Rosemary Wood - Moss Lake
Saturday 4th July 2015
Rosemary Wood's Moss Lake is one of those Marmite fisheries in my opinion. It often divides opinion. Once we are fishing, generally everyone seems to be ok with it but the poor pegs, the campsite of carp anglers and the fact that they are always queuing up to get on the next available peg does get to some people. I am one of those people but if you want a match on this lake then it's something you have to contend with.
We have 2 matches on this lake most years. One earlier in the year where we can catch nice nets of skimmers in amongst the Carp and indeed, regular readers of my blog will know that I won the match on the venue earlier this year by fishing a banjo feeder for a nice bag of skimmers from the 'boards' pegs. This time, being later in the year and following some nice warm weather I was hoping that the carp would be playing and I could have a day fishing the pellet waggler, a method which often produces the goods on here when the carp are feeding well.
Once we had finally got sorted, the draw allowed peg 30 to find its way into my hands. This peg is on the far bank and with the water levels being a bit low, it meant I would likely need to get my box in the water to be able to fish it; luckily I had brought my wellies.
Setting up in the water, I decided that I wanted to keep today as simple as I could. So I set up my pellet waggler rod, which I hoped would be the main tactic for the day, as seems to be compulsory when pellet waggler fishing these days, I also had the bomb rod set up to fish on the bottom under the pellet waggler line. Finally I set up a method feeder rod to give me the option of fishing the feeder. Bait options was as simple as I could. 8 and 11mm hard pellets for the wag/bomb line and softened micros for the feeder with various hook pellet options. The simple approach to my set up this week saw me ready to go in quick time and allowed for a relaxed start to the match. For company today, I had Dave Benson to my left and visitor Shaun Welsh to my right. I think this is the 3rd time in 4 matches I have pegged at the side of Dave and on each of the previous times he has beaten me.
At the all in, I went straight out on the pellet waggler and started feeding 11mm pellets over the top. 11mm were used on this day as there was an intermittent wind that would hoer my ability to get 8mm where I wanted them. Sport however, was very slow to what I was expecting with only a couple of bites and 1 fish to show for my efforts in the first hour. The rest of the match was spent switching between all 3 methods to keep any fish coming. I couldn't get to grips with it on the day and struggled to get into a rhythm of catching fish and as such by the end of the match, I was thinking I would have only about 20 - 25lb which would be nowhere near enough based on this venues track record with the club.
Sure enough, as the weigh in started at the other end of the match length, a few weights in the 49's were recorded as well as one in the 50s and a very good 73kb from Ste Green to take the lead after roughly half the anglers had weighed. So I was only to hope that I wouldn't be too far down the overall standings and hoping I would beat Dave Benson off the next peg for a change.
Dave weighed in first and he out 23lb-odd on the scales, so he wouldn't be troubling the lead this time round but I felt it would be close between me and him. When my fish went on the scales I was quite surprised to see the needle settle on 28lb dead. I had managed to break my curse and bear Benson off the next peg. Overall, that 28lb put my 7th place so a top half finish in the match (just) and with a visitor being above me, I got 6 points for the league so damage was minimal.
