Another satisfying match – Damson, Decoy

Damson, peg 12

Damson is unusual – full of small carp to 1 lb with a sprinkling of larger ones to 3 lb and the odd double-figure specimen. Sit down at your peg and by the time the match starts you can see small fish under the surface waiting to be fed. Throw in some bait and they are like piranha! But after half an hour they drop down and fishing gets back to normal.

 

The fish here run mainly to 2 lb.

Eleven of us fished in this Spratts club match, and I fancied the first four pegs as they seem to hold the biggest carp. But Number 9 was my home for the day. And indeed the first half hour, using caster or maggot, I caught a  lot of fish. Then it settled down and while I had two deeper rigs ready to use I never touched them as there were fish in the margins all day.

Fish to 3 lb kept sniffling along the bank and inevitable I tried for these, and hooked and landed some. In fact I should probably have concentrated shallow on a top two – Trevor won using this tactic all day, with banded pellet. But I enjoyed myself using cat meat and taking one fish of 3 lb-plus and then some more from 1 lb to 2 lb in about two feet of water; then I turned to paste and this seemed to pick out the better 2 lb fish.

Trevor went for a third net after just two hours, at which point I thought had about 50 lb, so I knew I was doomed! There aren’t enough big fish here to make up a deficit like that quickly. So I just enjoyed myself, and decided I really must use my special home-made paste more often. For that reason alone it was a good day’s fishing.

Weights were difficult to judge

With fish so small it’s difficult to judge what weight you have in a net, and I suspected I might have had only about 35 lb in my first two nets when I went for a third. I then had a really good run for 20 minutes taking fish after fish all 1 lb-plus. I could see Terry Tribe to my right taking fish at about 2 feet deep, so I guessed he was fishing in the margins, about four feet from the bank like me – the water drops off very quickly here and goes down to five feet about three metres out.

 I went for a fourth net with 30 minutes left but the fish tailed off and I had about 7 lb in it when the match ended. A switch to corn brought just roach.

Martin took carp to 10 lb from peg 3. A
former Vets  National Champion, Martin
has only one eye.

The weigh-in

Mick Ramm had Golden peg on 2 (we didn’t peg 1) and weighed in 93 lb. I thought I might beat that; but then Martin Parker weighed 137 lb 13 oz, which included a couple of fish approaching 10 lb,  and I suspected I was now out of the frame as I know that Peter Spriggs, Trevor and Terry were all likely to have me beat as well, as they are better anglers. Sure enough Peter weighed in with 172 lb, all on his preferred paste. The fish seemed to me to be weighing quite light and I mentally re-adjusted my expectations to no more than 100 lb in total.

Surprise, Surprise!

So imagine my surprise when my first net out seemed quite heavy, and I was goggle-eyed when it went just over 50 lb! The second one did the same...though the third was down to 40 lb. Then  the last net brought my total to 148 lb 8 oz.

Peter Spriggs with 172 lb 4 oz on paste.

I had seen Terry land a 5 lb carp right on the whistle, so when he weighed 153 lb 13 oz I did a quick calculation – my extra ounces would have brought me to almost 150 lb, and if he’d lost that fish I would have beaten him. A comforting thought, even though he’s not 100 per cent fit, recovering from a new knee installed only a few weeks ago. Still, he was Div 4 National Champion on the Nene, so he has a good pedigree.

Then to Trevor on 12, who had blitzed it fishing shallow with pellet all day and totalled 222 lb 2 oz -  and he was over in at least one net. He did tell me he had to re-band his pellet a lot and would have been better off with a lasso, which I have never used. I finished fourth, and was very pleased to frame.

Before this match I was unsure what my options were as I remembered once sitting in one of the early pegs and taking fish deep on about four sections. Now, in Summer, I would concentrate on fishing shallow. I know of at least one weight of 280 lb taken here doing that.

The Winner!!!!!!!!!

Terry's last-gasp five-pounder
gave him third place.

The bites

The result. A good day had by all.

Much of the time I found it best to wait until the fish almost hooked themselves. Especially when fishing on the bottom for the better fish, there tended to be a few taps, then a little dip of the float, which stayed underwater for several seconds. Striking at this point rarely produced a fish – I had to wait until the line started to move out, and frequently the pole started to bend. When that happened every fish was hooked.

It was almost as if the fish were inspecting the bait before deciding to take it.  When fishing shallow, once again, it was best to wait until the fish hooked themselves, as lots of the taps and dips were fish hitting the line.