First 100 lb of the year

Oak Lake, Decoy, Peg 10

This was the first Spratts club match, fished by 10 of us, and I was very happy with peg 10, opposite the bird hide.  It’s an area that has held fish all Winter, but we’d had a mild day or two and I wondered if it would encourage the fish to spread out. The carp  in Oak and Yew tend to be bigger than in Elm and Cedar, but there seem to be not so many barbel.

There was a stiffish North-Westerly breeze over our backs from the left (we were all sitting on the West bank), but it wasn't cold - and later it became quite mild. As usual I was late starting, having acidentally mixed expanders in with my feed pellets, which necessitated putting the lot into water and skimming off the expanders. Stupid Boy!

Fish on the feeder

I started by checking the 1 gm pole rig out at 13 metres, and when I was satisfied everything was OK I checked an inside rig as well, over maggot. Nothing came in those short spells so I went onto a pellet feeder with a hair-rigged 8mm Robin Red just over my 13-metres pole swim., rather than throwing across as most of the other anglers seemed to be doing.  To my surprise after about 25 minutes I hooked a carp on the feeder,  which turned out to be a hard-fighting six-pounder. I think I must have put it into the wrong net (as I found out when I came to weigh in) – by wrong I mean the one I had intended to be the second net.

Next cast came another fish of over 8 lb...and it took me 20 minutes to land it. It wasn’t foulhooked, either. Three more came in the next 90 minutes, best 10 lb,  during which time I lost two Quickstops which came off.  They tend to catch in the net and pull off when the fish wriggles around.

Fish on the pole

After a lull I had a look on the pole at 13 metres, fishing a 6mm expander pellet over micros, hemp and a few 4mm feed pellets. This produced four fish, all in exactly the same spot, in the next 90 minutes, all approaching 10 lb. I also lost a couple, probably foulhooked. A quick look on the feeder during this time brought just one more fish.

Then the wind dropped and I could see fish humping in the surface, so quickly tried fishing shallow, which brough me one touch but no fish. Unfortunately I had to stop this because the constant feeding brought in two mallard, which refused to move and kept threatening to snag the line. In Summer I think that fish are actually attracted by duck feeding, but with the water so cold I felt I was flogging a dead horse, with the fish keeping away from the disturbance.

A change to feeding sweetcorn at 13 metres and going back to the full-depth rig with a grain on the hook brought the smallest fish of the day of about 5 lb and with 90 minutes to go and an estimated 42 lb in each net I went for a third net.

The last 90 minutes brought only two more fish to the net on corn, and two more  lost, the last one after I’d played it for 20 minutes without ever getting it near the surface. I have to assume it was foulhooked, as the hook pulled out, but it didn’t fight as if it was foulhooked. So I ended with about six fish in each of the first two nets and two in the last one. I kept trying the close-in swim which I had fed by throwing maggots in, but never had a bite there.

The weigh-in

Top weight from peg 1 down to me was 39 lb 6 oz from Martin, former Vets National Champion,  on peg 2, with Bob Allen, on my immediate right having 34 lb 5 oz which I think were all taken on a feeder, with a good spell towards the end of the match. To be honest I had been concentrating on my own swim and hardly saw anybody else catching.

The result - the Northern end fished best.

Peter with his last two carp,
which weighed 21 lb.

I had estimated 42 lb in each of the first two nets, so imagine my surprise when the first net weighed 36 lb! The second was 48 lb – then the penny dropped. I must have put the first 6 lb  fish into the lefthand net, instead of the righthand one. The final two went 17 lb, and my total was 103 lb 3 oz. Bob to my left was third with 51 lb 1 oz (over in one net) and Peter on 14 took 70 lb 9 oz, all on paste. So the best catches were in the bottom end of the strip lake, and not at the carpark end into which the wind was blowing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Nice to win, even though it’s a noted peg, because having a peg everyone expects you to do well from puts a bit of pressure on you. One match tomorrow, then I will spend the weekend tidying my tackle and re-tying some quickstops. I intend to try to tie the Quickstop to the hook with some tough Maxima nylon before adding the hooklength. That shouldn’t be too difficult, though normally I tie on the Quickstop and then tie a Knotless Knot to an eyed hook. I will see if it can work with a spade end.

I've also ordered some section inserts from WE Tackle, to protect the ends of the sections - something I should have done when I first bought the pole, of course.