Magpie Open

Rookery Waters, Magpie, peg 4

This winter pegs 1 to 5 (and particularly 1 and 2), 25, 31 to 35 and 38 have been most consistent, so I was pleased with Peg 4. There is no obvious feature here but there is a submerged island just out to the right, which I found was about 10 inches shallower than the surrounding lake. So I put on a rig to fish to the deep water, another for the shallower island, a light rig for the left margin, and two for the right margin – one for the deeper water about two feet from the bank and another for a shallow shelf in a tiny bay, where Alex Bates said the fish could end up.

The weather was a second warm day in a row, but the water was cold, and the bright sun, with no ripple, didn’t offer hopes of a huge catch. Still the water was a good colour.

I started with a small pot of 4mm pellet and corn by the side of the submerged island, with a half-gram Tuff-Eye with a black tip, as the reflections here were difficult, and after about 15 minutes I’d had two or three bites which I missed. On went a 4mm expander, and a good bite showed the pellet was untouched, so they were obviously liners. I hit the next two bites on corn, and two 2 lb carp were in the net. No more, so I put the shallower island rig out in the same spot…with no result (this had a red tip which I could see against the dark reflection, and it ensures I didn't pick up the wrong rig!) I tried over the island, still without a touch, then put the deeper rig back into the original swim, still with no result, so I trickled more feed in, but It appeared the fish had moved.

It was time to try the margin, so I threw about ten expanders out to my left, followed it with a pellet on the hook, and got a 4 lb carp immediately. But again, nothing followed. Very strange. So I tried the right margin swim, in the deeper water and had a carp on luncheon meat immediately…but then nothing!

Meanwhile the angler to my left on peg 5 had been catching fish up in the water near the reeds at about 13 metres. But I and the angler to my right didn’t have a really good feature like this, and we were both scratching around for the odd fish – though it looked to me as if there was the edge of a lilly bed just to his right.

Scratching my head, I simply had to have a go at the odd carp that I could see cruising around under the surface. They were moving quite fast, so didn’t look as if they were really feeding. However, first drop in to a black shape a foot deep with a small cube of luncheon meat saw another four-pounder in the net. And I spent the next three hours or so either targeting the very odd cruiser, or leaving a piece of meat just hanging there, at 7 metres, and waiting for something to grab it. Amazingly I had seven or eight fish like this.

The odd foray to the right margin with a bunch of maggots brought another couple of fish, but the shallow swim there never produced a touch. Then the angler to my left had three fish in ten minutes or so by slapping, and I got my shallow rig out with banded pellet with just 45 minutes to go.

First drop in I lost a fish after about a second, and next slap the same thing happened. On the third slap, a little farther out (I had eight feet of line above the float because of the bright sun) it resulted in a hooked fish, over 4 lb, which gave a great scrap before being netted. But no more. Then with five minutes left another came to a piece of ‘hung’ meat.

The scales showed 106 lb on peg 1 and 111 lb on peg 2. Now both these had proper areas of lilly pads to fish to, so I wasn’t surprised they had done well. Peg 3 had 54 lb and I weighed 58 lb, believing the angler on 5 had twice as many fish as me, so would weigh in 120 lb or so. But in fact his fish were smaller, and he totalled 89 lb, with peg 6 getting 75 lb, almost all in the margin under an aerator – I was told this peg has fished well on the inside several times recently.

Opposite 5 was the winner on peg 31 with 124 lb 14 oz, all taken at 16 metres to the reeds by slapping – very hard work!

The pegs from 7 round to the twenties didn’t fish particularly well, though Simon Godfrey on 22 had 124 lb 4 oz shallow – but he could catch fish in a bucket of concrete! The end result was that I was somehere around 10th I think, so for me it was a decent day and I think I did the peg a fair amount of justice.

It was interesting that the fish caught by peg 5 by slapping were smaller than mine, and also interesting that even in the coloured water catching a fish seemed to put all those nearby off – that’s been particularly noticeable when the water is cold. So it appears that having caught one fish I must be prepared to move within a minute or two if the next drop-in there doesn’t produce.

Next match sees the first in my weekend club series, on Cedar at Decoy.