Pleased with the final (surprising) result – Beastie, Decoy

Peg 30

At last – a peg I quite fancied! I said before the match that my two favourite pegs on Beastie are 2 and 18, but 30 is certainly one of the most consistent pegs on the lake. Also, although you need a trolley - or several journeys -  to the swim, it’s only a short walk and the platform is on a level with the ground. On the strips in particular the platforms are often a short drop from the surrounding bank and, especially if they are slippery, it’s a hassle to have to keep dropping down to heave your box into position, and to position your nets and other stuff. So Peg 30 it was. And I was happy.

Fifteen of us were around the lake, and the surface was flat calm. But the night had been cool and I didn’t expect huge catches. Beastie after the heat of Summer often fishes better at either the Northern end or the Southern end. The water was fairly clear compared with recently, and I just hoped for some ripple before the match finished.

Hardly any wind all match in my swim - a lovely Autumn day, but difficult fishing.

Peg 30 has good margins so I started by putting dead maggots in the left margin, behind the platform line, as I know that barbel can congregate there. Then I put pellets and corn out to 10 metres, where I found a slight incline. But the first drop was into the right deep margin – well over five feet of water, with a 4mm pellet and just half-a-dozen potted in. Within 30 seconds I was playing a fish, which turned out to be a 4 lb mirror, foulhooked.

I dot the float right down

More drops in there – nothing! So I re-potted out on the long line and had a look in the left margin. Roach immediately started playing with my bunch of dead maggots, and I hooked one, eventually. So I gave that up and concentrated on the long line for the next hour. Bites were slow coming but the next hour produced about four carp to 8 lb. I had to dot the float down to a pimple, and a couple of times added vaseline to the tip to keep it in the surface film, as if I was fishing a canal for roach.

The carp were only just dipping the float, and some were probably liners, but I was adding a fish every 15 minutes. Meanwhile Bill Foster to my left on 29, had a fish on a feeder and after about two hours I walked up to see him, and he said that was his only fish.

Bill Foster found this munter on Peg 29, on a pole.

So it was back to the long line, and when I added hemp I could clearly see the fizzing – if I managed to keep the float in that area I always got a bite eventually. By now the wind had got up, although the surface was flat, and it was skimming leaves across the surface, and amazingly there was a slight undertow.

Corn the best bait
Corn was the best bait, and I had to wait until the tow tightened the line, when the float dragged under, and I lifted it a quarter of an inch to show above the surface again – that was when I got the bite. They appeared to need the bait to move to stimulate them to bite.

Mel Lutkin was on Peg 24, an area which fished poorly.

An hour without a bite
In the middle of the match I went an hour without a bite, and every now and then I had a look in the margins but apart from one foulhooked carp from the left, which came off, they produced nothing more than one small perch, which also came off. James came down to talk to his Dad on 2, so I guessed he was struggling, though I had an idea, from the splashing, that Dave was catching the odd big fish.Then some ripple appeared in my long swim, which brought the bites back, but it soon disappeared.

With 70 minutes to go I estimated I had 38 lb in one net and about 8 lb in the other, and had yet another look to the right margin. I put in some corn, and got a liner. Next drop-in a carp came in – about 8 lb. I then spent several minutes trying for another, but decided to go long, and took a couple of good F1s.

Another drop to the right and a double-figure fish took cat meat, but it took several minutes to land. In went some cat meat and I went long for another F1, then back to the margin.

Twenty minutes to go, and things hotted up. Two more good carp came in, and then another took my elastic!! It pulled the knot through my puller bung, up the pole, and ripped out the internal bush from the end of the pole!! Lost the lot. Never had that before.

A frantic last few minutes

Now there were seven minutes to go and I quickly put together a top two I had spare with a strong rig on, and a tight bungee elastic intended for snaggy swims. In a short while  I had  hit and landed another carp of about 5 lb. Then back out and I missed two bites, and then about one second before the “all-out” was shouted the float dipped again and I struck just as the shout went up. I shouted “Fish On” immediately, but it was ten minutes before I landed that fish of about 9 lb. The tight elastic meant it never got steam up to tire itself, and it plodded around for ages before finally making one run which stretched the elastic much farther then I could have imagined possible. But the rig held firm.

It had been the most beautiful Autumn day – hardly any wind, with a little sun in the afternoon. But although I was quite warm, John Smith, facing me on the other end of the lake on Peg 15, told me afterwards he had a fair amount of wind and became quite chilly at times. I had found it very hard, but by making the rig as sensitive as possible I think I took as many fish as I could have done, given the flat calm, cool, water.

Neil Garner was on Peg 26, which can be brilliant, but
not today! Neil totalled 32 lb 1 oz.

The weigh-in

That ten minutes playing the last fish put me even further behind than I would normally be. And by the time I caught up with the scales Tony on peg 18 had weighed in 142 lb 13 oz, taken at about 9 metres in front of him, presumably on his usual pellet, or possibly corn. He had fish steadily throughout the day.

Dave on 2 had, as I had guessed,  hit occasional big fish from the word go and weighed 99 lb 13 oz, while Kevin on 14 had found big fish late and was also playing one at the end of the match. He had two full nets for 100 lb.

The corner pegs along the 20s fished hard, while Bill next to me had found fish on a pole in the last couple of hours for40 lb 14 oz. I doubted whether I could beat James who had 86 lb 4 oz. My second net which I had estimated at 43 lb was taken out first, to delighted shouts of “Error.” In fact those fish weighed 56 lb, knocked back to 50 lb. A quick calculation, and I needed 36 lb 7 oz to beat James, and it would be close.

Nope – more shouts of “Error” and that was also knocked back to 50 lb, tying me with Kevin for second place. A surprising result, but very welcome.

The South-Western corner of the lake fished very hard.

KEY POINTS (mainly for my own reference)

Hemp definitely brought fish in, and although I fed after every fish, if bubbles were still appearing I put in just about a dozen grains of corn, to try to avoid foulhookers caused by the fish getting excited. This seemed to work very well.

When the fish disappeared hemp didn’t bring them back, and I stopped feeding, looking in the margins more often. In fact I should probably have started another long line elsewhere.

The lamb and mint cat meat was very light in weight, and I think heavier Coshida would have been better (I forgot I had a tin of this in my bag).

I should have had a heavy rig ready to use – I normally do, but have been trying to cut down on the packing up afterwards. I must simply fish to my strengths, even if it means I am always last in club matches to pack up (in Opens I am average because they have more stuff  on the bank).