Well, we made it through. The last match of the season and what a match to forget.
The fish just didn’t want to play for most people, including me.
Having fished once or twice during the preceding week and not catching much at all, I didn’t have great expectations for big weights on Sunday, but I did expect the lake to fish better than it did.
To my mind, there are two main reasons for the fishing decline. 1st, the weather. The overnight temperatures had been quite low for the whole week, although the daytime temperatures had been quite good.
2nd, the amount of groundbait used at the start of the match. In conditions such as those experienced on Sunday, the barrage of bait at the start pushed away any fish that may have been in the area. To continue to pile it in during the match only served to make things worse. Admittedly, on the dam wall you need groundbait if you’re going for the tollostolob but on the house bank the amounts that were thrown in killed it for most people.
Again, we had 14 entrants for the match. Good, consistent numbers of regulars attending for which I personally thank you.
I’d said to Sue before the match that I wanted the house bank, I was a bit bored with the wall and sitting waiting for big fish, I prefer to catch regularly during a match and build a weight. I got that bit wrong this week.
I drew peg 6 and was happy. It’s normally a very consistent peg and you are usually assured of catching for most of the day. I got that wrong too!
When we arrived at the pegs, John on peg 4 and I noticed feeding bubbles all along that bank at about 25m out. Fish were there and feeding. they didn’t stay.
I’d decided on a softly softly approach and loose fed wheat and corn at maximum catapult range, 2m of water being my target depth. Nikolai next door in peg 5 did the groundbait bombing thing.
The 1st 2 hours produced nothing. No bites, no indications, nothing. I went for a beer.
On my return I’d decided to fish a small feeder at long range, 60m. The first cast produced a small grasscarp, the next few casts produced bites and I eventually hit a small taranka. To cut a long story short, I ended up with 6 fish for my magnificent weight.
Results
Section A
- Gencho 8lb 3.5oz (3.73Kg) peg 1
- Rado 5lb 12.5oz (2.62Kg) peg 2
- Stanislav 2lb 6oz (1.07Kg) peg 7
- Nikolai 1lb 15.5oz (0.89Kg) peg 5
- Yanaki 1lb 10.5oz (0.75Kg) peg 3
- Paul 11.5 oz (0.33Kg) peg 6
- John 8 oz (0.23Kg) peg 4
Section B
- Georgi 19lb 2oz (8.67Kg) peg 13
- Neviana 5.5oz (0.16Kg) peg 11
Simon 5.5oz (0.16 Kg) peg 10
4. Milen 4.5oz (0.13Kg) peg 12
Assen, Iovcho and Miroslav did not weigh.
Hopefully we’ll be doing something stupid over the Christmas holiday period. I’ll keep you informed.
