At the beginning of December there appeared a three-day mild spell, with temperatures up to a heady 8 degrees C, so I went to fish a Decoy Open. It was held on Elm and Cedar, with about 10 or 12 on each. My peg was Cedar, 22.
I can’t remember the exact details of the match, but three incidents stick in my mind. Firstly – I put out a straight leger with a soft piece of sweetcorn first cast and after five minutes or so a 2 lb F1 nearly took the rod in. I had set the clutch to give, so I picked up the rod, waited a second or two until I had gauged the size of the fish, and tightened down the clutch, flicking off the anti-reverse. Playing fish on the clutch brings terrible line twist, so I prefer to play them by backwinding.
Next cast, with another piece of sweetcorn, which had been frozen and thawed so it was very soft, the same thing happened – rod round, I pick it up, and…bang! I had forgotten to re-set the clutch and this fish, which felt really big, took off before I could do anything. Hooklength gone. One lesson learned. I laid the rod down and had a look on the pole, which gave me a few fish to 8 lb, fishing at 13 metres, in the next couple of hours.
Next incident came after I put an 18-inch hooklength back on the leger gear, thinking it would give a slower fall, which might be more appetising to a fish cruising off the bottom . Another wrap-round found me attached to a big fish, for at least ten minutes! I have to assume it was foulhooked, as after ten minutes I was nowhere near to seeing it start to tire. I kept putting the rod tip under the water and holding it, so gradually it would come in towards me; but then it would be off again.
The crunch came when it was close to me, but started moving again to my left, about ten feet out and parallel to the bank. Rod tip was in the water, and the fish was dangerously close to the next platform; so I plunged the rod right down and held. I felt it stop, and then start to drift back towards me an inch or two. Suddenly, with no effort on the fish’s part, the line went slack. The hooklength had parted about halfway along.
Afterwards I think I worked out what happened. The fish was probably foulhooked somewhere on the right side of the mouth or head; it was moving to my left, so pushing the rod down would have brought the line, under tension, across it back. I suspect it then caught on the hook of the front spine of the dorsal fin and as the fish turned the line was cut as if it had been sliced with a razor blade. Half a lesson learned, I reckon – I will stick with my normal short hooklengths, so in the same scenario it will be the tough Maxima reel line which comes across the back of the fish. Half a lesson learned.
Finally, after three hours and a bit I reckoned I had a little over 30 lb, mainly on the pole, which was looking good because I hadn’t seen much else being caught; then my left-hand neighbour had a purple patch, landing about four good fish, probably 5 lb each, while I sat biteless. So with half-an-hour to go I got up, went to my holdall, and got out my 14.5-metre section. I can’t fish over 13 metres for a whole match, as I’m no longer young and the muscles give up eventually, but on it went to 14.5 metres (a true length as this is a Browning Z12). First put-in I got a 2 lb F1.
Next put-in a missed bite, then a better carp. And then another carp. All without my having put any feed in on the line at all! I weighed in 45 lb, which was top weight along the far bank and to my right; but my left-hand neighbour put 48 lb on the scales. Those two lost fish had cost me top weight on Cedar. So second on the lake…and I picked up not a penny! Elm produced the top five or six weights, topped by 128 lb, with several over 50 lb, and my neighbour won my section. No complaints – I’d had a good result, for me, and had an interesting day.
The third lesson was the most important. I will be more ready to push the boat (sorry, pole) out in future. But I will still probably leave 16 metres for fishing to a feature. If there’s plenty of bank behind, two rollers make it reasonably easy to fish 16 metres, but on most fisheries I go to there is not that amount of room behind – and certainly not on the strips at Decoy, where it would be overhanging the lake behind. Breaking the pole down twice, or even halfway , is a real pain at 16 metres, so I do it as little as possible.
Soft sweetcorn
I throw very little bait away, and always freeze unused sweetcorn after use. In a club match on Horseshoe, Decoy (peg 20) in November I found it was the only bait I could get proper bites on. A hard piece resulted only in a foulhooked F1, so I tried a soft piece and picked up odd fish all day, fishing at about 10 metres close to the lillies (which were still showing there in November, before the first freeze). Maggot brought a couple of tiny roach so I stuck with the corn, managing 40 lb, which was enough to win the match.
It sinks more slowly than hard corn, but whether it’s that which attracts the carp, or the fact that it is soft, I have no idea. It worked, so I used it!
Was it the rig?
In the middle of the freeze I had a pleasure session at Rookery Waters, Pidley, dobbing bread ie: no loose feed or groundbait – just suspending bread somewhere above bottom. Matches are being won doing that, picking off carp moving around off bottom.
I dropped in peg 1, and put out a small piece of bread punch at 10 metres near the lillies. Within a minute a 2 lb carp was on its way in. Now readers will think I’m strange, but at this point I had done what I wanted to do – prove to myself that it worked! Just to give me confidence. So I walked round to see an angler on peg 20 (nice swim with an overhanging tree) and another on peg 38 (which has been the most consistent peg this winter). I got back about 20 minutes later, put out the rig, and immediately got another carp.
At this point I do what I usually do when pleasuring – I took off the rig and put it in my box, knowing it worked. Then I put on another similar rig, except that this one had a lighter hooklength instead of being straight through. In the next 90 minutes I never had another bite on bread, though just before leaving I tried a couple of maggots and hooked two small roach on the bottom, and a rudd fishing about a foot deep.
After two fish in two casts on the first rig I must assume that something on the second rig wasn’t right; but it’s still a mystery. Anyway, if I get back there and want to fish the same method the original rig will go back on.
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