A-roving I did go

Cedar Lake, Decoy, Peg 26

This was my first-ever Rover – the club decided at our last AGM to have just one. Cedar has 26 swims – 1 at the car park end down to 13 along one side of the strip, and 14-26 back up the other side; and the Car Park end often tends to fish a little better than the other end. I picked out peg 9 so would be ninth to choose a swim.

Peg 1 went to Tony, a very good angler, who immediately picked Peg 1. This has reeds in the corner, but bare bank just past them which can be reached with only about four sections of a pole. It’s the obvious choice, especially as today there was a cold wind which would be slightly behind him. But the wind was blowing down towards the other end, which must have influenced the next anglers to pick pegs, as they opted to go down the strip in the wind.

I was ninth to choose and was amazed that swim 26, in the opposite corner, was still available, so I had it! Bushes along the car park bank meant that there was no ripple, and that part of the end bank, to my left, is reed-lined, which makes it difficult to fish in the edge. But I had fished it a few weeks before, and know that good weights have come from it since then. Amazingly, even after all 17 had picked their swims, pegs 2, 3 and 4 were left blank. So Tony on 1 looked to be a hot favourite in my eyes.

Three swims

I concentrated on three swims – at three sections out, down the deep margin to my right, and in the tiny cut-out five feet to my left where there was a shallow swim, though no more than a foot of it before it dropped down in a series of little shelves.  And before I had had a bite Tony was into fish from a swim his end bank about three feet deep. After a short while I saw he had lengthened his pole to about 11 metres (has was using one transfer section) to fish farther alonng the end bank and he never wavered from that. He had several more before I had my first fish, which was on corn at three sections.

I wondered whether to go farther out and try shallow, dropping down later, but the forecast was for the wind to strengthened (which it did), so I stayed on that line and after 45 minutes had two carp about 2 lb each on corn, though I first tried 6mm expander. After 90 minutes I asked Alan, next door, how many fish he had, and the answer was four. I had five at that point. Tony was still catching steadily and I reckoned he must have had over 40 lb! So in an effort to make something happen I fed the right margin with corn and hemp, and immediately had indications on cat meat. In the next 30 minutes I managed three or four carp, and was surprised not to hit a barbel, as then tend to feed right at the bottom of the shelf.

For the next two hours I alternated between those two swims, taking a fish every few minutes, and it was noticeable that if I left the outer swim without feeding it, next time I dropped in I got a bream. It seemed the carp would come onto feed very quickly buit would leave it just as quickly, and the bream would come in to mop it up.

I try the shallow margin

I had had an occasional drop-in to the left shallow margin swim, with no result after putting in just half-a-dozen grains of corn. So with just under two hours to go I put in half a big pot of corn, hemp and a little cat meat. Within a minute fish were swirling in the side, so I put in a my shallow rig at 18 inches deep, with the Maver Invincible floats I love, and hit a five-pounder immediately. After that the fish seemed to drop down the shelf and I kept adding six inches at a time until I found more fish. However I always like to rest swims, especially if it’s cool (and it was!) so I alternated between the two margin swims for the rest of the match, taking carp and, later, the odd barbel on cat meat from the deep swim, and just carp on corn from the shallow swim.

Tony seemed to have longer periods of inactivity and I began to wonder whether I could catch him. He went for a third net with about an hour to go, and I followed a little later. I was playing a fish at the end of the match, and it turned out to be a good one at about 8 lb. I recall losing just three fish, all foulhooked I believe, by the way they swam.

Scale problems

Tony was first to weigh, totalling 103 lb, but the scalesmen began to wonder whether the scales were playing up, and by the time they had got round to peg 20 or so it became obvious that they were! Nets of 40 lb or so were showing 21 lb on the digital scales. Mike got a spring balance out of his car but the scalesmen didn’t realise it weighed 30 maximum (two revolutions) for another couple of pegs, so everything over 30 lb appeared to regsiter as 32 lb.

I can’t remember in the end how my nets were weighed, though I know I split the last two so they were correct. My total was 113 lb and in the kerfuffle I forgot to photograph the result! Tony thought he ghad at least 110 lb, so his weight was probably understated, but I thought I had at least 115 lb so mine probably was also.

Joe is 87 and still catching 'em!

The result

I was declared the winner with 113 lb, Tony had 103 lb, with Stuart on 88 lb and Dave on 84 lb. I would have been happy to see the match declared void, but the final result was probably about right, although the points towards the Club Championship were probably incorrect!

My mate Alan is a good bowler as well.

 

Mike with friend.