Thursday over 55,s etc silvers

Stipped off again at a local greasy spoon for a sarnie on the way. So got to the daves.crookes fishery in plenty of time, bridge pool.was.the lake today beimg used, and there was some cat ice forming in many areas, the lake has just been stocked with over 1000 f1,s which wasnt going to be good with it being a silvers match, although dave gillard does pay and accidental carp prize in every section. Thwre was 24 fishing today which was a surprise as it was bitter. It was my turn to draw quite a way down the list, but not to upset as i pulled out disc 6, the first peg on the island on the right right hand side, only drawback is that it can be a pain unshipping due to the closeness of the road, but providing the traffic is light it isnt a problem, i had aiden on my right on 5, that was going to be hard for him as he was cut off in the channel with peg 4 in aswell, and on my left was dave(diddly bonk) haines who was.going to do what he normally does and fish short to hand, so that freed up the longer !ines for me. Again simple rigs, a.6g slim patter for 6 and 13 mtrs, three areas for that, the 6mtr straight out, one 13 mtr line in front and another slightly to the left, and a .3g slim for 3ft towards the island for caster.for some roach and perch and hopefully no f1,s.

At the start i fed a ball of groundbait on the three lines with a few casters and pinkies in, the ice was even making a rig settle , it was a case of putting the rig in and pulling through the ice to get it in position, started.short for no response, so went to the first 13 mtr line, waited 5 minutes for a bite and hooked a skimmer, but getting it back through the ice made.it difficult, my line got stuck with the skimmer in clear view below the ice, and it came off, back out and had a micro perch, blank avoided. Back out to 13 mtrs and i was soon attached to another skimmer, lesson learnt from the last one and i kept the pole tip below the ice , breaking it as i shipped back, that worked, and i had a couple more quickly so i had to repeat the process, a slight breeze blew from the left and pushed the ice away, so the next few skimmers were no problem, i even had a better bream of about 31/2lb, obviously one of the main lakes legendary amphibious slabs that manage to cross the road 😂😂.i wasnt getting any f1 trouble up till now, unlike a few others who couldn't catch anything else, after my run of skimmers i was left scratching around for anything silver, i did have a few chunky roach from the island, and an f1, also the f1,s arrived on the groundbait lines, not in plague proportions, but on a cold day most bites from whatever is well received, at the end i new i done ok by what i could see, when the scales arrived.my fish went 15lb for top silvers weight on the day, and with my accidental f1,s i had a 24.8 total, normally i catch on single caster, but today single red maggot was the best, apart from the few roach from the island which came to caster hookbait.

john (Turkey) thompson had plenty of bites from the new f1,s on peg 27 with 40+lb, weigh sheets below.

Also i think kev winstone must have run out of pound coins judging by how he had to pay me today,