A strange match on Oak, Decoy

Peg 24

 This was a drawn pairs match, with seven on each side of the strip, and I was paired with Kevin Lee, on Peg 14, next to the corner peg on the opposite side. This was after the consistent rain we’d had for a week, so the water must have been cool. The stiff wind was into me, from the left.

I know that pegs 20 to 22, around the bird hide, have often had an edge, but I was pleased with Peg 24 because there was a lovely length of bare bank to my left, up to peg 25, which plumbed up at about two feet deep. It meant fishing into the wind, but I started by putting dead maggot and hemp in two spots – on a top two, and on six sections near to the platform of peg 25. However  I started by putting a Method feeder with maggot out.

Peg 20 - reeds abd irises to the right and a lovely shallow margin to the left.

After ten biteless minutes I tried the shallow margin. I had been told that someone had won a match on Oak the previous day fishing maggot in two feet of water, so I was confident, although the wind was cool, and the air temperature quite a lot lower than the previous day.

Two early tench

However, within a few minutes I had a 1 lb tench from the top-two swim, but then nothing. Over to the six-section spot I had baited, and another 1 lb tench came in. But then nothing. About 45 minutes gone and I had to try to deep margin to my right – I had no shallow margin there.  I hadn’t seen much else caught.

I put in 6mm pellets and hemp, and fished corn over the top. This resulted in a 5 lb carp foulhooked, which I landed. In the next two hours I landed another five-pounder, hooked correctly, and lost two more probably foulhooked. Things were not looking good, and the wind seemed to have become colder – I had a T-shirt and two sweatshirts on, one with a hood, but I had to put on my Goretex jacket to keep warm; and Dave Garner, to my right, put on another sweatshirt.

Repeated forays into the shallow margin to my left produced nothing. I was getting desperate, and I could now see the anglers opposite and to my right – from pegs 7 to 14, all catching. I suspected that some of those fish were foulhooked, because of the length of time the fights were taking.

Dave Garner with a fish which must
have been 13 lb-plus, taken on cat meat.

I'm getting hammered on my right

Meanwhile Dave Garner, on my right on peg 22, had had several big carp on waggler fishing with meat in the deep margin just beyond a clump of rushes. I was fishing the same line, but eventually I decided I would have to do something else, so went out to three sections with pellet. This worked well, and in about half an hour I landed two carp around 5 lb and lost two. The only way I could get a bite was to pull the expander against the wind – I couldn’t pick up any undertow but the wind was so strong I reckoned there must have been one. Then that swim died.

The rest of the match was spent mainly in the deep margin using cat meat. I was getting tiny touches all the time – some liners and some I suspected being fish playing with the bait. I would get roughly one fish every half-hour, but lose two – all foulhooked (though one fish I was sure was foulhooked turned out to be hooked in the mouth). I tried fishing off bottom with corn, and managed to foulhook just one fish (and lose it); but I wasn’t getting many liners on this rig so I assumed that fish had, in fact, being playing with my bait. By now the wind had warmed just a little. I managed to land three foulhooked fish after long tussles in the wind.

Kevin Lee won with 174 lb 12 oz. The fish
on Oak were nearly all like this - and
really hard fighters in the oxygen-laden water.

With 90 minutes to go Kevin Lee went for a fourth net, and soon after, Tony Nisbet also went, to be followed a bit later by Dave Garner. I was getting a real thrashing, as I estimated the six carp and two tench in the first net were 34 lb, and the three carp in the second net about 21 lb.  I wasn’t going to be much help to my partner, as the pairs event was to be decided on points, and obviously Dave was way ahead of me, and I guessed most of the others were also. With 20 minutes to go I had nine carp and the two tench in my nets, and reckoned I had lost between 15 and 20 big carp!

Last-minute disappointment

Unable to think what to do I dropped the rig and a grain of corn in the deep water to my left, where I had not baited, and in came a 1 lb F1. Next drop in a 2 lb F1 took, and with ten minutes left I hooked a really big fish.

I am sure it was foulhooked, but after playing it for almost ten minutes it came to the top and I could see it was at least 10 lb Then, when I thought it might be coming to the net for the last time, the hook pinged out! Match over...

The weigh-in

By the time I had packed some stuff up and got to the scales I could see three 100 lb-plus weights on the far bank, and my partner Kev had yet another – 174 lb 12 oz, taken mainly on meat,  beating Tony Nisbet on the next peg by just 12 oz. Tony used his usual expanders, both as feed and on the hook. 

Then to my bank, where Dick Warrener on 20 weighed 131 lb, and Dave Garner 127 lb. I admitted to about 60 lb, so imagine my surprise when they totalled 81 lb 8 oz. The fish I had estimated at 5 lb must have been considerably bigger. They certainly fought as if they were on testosterone. The fact that it was more than I had thought was of little consolation, as I know that I had fish around my bait in the deep margin all day.

John Smith weighed 103 lb and
  knocked me down to 4th in my section.

Several anglers told me they had hardly a fish in the first three hours, and all those I spoke to said they had lost a lot of fish foulhooked. So perhaps The fact that I caught hardly any carp early on wasn’t all my fault – although the pegs towards the windward end did produce early on.

My mistakes

Afterwards I realised I should have tried a feeder down the margin; or paste; or worm; or hard pellet; or a big bunch of maggots; or (the worst error) put on a really heavy rig – 2 gm or more - to combat the underwater swirls caused by the stiff wind. 

I finished eighth, but we won the Pairs event! Peg 1
was paired with peg 22; Peg 4 with 20; 6 with 18;
7 with 30; 10 with 28; 12 with 26; and 14 with me on 24.
This ensured that no partners were fishing opposite each other.

In other words I fished like a sirry iriot (as Benny Hill would say). My next match is on Tuesday on the same lake and I have sorted a bigger rig, and hope I can avoid making the same mistakes two matches in a row.

The big surprise

John Smith, on 28, beat me, so I eventually finished fourth out of the seven on my bank. But imagine my surprise when the result was announced – Kevin and I had won the pairs event with 5 points! Dave and John Garner (no relations) were second on 6 points, and Dick Warrener and Clive Foster (who weighed 48 lb 6 oz, which was a very good performance on his part) were equal on 8 points with John Smith and Bill Foster. But John and Bill edged third place on weight.

So a most undeserved £30 will be coming my way at the annual presentation later in the year, thanks to Kevin.