Sunday 10th April was a scorching day and I spent it at Raygill Fishery in Lothersdale, North Yorkshire with a bunch of Maggotdrowners as we got in a practice for the War of the Roses on 15th May. This year would be my first fishing the match and we were looking to retain our title on Yorkshire soil. As soon as we arrived on site we were rumbled by the Cleggy (Yorkshire team captain) clan who were also having a practice - no sneaky practice then!!!
A scorching day with flat calm conditions didn't bode well for a day of bagging up with numerous submarines cruising just under the surface not the least bit interested in feeding. We all decided to fish different parts of the lake to cover off all eventualities and try a variety of methods to see which worked well. Me and my travel partner Big Dipper fished the bottom end of the lake on the house side where we had depths of around 6' from 6m out to 13m before it shallowed up.
Due to the narrow width of the lake at this end, we decided to fish pole and I chose 2 swims initially. A long swim at 13m which would be my pellet line, and a closer in line at 8m to try maggot/caster. I began by dumping in a medium sized pot of 4mm pellet long and a few maggots short and went straight in on the pellet line. I spent over an hour on pellet trying different things but couldn't get a bite so switched to the maggot line. I caught steady here all day (and closer in) on maggot and got roach to 6oz with the average around 4oz. Walking round the lake showed the rest of the boys were doing similar with the occasional better fish coming out.
I finished with probably 5lb of silvers over 5 hours which while not a world beating catch showed that once it came to the big day (where carp only count as 1lb) if we all got 5lb of roach we may be onto a winner...watch this space!
