HatMan’s Match Report – The Oaks New Lakes 21-10-18

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Winter League Round 1 at The Oaks, Sessay
I’m a regular at The Oaks and for much of the year my Sundays are spent competing on a 3 lake open match on the New Lakes, Ash, Beech and Sycamore.  This year the owner Tom decided to run a winter league, comprising of 10 matches for the 40 or so competitors.

Today was round 1 and mild weather saw a good turnout with 42 anglers spread across the 80 pegs.  The lakes had all hosted matches the day before and recent form suggested a fair chance of framing from any lake, so I was happy to draw Sycamore, but disappointed to have peg 16 – I can’t remember the peg winning a match in the 6 years I’ve fished there & had a little moan about my bad luck!

My match plan was to fish a 4mm expander pellet on a size 18 (a Garbolino 2420BN) to a 4″ 0.12 hooklength under a DC C32 0.3g to the left and right in approximately 3 foot depth, feeding 2mm fishery feed pellets little and often.  The 2nd part of the plan was to fish the same bait under a 0.4g DC C32 at 10 metres and I found the peg to be almost perfectly flat so the same rig served for both an 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock line.  Plan C was 3 pints of maggots which I’d fish on the same rigs but slightly overdepth if need be.  Garbolino Fighter 10-12 (yellow) hollow matches the lively 2-3lb average common & mirror carp perfectly at this time of year.

A steady first hour on the short lines put 15 carp in my net, all caught on the nearside lines, and it seemed from the sounds of carp being landed that the lake was fishing well.  The next hour saw the first net filled, 25 carp is usually safely within the 70lb net limit and as I got to know the peg my catch rate stayed steady.  The line to my right on a top kit & 2 sections was giving me more liners than fish, but a couple of changes of area and feeding saw this solved and this became the best area for the last 2 hours.  The all out at 4pm came just after my 96th fish & I was hopeful for good league points if nothing else. Two weigh in crews got to work and my weight of 220lb proved to be a clear lake win on Sycamore ahead of Neil Rudd, so I wandered over to see the end of the weigh in on Ash.  Paste-meister Phil Sellars had won Ash with 168lb and Les Sylvester had won Beech with 162lb, meaning I’d won it!

Very pleased with this win, not just because it’s a good start to the league but also because as a couple of others commented, like me they couldn’t recall a winner on the peg.  The short lines with pellet were the winning tactics, I never needed to fish the deeper water at 10m, no need for the UK1 since I’d fished the whole match on my Garbolino Margin Carp 800 (on offer at £99 at Bobco) and the maggots had all stayed in the bait tubs.