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Xmas Fur & Feather Match
Today i competed in my first fishing match for 23 years!
As a regular reader of the maggotdrowners forum, i decided to go along to their Xmas fur and feather match to enjoy the banter and to put faces to names of people i have been swapping messages with over the last 12 months.
The match was held at Pennine View on their specimen lake, which holds a good head of silver fish. However the recent cold snap resulted in the lake having a thick coating of ice, which only completely melted in the 24 hours prior to the match.
In order to have the chance of a decent days sport it was essential to draw a peg with deep water, unfortunately the peg i drew was only 3 feet deep at the full length of my pole, and a lead bomb cast about 40yds hit bottom after only 2 or 3 seconds. Knowing that skimmer bream were the key to a winning weight, my original plan was to sit it out on a chopped worm feeder at distance, but after an hour without a bite, and nobody in my immediate vicinity having a bite on feeder i decided to change tactics. So out came the pole, with a very light float, a size 22 hook, 8oz bottom and a single pinkie as bait. Over the next four hours i teased out 10 tiny fish for a grand total of 2oz’s – enough to come third in my section!! The angler to my left caught 20 fish for 4oz’s to come second, and the angler to my right had a skimmer of 10oz to give him first place on the section.
The winner caught 9lb+ and as expected was pegged on the dam wall where the lake was deepest.
Despite the low weights i thoroughly enjoyed myself, and will hopefully get out again with a great set of chaps when they future matches.
Good job i was fishing the “specimen lake!”.
I was thinking all morning that I missed out sure the banter was better than the fishing but glad I could only snatch a couple of hours on the river . You are rite I laughed at the photo very good!!
It was a great day and I’m glad those tiddlers were biting as it kept me busy shipping and unshipping the pole.
It was good to watch how others were fishing the match and see how different approaches turn out.The guy who won the match fished feeder from the start and this paid off for him in the last two hours with a 5lb bream and some big roach.
Did I mention the fact that I beat you.Easily 🙂
Err Phil, your a cheeky bugger!!!
To save you any embarrasment i wasnt going to tell everyone that you drew one of the 5 best pegs on the lake and that you benefitted from the massive advantage of the deepest water in the lake where the fish congregate in cold weather right in front of you- and then caught only 10ozs of fish when the guy next to you caught nearly 10lbs!!!!
But i think i might now 🙂
Was a fun day out, and meeting people was far more important than fishing. Cant wait for the next one.