Thursday costcutter Shiplate farm

Bacon sarnie on the way today, so got to the fishery with time to spare, strangely not to much in the way of traffic. Only 14 fishing, a few short but at least plenty of room, I fancied any peg on the far bank as there was plenty of shelter over there from the strong South westerly, into the bucket and peg 4 comes out, on the near bank then.

The direction of the wind meant we would have to contend with wind and tow going in the same direction, I wanted to fish for silvers primarily, so I set up a couple of rigs for that, one with a 16 hook for worm and another with an 18 for maggot or soft pellet, I intended to fish slightly to the left with worm and caster, also slightly to the right with soft pellet, both at 9mtrs, also a hard pellet rig for 13 mtrs straight out, then a meat rig to the end of the  bush to my right.
At the start I fed groundbait to my left with chopped worm and caster, then to my right groundbait and micros,  some hard 4,s straight out at 13 mtrs, and began peppering some meat down to my right by the bush,
First two put ins on the worm line and two sensible skimmers followed by some smaller samples, then nothing , so I refed that line and went over the soft pellet line, but no bites, in fact that line only gave me one small roach all match, the worm and caster line was the best, but it needed regular top ups after every few fish or the skimmers drifted away, after the first two which were tidy, they were now 4oz , a look on the long line with hard pellet, a couple of slightly better skimmers and a smallish carp,  but presentation was a pig, it was impossible to hold the rig steady on any line, back on the shorter line , but even that had gone hard ,I did get a carp of about 8lb on that line, and some more small skimmers on double caster, I was well Off the pace in either silvers or overall,  but luckily my right hand margin line came to life in the last hour and a bit with several carp up to 15lb and some nice skimmers.

I thought I had 20lb of silvers and 60lb of carp, when the scales for to me John (slimfast) Andres was.Top with 66lb, I new I had that, my silvers went just under 26lb and my carp just over 63, so not to far out,

Weights were down a bit today on recent matches , but after several days of heavy rain it has to be expected, but it was a close match on both overalls and silvers, as the weigh sheet below shows, I'm back here again on Sunday for  mat Culpin,s rip off league, on the three canals, looking forward to that but the weather looks a bit iffy.