A Nice (But Wet) Start To February

Just the one match this very wet weekend, which was the first round of the Ivy House Silvers. This league’s split between Old Match Lake and Kingfisher and I drew peg 38 on the latter. Never fished a match on this lake before, but it was an end peg with 37 not in, which is apparently where the carp live, so I fully expected to hook a few.

A slow start, but managed some nice chunky roach and eventually had a few skimmers, plus a lone gudgeon and some micro perch. Carp started to get more numerous and every time I had one it’d really upset the swim. F1s are allowed in this league and I caught four of those averaging 1lb.

I sat and waited for bites quite a bit, so I was pleasantly surprised to total 19lb 9oz, which was top weight on the day. Arran Pickett had 16lb from peg 42 for 2nd and Dave Nash won Old Match Lake with 11lb from peg 5.

Most of my fish were on maggot over Sonubaits Supercrush Expander with a dash of Thatchers Dark and Supercrush Green. Looking forward to the next round now… once I’ve dried off.

Incidentally, I gave Ivy House’s stunning dog/polar bear a good-luck stroke before drawing. An hour later I found an envelope in the chest pocket of my coat with an old winnings envelope from White Acres and £85 in it. That was a stroke of luck!