Three matches in three days - Decoy

Oak, peg 8

This was one of the mini-series of invitation matches organised by Mel Kitson, who brings some of his local Telford anglers over to Decoy several times a year to join us locals. The two lakes used were Oak and Yew.

The weather was hot, with a Westerly breeze putting a ripple on the water, with most of it on the Eastern bank – 16 to 30 – to start with. Fish were topping all over, and most of the anglers seemed to be trying shallow early on, but most gave that up within half an hour. Then they came into the shallows, because that’s so often where the really big weights are taken.

You need two feet of water or less, and this is mainly where the bank has crumbled, giving you a bare bank and shallow water in the margin, though this may extend only a couple of feet out. My swim, however, was mainly reed-lined, though there was a section of bare bank about 8 metres to my left which was a bit awkward to fish as you needed to fish over the reeds.

To cut a long, painful, story short I took two fairly quick fish in those shallows, and one in the deep water in fron of me – probably about 10 lb total after two hours, at which point Danny Carlton, opposite to my left on 21, went for a third net (50 lb max). An hour or so later he went for a fourth net – and I then had just four fish and was targetting 30 lb!

Winner on my lake was Jack Gill.

Yew's result.

His fish must have then gone off, as he never went for any more nets. To my right Nigel Clarke had 30 lb after three hours (he told me this afterwards) but then found fish on corn and meat in the deep water a top two out from the bank, and weighed 199 lb. I soldiered on taking the very odd carp and F1 from the deep water – and the angler on my left was struggling as well. In the final hour I managed to add about five more from the shallows – literally fishing 18 inches deep – while he suddenly found nine or ten fish from his shallow swim, giving him a good last hour and 87 lb.

When the match finished I had just manged to foulhook a fish of nearly 10 lb in the fin, and landed it ten minutes after the whistle, which was annoying as I was on scale duty, and had to leave most of my stuff on the bank. This meant that after the weigh-in I was easily last off the bank – hot and bothered and last on the lake with 67 lb apart from one DNW opposite me who also had just two nets.

Conclusions

I know these anglers are all better than me, so to frame I need a very good swim. My peg today didn’t fall into that category, so I come away having had a decent day’s sport, with no real regrets. Nigel Clarke (peg 6) is a cracking angler – how he found fish in the deep water and managed to average 50 lb an hour for the last three hours is amazing to me But even then he didn’t win – as you will see, the corner peg 30 won with 280 lb! These blokes are good!!!

Six-Island, peg 14

This was a Fenland Rods club Handicap match. My pegs, in order of preference, would have been 9 (which fished badly), 18 (I cocked this one up last time I fished there), 17, 16, 24, 25, and 1. However I wasn’t unhappy with my peg 14, as this is where I once had my then-best weight of 174 lb. The margins on this bank (10 to 15) tend to be shallower than those opposite (4 to 9) which can, on occasion, be an advantage and obviously gives another option.

Les fishes with oxygen attached - and
weighed 53 lb 5 ozs. What a man!

I have been having a lot of confidence in dead maggot, so after putting out pellets to 8 metres (any longer is awkward on this bank as there’s a high bank behind) I put in a pot of dead under the bush to my right, where the water was no more than two feet deep. I then picked up my pellet rig, but saw out of the corner of my eye a boil under the bush. So I swapped rigs, dropped in a bunch of seven dead reds on the hook, and promptly hooked, and landed,  a 5 lb carp!

Wendy fishes next to husband Les, weighed
 60 lb 15 oz, and is always smiling.

This was followed immediately by a 1 lb barbel and a 2 lb tench. So I concentrated on this swim, though sport inevitably slowed. The odd carp came from the pellet swim, together with the occasional, lost, foulhooker. I couldn’t keep the fish going in the margin, though I know they were there every time I put in maggots. I then tried the lefthand margin, which was about 15 inches deep but gradually got better, though again fish were coming in and boiling when I put in feed, but not always biting.

Two fish after feeding was the maximum I managed – mainly carp from 3 lb to 5 lb. I lost one big fish after playing it for some time. Then, with two hours to go, I went for another net, estimating 40 lb-plus in each of the two I had. Sport was still intermittent, and a switch to corn to the left didn’t seem to make much difference, but the odd fish kept coming. Cat meat was similar – the fish didn’t take it any better than the corn.

Winner Kev Lee, 164 lb 6 oz. peg 7.

My fatal mistake was going for a fourth net with 17 minutes left. It takes about ten minutes from this peg to walk to the car, drive round, collect a net, and get back to the peg. The fish were feeding well at this point, and I managed three more in that final net, in the seven minutes left, yet again playing one when the match ended.

The fish were hollow!

Ken Wade, our local angling correspondent
for years, was a guest and took third place
 with 119 lb from unfancied peg 10.

At the weigh-in I walked round converting the weights to the handicap weights (from scratch to plus 180%), so didn’t have time for many pictures. First surprise was that Kevin Lee (who won) had less than 40 lb in some of his nets. Kevin – like me – is noted for going over the 50 lb limit quite often. So he’d overestimated the weights of his fish – as had nearly every other angler...

 I can remember having less than 40 lb in a net only once before – but this time I had 32 lb and 35 lb to go with a 40 lb dead and the last 10 lb net. I didn’t need that fourth net and have no doubt that, with the fish feeding as they were, I would have added enough fish to overtake Ken Wade who had 119 lb, and finish third.

Still, fourth spot with 117 lb was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

Conclusion

I know I should have had more – I think a heavier rig might have worked, to lessen the movement of the bait caused by fish swirling in the swim. I should also have tried paste, as it’s heavier than cat meat.

Cedar, peg 21

Cedar is the one strip lake that often fishes a little better towards the car park end, while the others tend to fish better three-quarters of the way down – so pegs 1, 2, 3 or opposite on 24, 25, and 26 (in the corner) would be nice. Again I hoped for a shallow spot somewhere in my swim... but on peg 21 there were reeds all the way along. However I did ten minutes gardening with the hand shears I carry and this enabled me to peer over the reeds, grass and thistle, to a spot in the reeds to my right which offered a shallow area 18 inches cross. There was also a tiny spot about a foot square just to my left beyond a tuft of grass, which I had to trim by laying on the bank and reaching precariously over.

Most of my fish came from the gap between the tuft of grass and the reeds.

I fed to my left  (the easier swim as it was fishable on a top two) right against the reeds, but started at the bottom of this shelf, immediately hitting a carp, then an F1, then a barbel. To my right Trevor (who has the best record in Spratts) started shallow and within ten minutes was hitting fish regularly.

Fish came intermittently, mainly carp to 4 lb, and I tried  the shallow water to my left. This produced the odd fish, but got better as the day went on. Eventually I swapped to corn, as it’s more positive than a bunch of deads, which tends to attract roach as it falls. I tried the shallow swim to my right and immediately caught a 1 lb barbel. Next drop-in saw a fish which was quite unstoppable and took me into the reeds beyond the swim and snagged me – almost certainly a foulhooked barbel. They grow big in here - my best today was easily 4 lb, while Peter Barnes had one around 6 lb. Later I managed a 2 lb F1 here, but nothing else, probably because even the shallow water sloped away quickly, and it’s difficult to know exactly where to fish.

The obvious solution in these difficult sloping, bumpy swims is to suspend a bait off bottom, and let it drift slowly into the slope, but even this didn’t work in this swim. So it was back to the near margin on the left, and gradually I managed to catch more fish in 18 inches of water with the float touching the reeds. There was little more than eight inches of the swim flat, then it sloped away heavily. By now the heat was intense – 29 degrees was forecast for 3 pm and it felt like it.

Ninety-year-old Ted had over 100 lb.

I wear a long-sleeved shirt, long trousers,  a wide-brimmed hat, and apply liberal quantities of sun cream to my face and in particular the back of my hand. I have had two cancers and have two more (slight only) and don’t particularly wish to add skin cander as a fifth. But it does mean that I get hot, and I wasn’t sad when the match ended.

With 40 lb in the first net and 38 lb in the second I had gone for a third net, certain I was behind Trevor, who caught on feeder when his shallow swim died, and then hammered fish in the side in the last 90 minutes. I stayed in the margin or the near deep water, which I fed with a bait dropper so as to not attract roach with slowly-falling bait, and had an estimated 36 lb in the third net when the match ended.

Peter Barnes' best barbel must have
weighed around 6 lb.

John Smith weighed 147 lb opposite me, though he was about 10 lb over in his nets. Trevor weighed 145 lb 7 oz, and was also over. I assumed I was well behind, especially after having overestimated my weights the previous day. So imagine my surprise when the last 36 lb net was 52 lb (!), my first 40 lb net was 53 lb(!) and I needed 45 lb 8 oz to beat Trevor. The third net weighed 47 lb 3 oz – and I was 3 oz ahead of John, and leading!

Now a nasty surprise

Bob Nudd was taking a couple for tuition on the next lake, and packing up, so I went for a quick word, not having seen Bob for over a year. We had some good trips together when I was on the magazines – and in fact Bob and I did the first-ever feature on packeted groundbait at a time when the only alternative was white breadcrumb, or brown breadcrumb or crushed dog biscuits. It was Van den Eynde Supercup, and I raved about it.  How times change.

The result - nine weights of 100 lb.

There were three more to weigh after me, and when I got back I found two had beaten me! The end two pegs produced 166 lb (on Peter’s paste) and 169 lb (caught in the shallow water. I like peg 30 and have won more than one match from it –a good angler on a good peg and it was all over. Very well done Peter Chilton.

Conclusion

I should probably have concentrated more on the deeper swim, to rest the tiny shallow area. But I was reluctant to do this as so many fish there were barbel, which are a devil to land.

I also had a severe problem about an hour from the end. My finger nails tend to crack and split – probably the effects of a fairly-high dose of Thyroxin which I’ve been taking for ten years since having my thyroid removed. I was trying to hold a fish to unhook it; the fish wriggled; and I felt a searing pain in my left forefinger. A split in the nail, which I hadn’t seen, had caught in the landing net and the nail tore part of the way across, over the ‘quick.’ It bled a bit, but I carry plasters with me, so covered it with plaster and held it in place with insulation tape.

It meant that I had trouble tying a hook when I lost one, and unfortunately it will probably be a couple of monnths before the nail grows back to a sufficient length to allow me to trim it.

Good news(sort of)

The torn finger nail means I have had to experiment with two hook-tiers I managed to find in my box. I have no idea why they were there, as I’ve never used one because I find it quicker to tie by hand on the bank. But after trying a Dremman and a Matchman for half-an-hour this morning, I have settled on the Matchman.

I rarely use hooklengths in the Summer, preferring to fish straight-through, and was surprised how easy it now seems using the Matchman hook-tier. In fact I’ve renewed the hooks on several rigs already, and it was probably as quick as tying them by hand. I’m slowly being dragged into the Twentieth Century!!😊😊😊