Redwood Park, The Arc, 23rd January 2022

January's outing after a family outbreak of COVID so I booked myself and Patrick on the open on The Arc at Redwood Park in York.

Only 6 anglers braved todays open and the ice had been broken by the fishery from pegs 14 through to 21.

The Draw

The golden peg drawn was 17, my home for the day was Peg 20.

Set-up

Given the clarity of the water I felt that the pole line for the day needed to be long rather than short.

Lines:

• 14 - 14.5 metres full depth and a shallow rig just in case the fish came up in the water
• Top two and two line at the near side shelf for dripping caster in for some roach later in the day
• Waggler to fish past the pole line or in case the fish didnt want the pole over their heads
• Bomb and bread to fish the far bank in an effort to a ball of carp

Bait was a mix pellets, maggots, caster, bread and F1 sweet dark groundbait.  Clarification for another reader, the hooks used were all barbless patterns as per the fishery rules on most commercial fisheries.

All-In
So the match plan was to fed the long pole line with groundbait together with a very small amount of particles and leave this rest for at least an hour and to fish the bread and bomb across to try and find any fish.

Well, that was the first hour of the match plan which resulted in zero fish and zero indications of fish.  You can tell what sort of day this was going to be...  Patrick on peg 14 got off to a flyer catching from the off on the waggler and his long pole lines.

Nobody around the lake were catching except Patrick to be honest.

A look on the pole line and finally a bite, a fish and a skimmer at that, unfortunately that was the first and only fish I would see for a while.  Interestingly I caught the skimmer off the back of the where the groundbait was potted in.

Trying the waggler as the day went on I managed to grab some more roach, it certainly wasn't a frenzy and the bites were coming when the bait was on or near the full 6 foot depth.

I was scratching through the three methods, waggler, pole, bomb with bread, bomb with corn, bomb with maggots for the rest of the match.

Patrick was still catching well and peg 15 was starting to get some fish from her whip line.  The gent next to me was also fishing a whip and in the final hour started to bag some nice chunky roach.  My top two and two line did not produce anything.

Peg 18 had one roach and peg 17 a number of small fish, it was a tough day on the bank.   

Result
Eight fish weighing 1lb 4oz for a 4th place.  Congratulations to Patrick, smashing up the group with a 12lb bag of silvers for the lake win.

Conclusion
A very scratchy and difficult day, so what could I have done better.  The whip line produced on two pegs (15 and 21) however the anglers fishing these pegs had pretty much sat on the whip line the entire match.

Pegs 17 and 18 had resigned themselves to sitting out for a bonus carp which would have bumped them up the rankings however Patrick on Peg 14 was the only one to catch an F1.

I still enjoyed myself, maybe if the anglers where spread across the lake the results would be different however it would have required ice breaking tactics for all concerned so we should remain thankful for the fishery owners who broke up an area to allow the match to go ahead in the first place.