind so I quickly got off my box and set up a new shallow rig at 2ft deep with 3 ft of line between the float and pole tip. I flicked the rig past my pole and after a few minute's I had a positive bite out of the blue and had yards of doubled 4 slip out of the pole. At first I thought I'd hooked a carp but soon realised it was a 1lb+ roach that was soon in the net. No more bite's shallow long was disapointing but the rest on the 3m line had helped as I quickly took 3 roach while continuing to flick casters out at 13m.

Going into the last hour I had briefly tried the edge for 5 minute's but with no signs and no-one catching carp I decided to sack that line and catch whatever I could. I'd been constantly flicking casters long and went out with the deck pellet rig and single caster. I spread the bulk right out hoping to find fish through the layers. Following the rig down the float was held up when the bait was around a foot off bottom and a chunky rudd was the culprit. I repeated the process and exactly the same thing happened although this time a better fish was hooked. I gingerly played a 1lb+ skimmer to the net. The last 30 minute's saw a couple of roach in close after a lack of bite's long and the all-out was greeted with sarcastic cheers. My clicker was on 26 fish including the tench- almost exactly half of the 51 I had for 7lb15oz the week before. Crucially I had found a much better stamp of fish this week and felt sure I had 10lb+.

The scales made their way around the lake and when they got to me Oscar Wylde was winning with 10lb 8oz and 3lb odd was second! The scales eventually settled on 11lb 6oz giving me the lead. The only person I felt might beat that was Phill Timms on Peg 8 who had caught two tench and a small carp very late on. His fish pulled the scales around to 12lb dead knocking me into second place. For the second time in a week I had just been beaten by someone called Phil on peg 8 with a decent fish landed right on the whistle-atleast this time it wasn't by a single ounce! As it happened it didn't make much difference as the match was split into two sections on each side of the lake with payouts of £40 & £20 on each side with the overall winner getting an extra £10.

After picking up my section money I headed home to reflect on yet another very difficult day where bite's were hard to come by. I don't think I did a lot wrong and wouldn't really do anything different if I had the chance again. Incidentally last week I had 51 for for 7lb 15oz. This week I had 26 fish for 11lb6oz. The tench (which was very spawned out) was weighed separately at 4lb 4oz, leaving the other 25 fish at 7lb 2oz. Almost the same weight as last week but with half the fish showing how important it is to find those stamp roach.

After a nice holiday I'm back on the same lake this Sunday for the 3rd round of the Summer League- hoping it will fish a little better than it has been!