Operator Error – a match best forgotten

Rookery Waters, Raven, peg 9

This was an Over 60s event on the new Raven lake, opened 18 months ago. It’s in a rough horseshoe shape with the round end flattish. All the pegs are on the inside of the horseshoe and you can park your car at the peg, which will make it a very popular venue. Peg 1 is at the bottom of the first leg, moving up, across the back and down to peg 28-ish at the other end of the horseshoe. Peg 9 is two before the first corner.

Raven has margins only 1 foot near the bank, quickly dropping to almost 3 ft and then a very steep drop to 8 ft which you can reach on a top two if you stretch out. I saw it before it had water, and the margins were flat, which shows you just how much the bottom is affected by wave and fish action.

I didn’t know much about the lake, so started by putting some corn and luncheon meat almost halfway with a bait dropper then fishing bread punch across at 13 metres, fishing ten inches deep to the far bank, then moving back out for three or four feet, then deepening it six inches at a time and repeating, until after more than 20 minutes I had not had a touch of any sort. That was a bit surprising as there was a good wind, and plenty of ripple.

So next it was down the deep swim with corn, and after another 20 minutes still not a touch. So I tried my close-in swim for another 20 minutes, feeding with a toss pot close to the edge of a bit of weed, still without any indications. The cold wind was getting up, and this decided me against going right across again – possibly a mistake. So it was down the track again, and after 20 minutes I got a 1 lb carp on corn, without feeding anything, and a few minutes later another. Then another 20 minutes without a bite. Very frustrating.

So it was in to the side again, and immediate action with a 1 lb F1 on corn about 20 inches deep, just touching bottom, and two more foulhooked and lost (a scale left me in no doubt) and then another on pellet. Fishing off the bottom did not bring a single bite. Another 20 minutes and a 6 oz carp hooked in the mouth, and I wandered up to Alan on my left, who had four fish to my five.

The rest of the match followed a strange pattern – 20 minutes fishing the deep swim and baiting with a tosspot, and I was about to try the far bank, despite the gusty wind, and I would get a fish, which led to another 20 minutes of inactivity, then just as I was about to change, another fish would come. I finished on the inside following a magnificent spell of three fish in 15 minutes, and with 45 minutes to go was about to look right over when another one came along…so I persevered down the edge and wasted the final 45 minutes!

As the scales came I was astonished to see a 47 lb at the end to my left, then Keith Rayment with 35 lb, and I know he had most of his fish in the deep water. Alan weighed 6 lb, and my meagre haul of 15 fish went 12 lb, with the angler to my right on peg 9, on the corner, DNW-ing.

It’s not a criticism of everyone who DNWs, but I dislike seeing it unless it helps the weighers-in in bad weather. Weighing-in helps the competitors decide afterwards whether there’s a definite pattern to the weights, and I have always (rightly or wrongly) regarded it as a bit of an insult to those who do weigh in…almost like saying “I can’t be bothered with you lot”. On natural waters it also used to give liars the chance of boosting their imagined weights, though on modern commercials that’s not an issue, since others can see what they are catching. Anyway, the angler on my right told me had had 11 carp and lost 17 better ones – though I suspect they were foulhooked, as a couple of my 1 lb foulhookers felt like four-pounders on steroids! So he probably had roughly the same weight as me, fishing right across. His wind was very slightly off his back, but it still must have been difficult as it looked as if he needed a full 16 metres to reach the far bank in the corner.

Anyway, the final word on not weighing in goes to Kevin Ashurst who once told me in his inimitable Lancashire accent: “If you haven’t weighed you haven’t catched!”

To my surprise 80 lb won, the end peg on the other leg, where it was almost flat calm, with (from memory) a 60 lb and a 50 lb to his left, and another 50 lb at the flat end , who had a backish-wind. At least I beat the anglers either side. But I really should have given the far margin a proper look, even though it would have been a little difficult in the wind. Kevin Peacock, behind me on the other leg, had 32 lb across on luncheon meat, though he found it difficult.

Bottom line is that it was probably ‘Operator’s Error.’