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Beastie Lake, Decoy, peg 2

There were 13 of us in this midweek club match, fished basically on pegs 1-8 and 22-30, and while I would have preferred 8, 26, 29 or 30, I was reasonably happy with peg 2. It has been kind to me over the years, and I remember taking my first-ever 100 lb catch from it in a Decoy Open 15 years ago, while the last time I fished it – with the same club – I weighed (from memory) 160 lb and came second! So all the clubs I fish with know I like peg 2, though it doesn’t have agreat reputation.

The peg has a peninsular going out about 16 metres a few metres to the right, and immediately on the left is a reed bed also going out about 16 metres.  I have always found that the fish will come in here late in the match. The wind was blowing almost straight in – a cool wind, but not really cold. And I was lucky to see Gus Gausden as I was unloading my kit, so asked him for advice. He told me his son, Andy, had fished it a week earlier and had eventually caught close-in on the leftand right. “It’s a nice peg,” he said, “But not one of the best ones.” That sort of advice is invaluable – even if it only backs up what you are already thinking.

Peg 2, before the wind got up! Ten metres took me to the first little cut-out on the right. The main
island is at the top of the picture, but you are not allowed to cast to it from this swim.

I put in a quarter of a big pot of pellet and sweetcorn 10 metres out towards the reeds lining the bank on the right, where there were virtually no margins – just a quick drop to 5 feet of water -  but started on a Method feeder with hair-rigged sweetcorn which produced a couple of tiny liners. So after 20 minutes I went on the pole over my bait, with a 6mm expander.

A couple of small bream came in, then Bill Foster, from my other club, came and sat down beside me before going to fish on Six-Island Lake. He brought me a piece of luck – a 4 lb barbel foulhooked on corn. He also mentioned that Alex Bates had fished this swim a week earlier, and caught a half depth – something I really should have catered for, but with five rigs already up I put off getting a sixth out of the box!

More luck

Bill left and I promptly hooked another  big fish which I lost, so it was then out to 10 metres to the left, in slightly shallower water as this side saw a gently sloping bottom.  I chose to fish about a foot shallower than the righthand swim, a little up the shelf, and within seconds of dropping in with an expander a small bream was on. Then eventually a 1 lb bream and a couple of smaller ones. Next I hit a good fish that stretched my Preston 13 Hollo elastic for about ten minutes and proved to be a foulhooked 10 lb carp, which I eventually landed.

At this point, two hours after the start, I wandered up to see Mick Linnell on my right, on peg 3, who told me he had a small bream and a gudgeon. He was pretty chinklered when I told him what I had – about 16 lb, around 14 lb of which was foulhooked! Not a Happy Bunny. But it showed me what I suspected – things were going to be difficult today, and probably patchy, which actually turned out to be the case.

Back to the lefthand swim with my 0.5 gm TuffEye float and after a fishless period on expander and corn I dropped back with my heavier 1gm rig to the right, after putting in dead maggots, which saw another barbel on a bunch of dead reds. After another fishless spell I baited this swim and went back to the left, which produced a 4 lb carp. Then I alternated the swims, baiting one and fishing the other but putting maggots only in the righthand swim. This went on for two hours, and I added about a fish every 15 minutes – bream, barbel and a couple of small carp - and pricked a couple, probably foulhooked, in fact one left a scale on the hook

Hooks and floats

I am aware I rarely mention items of tackle, because it's so personal. But I use almost exclusively either PR 478 hooks or the stronger Kamasan Animal for the really big fish on cat meat. I am not sophisticated enough to understand why different baits need different hooks. That's not a dig at anyone - just that I can't understand it, so I ignore it. I have always preferred a hook with a good gape, and the 478s or the similar ones which are heavier and stronger (can't remember the number) fill the bill for me.

Similarly I use mainly Drennan TuffEye floats which have four different-coloured interchangeable tips or the Maver Invincibles which have the line going through the body and have a thicker top, and also the old Drennan Carp 7 for a specialist rig I sometimes use which is too complicated to explain here. There are a few other floats which I have collected along the way, such as little dibbers for shallow fishing, of course. But the advice from Bryan Lakey to stick to one float if possible was good - it used to be the Tipo, some of which I still have, which went up to 3 gm, but I don't think these are on the market now. The TuffEye came along and supplanted it, but these go only up to 1 gm.

Dragging was good on the day

There was a bit of a tow out from the margins tending to take the rigs into the deeper water, so I ended up using two droppers, closest four inches from the hook, instead of my standard shotting of just a bulk 18 inches away. This slowed down the drag and seemed to suit the fish better than having it moving along the bottom. However several of the bites came when I actually dragged the bait against the flow!

With two hours to go sport slowed and I looked inside on my margins, with cat meat to the left and expander to the right, but both produced just a liner. However that showed me that fish were willing to come inside and after another couple of fish on the long lines, including a 5 lb barbel on corn, I came inside again with 75 minutes to go, concentrating on the lefthand side about two metres from the reeds on a top two – with section three fixed ready for big fish.

I put in a little cat meat with pellet, corn and hempseed, as I have never believed that putting in several baits in any way causes confusion among the fish.

Good old meat

First fish was a 2 lb F1 on cat meat. I have read that F1s are hard to catch as they feed differently to mirrors and commons, but I have never yet worked out much difference, and they seem to give similar bites to carp when taking cat meat. Perhaps the F1s on Decoy are different. Anyway one of    3 lb came in, and two or three bream to 2 lb and two barbel around 3 lb. Then with 15 minutes left I hit a fish which at first felt like a bream until it came up to the net, then it started swimming a bit, like an F1, then it started tearing out towards the middle; it turned out to be a carp of almost 10 lb – very welcome as I slipped in into the keepnet with five minutes left!

No more fish came and I had to pack up quickly as I was due to fish a bowls match that evening. However the scales came round before I was ready to leave, so I saw that top weight, on 29, was 55 lb. I weighed 75 lb 1 oz, but was told that Trevor had 80 lb.

It turns out that Trevor won off peg 24 with 80 lb 12 oz taken at half depth on a pellet waggler, He had back wind and had seen some big fish turning. He cast about halfway to the island,with banded pellet but didn’t hit any really big carp – his best was around 5 lb. Most were F1s or carp up to 3 lb , with three skimmers and a tench. I was second, which I was chuffed about that since it meant I had beaten the four pegs with features I had really fancied and have done well from in the past. But I can’t remember that last time I drew any of them!

Five minutes to go and this little fella
was popped into the keepnet!

Conclusions

It’s always satisfying to frame, especially when it’s not one of the pegs I would have chosen. I had some luck foulhooking two good fish which I landed, but think I did correctly by keeping something going into my keepnet, even if they were ‘only’ bream on pellet or corn, or the occasional barbel on maggot, as opposed to attacking from the start with cat meat. It was a day when anglers had to make sure they took advantage of any luck. Not an easy day when you see the weights. I am told that virtually all the carp weighed in were on the small side – up to 3 lb or 4 lb. I was told once that the bigger carp in Beastie tend to spend much of the cold weather under the island, where the temperature is more constant than out in the open water, and it does seem that there are fewer bigger fish being caught at the moment.

The result

Peg 2 – 75 lb 1 oz...me 2nd

Peg 3  –  DNW

Peg 5  –  59 lb 10 oz...Terry Tribe, 3^rd, including several skimmer bream

Peg 6  –  DNW

Peg 7 – 13 lb 15 oz

Peg 8 – 48 lb 6 oz

Peg 22 – 51 lb 1 oz...a lot caught late

Peg 23 – 11 lb 2 oz

Peg 24 – 80 lb 12 oz...Trevor 1st

Peg 25 – 14 lb 1 oz

Peg 26 – 11lb 14 oz

Peg 29  –  55 lb 5 oz...Peter Spriggs, 4^th

Peg 30  –  25 lb 11 oz.

Next match

Sunday sees me on Six-Island, which is the shallowest of the lakes on Decoy, and I think all 20 of the anglers registered to fish are expecting it to be hard. I will be thinking of starting somewhere in my swim on a single maggot, willing to step up bait and hook size if I start getting bites. The current forecast is for a warm weekend, so it may pay to be in the wind if it has blown warm for two days beforehand. But I fully expect that last half an hour to be crucial – the secret is to not give up if you’ve got next-to-nothing with 30 minutes to go. The fish here can be big, and three at 8 lb give you a great final boost.

The pegs I usually fancy are 4, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 24 and 25 and I would be happy with any of those. But as with all lakes on Decoy it could be won anywhere. A good time will be had by all!