Rd-15-2025-Summer League - 25th October Lindholme - Newcastle Lake

[Leo Martin]

Big Bash Summer league round 15 Laurels  Lake 25.10.2025

Our Last Summer League match of  2025 and Summer has long since left us if anything about todays weather was to go by. 6 degrees overnight, a high of 9 today and a very cold wind blowing off the moors onto the lake. Some sunny periods,  some clouds, odd very dark cloud and a threat of rain with the very cool wind. Woolly hat was on protecting my solar panel, clothing layers increasing around my athletic body and sandwiches will soon be replaced by hot soup.

Jaspers Friday night live draw with 15 names on the spinning wheel and the whole of Laurels Lake kindly donated by Aaron & Alex there was plenty of space and room for everyone. Difficult to get the pegging right, some good areas, some slightly difficult ones, some favourites and some not so. The peg selection is a hard one, no one wants to do it, you can never win.  "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time". Peg 6 in dead mans corner landed for yours truly, well chuffed not.

Arrived at the lake and walked straight past peg 6 as I thought it was further along than it actually is. Saw peg 4 and then I was even more grumpy as it is the corner peg on  the North bank. They don't call it dead mans corner for nothing. The Laurels revamp a few years ago improved the lake no end however dead mans corner remains dead man's corner. I am generally an optimistic glass half full person however this morning I was as grumpy as hell. The lads tried to cheer me up, Dave Fox said he won a festival match off peg 6 with less room than I had. He then dropped out however it was in early summer. Steve Curtis also said he had caught off peg 6, then he dropped out the wind was blowing in which today wasn't the case. Hey ho give your head a wobble and sort yourself out Leo.

A very hard day around the lake for everyone and a struggle for bites, locating the fish, getting them to feed consistency which reflects in todays weights.

Due to AGM the match times moved forward and it was 09:30 Start and 3:30 finish.

Peg 2 Dave Fox a venue regular all year however it took about 45 minutes of nothing on the rod so he moved to his righthand margin and with a maggot approach started on small roach, skimmers and then perch. A real mixed net of silvers and some quality large resident Laurels Perch to be proud off. 32-6

Peg 4 Steve Curtis  A really frustrating day for Steve who it is fair to say also struggled. At 11 oclock he even went on pole in his margin using maggot, yes maggot. He had seen the size of the Perch Dave as watching and tried similar tactics however was roached out which just added more to his frustration. 12:30 and his favoured rod arced around for his first F1. Catch one, move on try some thing else, wait and catch another.  Long day at the office however Steve is called fishfinder for a reason which resulted in 44-12 and another section win.

Peg 6 Leo Martin Despite the moaning and groaning I set up a 2+1 maggot line, 2+1 pellet line, both about 4 feet deep. A margin line 2+1 to my right which was 3 feet tight in to the bank. Bomb and method rods. Fed several swims for these, pellets to island and right hand side of it, corn in betwen pegs 8 and 9, pellets to corner near hay bale. Swapped and changed wafters on method, pellets and corn on bomb, and tip went round about 12 ish for 3 fish on krill wafter on method with fishery pellets. Then nothing. More rotation and another fish. Tried margin and roach. More rotation and pciked u0p one on bomb and corn. Kept rotation for odd fish before going in margin at 2pm and had 3 fish back to back then nothing. 2 of these fish went 9lb and 6lb. No more bites here either. 31lb and thanks for coming however this is much better than I expected off this peg.

Peg 12 Paul Whitehouse  38-15 and a 2nd in section

Peg 14 27- 4 and a difficult day for Andy today.

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Peg 15 Michael Roche who fishing rods to island in front and Robin Red pellet managed 58-11 for a 1st in section.

Peg 17 Joe (not on a end peg ) Martin 53lb and a 2nd in section

Peg 20 Smiler DNW

Peg 22 Richard Cooke 33-05 and 2nd in section

Peg 24 John Utting 32-04 and a close-run battle with Richard next peg.

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Peg 30 Tracey Benson. As well as his usual long pole approach Tracey today set up not 1 but 2 rods. He must have known it was going to hard.  He did however secure his match winning fish from his margin lines today. 58-15 was todays winning weight and Tracey continued his winning streak with us on top of Steve Gregorys matches. Well done Tracey.

Peg 35 John Lanelly found it hard and recorded 13-10

Peg 36 Mark Radford 38-12 and another section win for Mwrk

Peg 38 Steve Guy also another hard day to record 10-3 but importantly took the shiny pound and bragging rights of his good mate Smiler

Peg 40 Scott Barker recorded 19-11 and 2nd in section and hopefully a smile and happy chappy as he was being driven home by Joe.

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Well done to everyone sticking it out to the end today despite the fish not wanting to play.

For information, 24 people fished the fishery open today spread on Loco and Bennys. The 2 highest weights on Loco were 27-13 and 27-6. On Bennys the 2 highest weights were 85-8 and 38-0. There were quite a few DNWs as well which in reflection shows we were not the only ones to struggle today. Winters coming , time to scale down, smaller baits, less feed and be grateful for each fish we catch.

The end of our summer season and the league. We now say au revoir until next summer to some guys. The hardy ( or insane) few will fish on through the winter with our own winter league and others fishing with the big boys in various pairs and singles leagues. Hopefully we can all meet up on the Big Bash fur and feather on December 13th on Strip at Lindholme lakes. Places are still available, please be in touch.
 
Thank you to everyone who has fished with us this year. Club, league members and our guests who make the Big Bash Angling Club as special as it is.