Oh, what a grey day! Beastie, Decoy

Peg 6

Nine of us turned out to fish this Spratts club match, with the forecast for rain almost all day. We drew in almost dry conditions - just the odd spot, and with the wind forecast to be mainly Easterly, Trevor agreed to use pegs 1 to 8, plus 30 and 29, which should have a bit of shelter and a side wind. With nine of us, peg 1 was left out.

I was happy with 6, which has always been regarded as the deepest swim on the lake, but I fancied Trevor on 30 and Peter Spriggs on 5 would probably beat me, since both have good margins. We all erected out umbrellas before the start, with 2 to 8 being able to put them above and behind. Peg 6 has three steps down to it, then a sideways step onto the platform, which meant I had to be very careful getting down and setting up – but at least I was able to take the car directly to the swim.

Not much wind at the start, and my Flat-back umbrella kept me dry all through the match.
The raised lid is on my Octbox tray. It has an extension which keep the groundbait tray dry also
although I put my bait dropper, worm scissors, catapults and other bits and pieces in it.

The weather was calm to start with, though the rain increased slowly, and after putting maggots down the side I started out at 11.5 metres. To my surprise I did not have a touch; then a quick look inside with maggot produced one quick knock, probably from a roach, and after an hour I was fishless.

Terry Tribe, who knows every swim on
Beastie, struggled on Peg 4 for 25 lb 6 oz.

This called for a re-think, so I started flicking a few 4mm expanders out to three sections to my right, and after half an hour took a 1 lb bream. More bream came, mainly just a few ounces, then something which stretched the elastic and turned out to be a 2 lb tench. I carried on here, and manged to land two or three carp around 4 lb, plus one of around 13 lb, which gave me a few hairy moments as I was fishing a size 16 fine-wire hook. I think that will have to be the main attack for some of the time from now on – light hooks with small baits.

Peter to my left was landing fish, most of which were carp, fishing about four sections out with paste, but I carried on putting occasional fish in the net, including bream to 3 lb, on corn, and another tench, of 3 lb. Cat meat took a couple of F1s, but wasn’t as good as corn. With an hour to go I estimated I had around 50 lb and bites had slowed and I put some cat meat and corn out in deep water directly in front of me on a top two. A quick foray out to 11.5 metres again saw one bite from a fish which came off almost immediately.

Peter The Paste won from Peg 5. Guess what bait he used!

The wind increases

The rain had stopped by now, and a bit of wind blew up, but as it was mainly from the back there was little ripple in my swim. On pegs 29 and 30, Bob Barrett and Trevor Cousins had apparently had a nice first hour, but when the heavier rain started it somehow blew directly into their faces – very uncomfortable. It began to get very cold at one time and I was glad I had put on thermal vests and long pants, plus several sweat shirts under my Goretex.

Towards the end I had a knock on the top two line, which raised my hopes, and then hit two big scales on the top-two swim, which gave a good fight for about 15 seconds. But no more bites. So back to the main swim in the last couple of minutes, with a 4mm expander, and a 2 lb bream obliged.

I found that dragging the bait along was better than lifting it - not for the first time in recent weeks.

The weigh-in

No time to waste, as light rain was now falling, and after crawling up out of my peg several times to pack everything away I was able to catch up with the scales on Peg 4, where Terry Tribe had had a difficult day, weighing 25 lb 6 oz. I looked at the weigh sheet and was surprised to see that Trevor and Bob had both struggled on what are regarded as good pegs – but the seasons are changing, and with a huge amount of extra water in the lake (I had almost 9 feet) anything can happen.

Peg 8 produced this 18 lb 13 oz mirror for Mick Ramm on a pole.

Peter Spriggs weighed in 67 lb 8 oz on Peg 5, and I was surprised but happy to get 61 lb 15 oz for second spot. One to peg 8 (Peter Barnes DNWd on peg 7) where Mick Ramm had a magnificent 18 lb 13 oz mirror carp in his third-placed 45 lb 6 oz.

Peg nos were (from the top): 7, 29, 8, 4, 3, 30, 6, 2,. 5.
 The blanks were members who did not fish.

Good sport in the circumstances, which makes Decoy, in my book, still one of the best stillwater match venues in the country.

Next match is a waggler match on Damson, which will be a test as the margins are only inches deep in places, going down to two feet,  but the bottom then drops off to eight feet (probably ten feet after this rain) just a few feet out. I’m hoping a 13-foot waggler rod I found in the garage will cope with this, and I have put light waggler floats on two leger rods for the margins.