A comedy of errors – and I still won!

Six-Island Lake, Decoy, peg 8

Those weather girls – they appear with immaculate make-up, all smiles, impossible waists, and spotless skin, promising you perfect weather, 70 degrees with little wind and waving their arms gracefully around where you are going to be fishing.

They lie.

That was the first error I made – I believed them. All of them. But you know the old saying about falling into a lake of sewage and coming up smelling of roses? That was me. Here followeth the next errors...

I wasn’t late getting to the draw for the club’s only cup match, but I didn’t hurry. There were 20 of us.  I gave Mel the money and the completed menus Mrs Mac and I wanted for the club’s Christmas dinner, then drew out peg 8. Not one I wanted – I would rather have had 1, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24 or 25. Or even the other pegs on the South bank, 10 to 15, as they tend to fish better than those on the Northern bank, 5 to 8. I described 8 as a Nothing Peg after I had drawn it. I’d have whooped with joy at 9, which allows you to fish all the way along the end bank. But no, I looked at it again and  it was still peg 8!

Delay

Suddenly, after everyone zoomed off down to the lake I realised I was the only one who hadn’t collected his nets – and I also had to go to the shop and but a pint of dead maggots first. By the time I’d done that and driven to the car park the others were almost all trundling down to their pegs.

It was hot!

My Octbox, great though it is, takes a bit more getting ready than having a simple trolley to dump stuff on. By the time I’d got it ready and loaded up with bag, cushion, accessories, margin pole, three-rod holdall, three half-butts, and pole roller everyone else had left. And boy, it was hot, a gleaming sun, with absolutely no wind. The water was like a mill pond.  Already sweating, I wheeled my stuff past peg 1, where sat James – he’s won this twice out of the last three years, from memory. Or it could be three times. He’s good!

There he sat, box on the platform nets already in place, side tray full, putting his pole together. I carried on, round to peg 8, dumped it all, and went back for my second load – pole holdall and bait. As it was so hot I decided to leave my hoodie and Goretex jacket in the car. I wouldn’t be needing them – the girls had promised!

 

My peg 8, looking towards peg 9 and the end bank. A cracking peg, but it was not included (thank goodness).

Muddy?

 Back to peg 8 and it was still dead calm. And I was a good 15 minutes behind everbody else. The edge of the lake looked, at first, as if there was an algal bloom, running in a strip alongside our bank, from peg 9 in the corner right up to peg 4. But Alan next door confirmed that it was mud. Not big clouds of the stuff, like carp snuffling around, just a strange strip a couple of feet out as if the wind had stirred the margins, but there was no wind.

And then I realised that peg 9 hadn’t been pegged. What a waste – but then I thought that it gave me a better chance of doing well – a decent angler on peg 9 would normally beat all those to his right. And there are a lot of decent anglers in the club.

Good start

No time to think about that. I was a bit late starting, and hadn’t put my margin pole together, but that wouldn’t take long, if I needed it (I should have done it of course). The obvious place to start was at nearly16 metres, across to the island, and I had carefully plumbed up and had got a rig ready for that, but I decided to have a look down the side, in the mud, which was fast disappearing. The sun was low and on the left, so at the moment it was difficult to fish the left margin. First drop-in to the right next to the reeds in almost four feet of water with a piece of cat meat just off bottom saw a couple of tiny touches!

Probably roach, I thought. But I remember the day on Heyford, many years ago, when I was pegged next to a bridge, nobody was catching, and I started getting nibbles on a small expander from what I assumed were roach. This went on for half-an-hour and I was determined to catch a roach to see how big they were. I eventually did, and it was a four-pounder...disguised as a mirror carp. I never caught a roach, just more carp which gave the tiniest bites, and I easily won the match. Lesson remembered now.

Here comes the wind

Anyway I dropped the cat meat to the bottom and immediately hooked a five-pound mirror. Ten minutes later a three-pound common came in. Then the girls started to play me up – there came a light breeze which within ten minutes became a very strong breeze, and clouds completely obliterated the sun The temperature must have dropped by ten degrees in five minutes. I changed rigs to a lighter one but it was difficult fishing a sensitive rig into the wind. However a piece of corn eventually brought a third carp and 20 minutes later a barbel.

Now the wind was around Force 4 or 5 and I had to fish almost in front at top-two plus one, which produced nothing. It was now too strong to fish at the full 14.5 metres plus a half-butt, towards the island, which I had set up for before the start. So into the left margin, but not a bite. Then I made the decision to fish at top-two plus one a little to my left, with the wind rather than against it.

In went hemp, corn and pellets, plus some maggots targetting the barbel. I should definitely have put them in with a bait dropper as there was no way of knowing where they were going to end up. But the gods shone on me and I picked up occasional carp and barbel here for the next two hours on meat and, later, on bunches of dead maggots. When the wind dropped a little I had quick looks back to the right margin, and sometimes took another fish there. Then the wind would blow harder and I had to abandon it. With 27 lb on my clicker I managed to land a huge fish which I reckoned could be around 15 lb, so it went into the first net and I started on the second net.

The wind by now had moved round so that it had been in my face, then round farther so it was from the left, and finally it went back to the West where it had started.  It really was not helping.

 

John, our secretary and chairman, with a barbel from Peg 14.
 How come the water is sloping?

Tony Nisbet is having a great season.

Disaaasters

Then came the next two incidents that should have dropped me out of the running. First a huge fish hooked on a bunch of maggots stretched my Double 8 Slip elastic right out. It came back a little then went again. I’d managed to add a section and almost fell in stretching out, but before I could add any more the fish went again. I gritted my teeth and it stopped. Then it went again, a big boil appeared on the surface past the island...and the elastic snapped.

Shamefacedly I went to my holdall, took out a top with Hollo 13, made sure I had sections easuily to hand, put on another rig with 0.8gm Maver Invincible float and started again. The fish were still there. A few more and they dried up. So it was into the left margin, right next to the reeds which I could now fish OK because the sun had moved round. This produced occasional good carp and F1s.

Second disaster was on this rig – also with double 8 Slip elastic. When I was playing a 5 lb carp one of the strands broke. I had no idea whether the connector knot would hold and played the fish gingerly on the single strand. After a few hair-raising minutes it was in the net. By now it was so cold I considered going back to the car for my Goretex jacket, but decided to stick it our by zipping my fleece up to the neck and shivering. Afterwards John, who had back wind on 14, told me he was also very, very cold. So much for those smiling weather girls...

Now I also had to decide whether to carry on catching the odd F1 or go back to the longer line where I had had bigger fish. I decided to carry on putting something in the net and after putting the margin rig on to Purple Hydro I managed to keep picking up occasional  F1s up to 4 lb for the last 40 minutes, mainly on corn, as expander didn’t work. But they also took big lumps of cat meat – so much for F1s being finicky! As has happened recently, I had to put a little bait in before every fish or I didn’t get a bite.

 

How NOT to take a picture - into the sun.

Always last to pack up

I’m always last to pack up in this club and had not even loaded my stuff on the box when they came to weigh me in. That’s partly because I had five rigs made up and the two tops with useless elastic in them to pack away. I also have a lot of stuff on my side tray – and a lot of possible change baits to pack away, including worms which I had not even tried (perhaps I should have done).  In Opens I am sort of average at packing up, but club men are so much faster.  I believe they think I overdo it with my gear!

Top weight to me was 84 lb from James; my first net went 42 lb so that big fish must have been near 15 lb. The second, which I had not clicked after 26 lb because it was so near the end of the match I thought held about 30 lb – in fact it was 43 lb. So an underserved win, because the two men I had feared on 18 and 19 had struggled. I had slung a look over my shoulder just once during the match at Kevin, on hot peg 18, and he was playing a fish. Naturally I assumed that he’d been doing that all day. He obviously hadn’t. And another good result for Tony Nisbet (not Nesbit as it usually appears in local newspapers) from peg 11, opposite me, who was fourth with 59 lb.

Conclusion

I genuinely was amazed at how low the weights were, especially as so many pegs had a big ripple on during most of the match. The first few minutes were so important, though. Matt, on peg 13, had a fish within a minute on waggler cast to the island in front of him, but then not much else. Alan on my right had four good fish in the first hour, and was ahead of me at that time.  If I had put put a feeder, or started at 14.5 metres instead of dropping in the side everything could have been turned on its head.

The result.  Another good result for Callum, who was third.

Wendy with a common we weighed at 11 lb.

Six-Island has always been the shallowest lake at Decoy, though today the water was high and it was deeper than usual. My bank had no really shallow margins, unlike the bank opposite where the margins are only 18 inches in places. Normally I would prefer the option of the shallow swims, but today I got lucky with my first drop-in, in that I immediately had a sign there were fish there. Otherwise I might have left the margins until later.

Next day

I have just spent three hours at home renewing the two broken elastics – although in fact they showed no real sign of deterioration – and checking the other eleven tops I carry. As a precaution I re-tied some at the connector end, taking elastic from the bottom of the Stora-pullers, and completely renewed some of the others. So i’m now set up for the Winter. I was able to put my favourite Middy 22-24 in one top thanks to one kind angler sending me a spool. There's just enough to rig two tops from a spool.

PS. Alan next door retrieved my broken elastic  and rig so I got back the float and connector. It had broken a quarter of an inch from the connector, which is always the danger spot.