Day 2 : Big Zalk

Sun 23rd August

A small part of Garry's catch

Draw and setup

We had chosen a peg where we would both be in the water on our platforms and at left & right extremes of the peg area. We had pre-baited a single area the night before and had spread the bait enough for us to both fish that area without us being in each other's way.

Garry drew the left-hand side of the peg and I the right-hand side. We introduced 10 more balls into the area whilst we got ourselves set-up. We would be fishing the feeder at around 45m. I had both a method feeder and window feeder setup whereas Garry stuck with the window feeder.

Initial Impressions

The Bream were not putting in an appearance early on. Garry was getting quite a few Roach (some quite sizeable) but my tip wasn't moving. It took quite a while before I had a Bream. The morning was very quiet - I only had 2 Bream in the 4lb bracket whereas Garry had just Roach - no Bream. At lunchtime I had a walk to see how Bertie was getting on in the match. The river really wasn't fishing well. Bertie had 2 or 3 very small Roach at that point. Some anglers had already gone home it was that bad.

Afternoon - improving

Early on Garry had his line cleanly cut several times. Initially on braid but then it happened on monofilament too.  These weren't all as a result of hooked fish - some happened when retrieving the feeder. There was a distictive hump in the lake bed in front of Garry and we assume there were mussels on that hump. When casting more to the right (avoiding the hump), the problem went away.

Things started to improve in the afternoon with more Bream turning up. Bertie came to see us after his match (which finished at 3pm). The Ijssel hadn't improved and was won on the pole with a few very small fish for less than 2kg (I think). By then I had only 5 fish (all Bream). The next 3 hours things started to improve markedly. Garry was catching more frequently than I but my fish were of a bigger average size. My biggest on the day was 6lb 2oz. In retrospect, I persisted with the method feeder for too long as the fish were coming quicker to the window feeder.

The weigh-in

Garry ended the day with exactly 100lb (we didn't count his fish). I ended up with 21 Bream (no Roach) for 83lb 11oz which is almost exactly 4lb average per fish. I weigh each fish as I catch them so have a count of fish too.

Current tally is 1 win each.

We were very happy with today's fishing and can only imagine what we could have had if the earlier part of the day had been like the latter part.

My tip-back

Garry's partial tip-back

Tomorrows plans

Bertie had told us the results of the previous day's match on Ketelmeer. He also said that one of the guys from the Ketelmeer match had been on Copse today and had nothing but Bullheads - the guy said he wished he'd gone back to Ketelmeer. We had never fished this so decided to give it a go tomorrow. Bertie would be joining us.