A very tight result on Beastie

Beastie Lake, Decoy, peg 14

There were 19 in this club match and it was probably the tightest finish of any match I’ve ever fished. A cold Westerly wind coming in from my right front greeted me, and the water – as you would expect at this time of year – was clearer than it has been recently. Altogether it didn’t feel that there would be many big weights.

For those of you who know Beastie, we fished from peg 2 to 8, missing out 9 to 13 on the back of the spit, and resumed at 14 round to 30, missing out 16, 19, 20, 27 and 28. As always I fancied pegs 2 (which has always been kind to me although it’s not a recognised flier) 8, 18, 26, 29 and 30, with 26 the absolute favourite. Unfortunately (!) Neil, one of our best members, had peg 26 and even though he doesn’t fish the pole I still fancied him to do well. We shall see!

Peg 14 has nice reedy margins, so a job to do!  I started by putting out some pellet and hemp at top two plus three, but put out a method feeder with banded pellet towards the island (you are not allowed to cast right to the island on this peg). That produced only a 6 oz bream so after 25 minutes I went on to the pole, which gave me a 1 lb bream and two or three around 3 oz. So then it was into the margin, where I fancied I saw a liner or two on cat meat. Then John, to my right, hit a big fish from the margins and eventually, after a long fight, netted it. It looked to me to be at least 10 lb.

 

John hooks a double-figure mirror.

But I couldn’t catch anything, so it was back to the long pole, where a roach and then another tiny bream (which fell off) were the only takers. At that moment John took another big fish from his righthand margin, so I was back to my left margin, towards the point of the spit we were on. In the next hour I managed a 1 lb bream and a 3 lb F1 on meat . The interesting thing was that I could see tiny liners on and off all the time.

 

Ten minutes after hooking it John nets the beastie in Beastie.

A drop in to my right with corn also saw liners, but no fish. Then a 4 lb barbel from the left nearly wrenched the pole out of my hand. So I had about 10 lb and John, who had had another good carp and couple of smaller fish, was probably 25  lb ahead of me. I pricked a couple of fish on the strike, and foulhooked one barbel.

A very interesting experiment

I was still getting liners on every drop-in, and was sure they were knocking and playing with the bait rather than brushing the line. In desperation I put in my Summer Margin rig, with 10 lb line and meat...and got no liners. I fished like this for 15 minutes with no result at all. That convinced me that the fish had been, indeed, knocking the bait, but because of the thicker line on the big rig they were staying away. So I went back to my 6 lb rig, and still got mainly liners.

Now the rain started to fall, and it was impossible to put up an umbrella, and it became very cold. The long line produced nothing and, with two hours to go I had added another carp and a couple of barbel – best 5 lb – from the left hand margin and decided to target the barbel with maggot. This brought even more liners, and another two or three bream – one of which jumped out of the water like a trout -  and a carp and a barbel, which I was playing when the shout went up to end the match. I wish they’d use a whistle, as I often miss this shout!

Tight weights

I weighed in 41 lb 12 oz and was surprised to see that I was last up to this point. Not by much, but still last. John to my right had 45 lb and Mel, to his right, who had fished a Method feeder for most of the day, had 54 lb 8 oz. Alan on 18 had two very big fish in the first half-hour but then struggled his way to 40 lb.

The (rather wet) result.

Top two weights were on 25 and 26, which had back wind. I am convinced that the tiny difference in temperature between a cold wind into the bank and the cover offered by a back wind can often make a difference , and so it seems ...though I can’t ignore the fact that both Neil, who won, and John, who was runner-up, are both very good anglers. So, as has happened millions of time before, put a good angler on a good peg and you’ve got to fancy his chances. You’ve still got to catch them, though!

Afterwards I pondered on why I couldn't persuade those fish to take the bait. But since I will never know, it's not worth worrying about. Matchfishing is often a matter of taking your chances when you get them.

No pictures of my 5 lb barbel as it was raining when we weighed in. 

Look at the weights

Look at the weights, which are very close for a club match on a commercial fishery:

Winner 85 lb 4 oz, much of which came in the last two hours in the right margin;

 2^nd 57 lb 12 oz,

 3^rd 56 lb 12 oz.

4^th 55 lb

5^th 54 lb 8 oz

6^th 51 lb

7^th 50 lb

8^th 45 lb

9^th 44 lb 12 oz (Joe is aged 87)

10^th 44 lb 8 oz

11^th 43 lb 8 oz

12^th 43 lb

13^th 41 lb 12 oz (me)

14^th 40 lb

15^th 31 lb 12 oz

16^th 26 lb 4 oz (lost a new feeder rod, pulled in by a fish)

17^th 19 lb

18^th 11 lb

19^th DNW (wet and cold)

Lucky at Benwick Sports

I recently went to Benwick Sports, which is only 45 minutes drive from me, to get a Number Three section for my Browning Z12 as the other one was split, causing me to lose a top two at Kingsland. They had the section, and I happened to mention that Drennan had stopped making their old Carp 7 floats, and had told me they had introduced a new pattern. I had almost run out of the old 7s, and wondered whether Benwick Sports knew of anyone who might have any.

The gentleman opened a drawer behind the counter...and there were 17 beautiful old Drennan 7s, which I immediately bought! Happy Days.