Birkwood Winter League Round 2

Round 2 of the winter league was on the bottom pond (Oscars). There was no ice breaking to be done this week as the temp had risen very slightly and the saturday open on Emily's had produced some good weights all round the lake so i approached the draw with some optimism of a good day i just needed a good draw to get my winter league back on track. On a approaching the draw Roger held the bag out in front of me and greeted me with the words "this should be a good one" what did he mean? In went the hand and gave the bag my usual shuffle around and one fell into my hand and out came peg 4, with Roger calling me some strange names i made my way to my peg.

I had my Uncle John for company in peg 3 and Jasper in peg 5. There are 2 very good pegs you want on Oscars peg 5 and 11, but i was still very happy with peg4.

I set 3 rigs up as follows.
All rigs on Stroft 0.12
Floatwise on the 2ft ish line i used a Gerry's TBF in 4x10 size
On the 4ft ish line i used Ackoo's Pellistix in 0.3g size.
For down the track work (6ft+) on of Ackoo's slim jims in 0.4g size.
Hooks were the Mustad wide gape size 18 on all rigs.
All rigs to white hydro.

I put the plummet on and plumbed the the 3 sedges im my swim. The centre sedge was going to be the swim i fed and the left and right sedges wouldn't be getting any, my reasoning for this is if the adjacent pegs feed there swims wrong there fish may move out of there swim down to a place with no feed in and settle there, in theory.

At the start of the match i cupped in half a dozen casters at my centre sedge (2ft rig) and fished my left hand sedge with a single red maggot and the float settled, i dragged the float around the slope very slowly and eventually it dipped slightly and i lifted into my first fish which was a small stocky less than a pound. i chopped and changed between my left and right sedge taking stockies off each line with the odd 3lber making an appearance. These lines then began to slow so i tried my centre sedge.....nothing i never had a bite over an area i fed, where as jasper next to me in peg 5 was catching well over his feed.

I had no option but to go on my 4ft line to my left and right with maggot hookbaits and managed to find a few more fish but not of any size, jasper was catching a lot better stamp of fish and was looking like winning the match and 2nd was up for grabs as people all over the lake looked like they were catching very similar to my catch rate. I was very anxious at the weigh in hoping i had blown a decent peg. They started weighing at peg1 and Uncle John put 22lb on the scales then i put 36lb dead on and new jasper had better stamp of fish he put 54lb on the scales (well done mate)
and won the match. I had a long wait until i packed up and made it back to the car park to find out how i had done. I knew it would be close between me and Mathew Spruce and the far side so i asked for the results and found out i was 2nd Mathew wieghed in 35lb 20z, phew that was close!

My uncle John also won his section so we had some more beer tokens for the after match. Next week back to the open match on emily's with strong winds and rain forcast there should be some fun and games.

Thanks for reading
Tight lines
Lee.

Birkwood Open

The morning of the match broke extremely cold and frosty as my Uncle John picked me up the temperature in the car read -3.5 degrees at 7am it was going to be a grueller.
As we drove down to the lake we were greeted with a very frozen snake lake. In the distance you hear Chris's tractor driving down from the farm to smash the ice with his little "icebreaker"

Before the draw Roger said he was going to leave my dreaded peg 23 out and boy was i happy about that, so i went into the draw bag with renewed confidance. In goes my right hand and gave the disks a good swirl around until one stuck in my hand. Peg 32 graced my palm this week, just off 30 and 31 which had good weights off them the week before, i might be able to nick a few fish off it. On getting to my peg there was still plenty of ice around and needed breaking for me to fish the far side slope where the fish usually patrol.

This was my swim after i broke the ice with the ice breaker and a short rope. All i had do now was move it so i could fish it. After a while i had moved most of it to enable me to fish half way down the slope around a "good" 3ft. I was going to fish maggot,bread and corn and just fish single hookbaits to mug the odd fish that move out of the flyers. Tackle wise it was the usual stroft line in 0.12 diameter, Ackoo's Pellistix and Mustad wide gape match hook size 18 to white hydro. I had 3 swims to fish at different depths but i only had my 4 bites on one line (pictured below)

I ended up catching three carp one on maggot and two on bread punch dipped in Carp Vader Pineapple, i weighed in and was initially disappointed with 7lb 10oz, i only weighed in because a lot had packed up early and hoped it fished hard elsewhere.........it did. 24lb won it, 20lb was second and Uncle John was third with 8lb and i scraped last in the money. me and Uncle John share our winnings so went home happy and some beer tokens for the obligatory after match pint!

Whilst i was waiting for my 4 bites i did get a bit bored and saw some scurrying about in the reeds opposite so i cupped in a bit of corn and see if it would come onto the ice for it, hope you can see it.

Round 2 of the Winter League next week. Thanks for reading.

Birkwood Winter League Match No1

It was the start of the Birkwood WL and the sunday morning broke and it was bloody freezing. The temp as we made our way down to the cafe was hovering around zero.
We dined on 3 slices of bacon, 2 slices of spam, black pudding, 1 egg, mushrooms, beans and toms. 2 slices of toast and coffee for the grand sum of £3.80. Bargain.

On leaving the cafe in noted the tempperature in my Uncle John's car and was reading +0.5 degrees....it was warming up. We entered the fishery and came past the large lake and it was ice free(minus 2 when we arrived) but the aerators had been on, what would our lake be like further down the complex with no aerators on it................FROZEN. Bloody typical first match and it's frozen solid. Anyway Chris (owner) came down in his tractor with a great big arm on the back of it and smash the daylights out of the ice, but how would it fish after that?

On the last 2 opens i have fished at Birkwood i have drawn peg 23 on Emily's, weights so far from it 10lb odd and a DNW. I was praying i didn't get 23 again even i wasn't that unlucky. The usual banter was exchanged at the draw, i even had a quid with Daz that i couldn't possibly draw 23 again. Uncle john has vast experience of match fishing and told me to hang around the draw bag until 23 came out then draw, did i listen, did i hell. Some how i ended up third or fourth to draw and the disc came out face down, i flipped it over and Roger Movely let out a huge laugh, i had pulled 23 out again.......gutted. Got the usual "fish have got fins" comments, but i was stunned.

Anyway i was going to be positive and after smashing some ice at 14.5mtrs it was time to set the rigs up.
Line was 0.10 stroft
Floats were ackoo's Pellistix and a pretson PB1.
Hooks were Mustad wide gape match (as07b) size 18 for the maggot rig and G pellet and paste for the other baits (4mm polar ice feed pellet and corn.)
Laccy's were white hydro and preston 9 hollo with an 11 hollo if i was catching well, all with pull bungs.

I had 4 rigs to plumb up. Bottom of the far and near shelf. One for half way up the shelf. and one for top of the shelf just of the far side sedges, i also put a PB1 up for poking into the gaps in the reeds on the far side with just a single hook bait. Some of these rigs were used to fish my margins as well.

At the start i started half way up the shelf without feeding any bait just a single maggot just to see if i could find any fish, after half hour without a bite i tried the top of the shelf rig....nothing. Bottom of the shelf nothing, rotated the baits, draggedthe baits about on the slopes and shelves for not a bloody bite. I went back on the half way up the shelf rig 3ft-4ft ish. I fed small amounts of maggots and after another half hour i needed some bovril i was frozen, turned round to pick my flask up still keeping my eye on the float it dipped very slightly and managed to lift in time to connect with a fish! I played this fish as though my life depended on it, managed to land it and it was barely hooked. Anyway tried the PB1 poking it into the holes in the reeds with various baits, the only bait i could get another bite on was maggot and they were 4 to the ounce roach.

At the weigh in Roger was winninng with 49lb odd in peg 18 and the weights tailed off up to me and recorded a massive 5lb, not bad eh.

Results can be found herehttp://www.birkwoodfisheries.co.uk/matches_and_results.php

Next match is in a fortnight anyone got the odds on me getting 23 AGAIN.

Thanks for reading, tight lines

Lee.