Peg 4
This was a rod-and-line waggler-only match, and although it's not my favourite method, I had three
made up – two with small wagglers for the inside line and a 3-AAA Ivan Marks
waggler for the deeper water, which starts only a few feet from the side. But
on plumbing up I got a bit of a surprise – the shallow margins seemed to drop
down more quickly than I had remembered, and the deep line wasn’t as deep.
Perhaps the inevitable corrosion of the shelf is taking place.
One side-effect was that the margins, which now dropped down
to about five feet, were quite bumpy, so it was difficult to know just how much
line was on the bottom, or how far off bottom the bait was. But the outside
line was more level. Two pegs to my right Tony Nisbet started on the
outside line, fishing at about five metres, and soon contacted fish. I started
inside and had two early 1 lb carp on corn but then nothing. There was a nice wave
on the water, and conditions looked good.
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| Mike Rawson pulls in my nets at the end of the match. By then the cold wind had decreased and the fish were feeding well for me at the end. |
Tony Nisbet finding fish already
Eventually I had to have a look long, as Tony must have had
ten fish in the first hour, and had a bite immediately on corn, which I missed,
and then a 3 lb mirror. At that point I had to see a man about a dog, and
wandered up to John on Golden Peg 1. He had had just one fish, but Allan next
door was playing a fish which, he told me afterwards, was his fifth, which was
followed by a long blank spell.
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| Allan Golightly, to my left on Peg 2, had a good start but then his sport tailed off completely. |
I went back and had a few more on my 13 ft waggler just over
the shelf, but then the fish vanished. After a considerable time fishless I saw
Callum, next door, net a nice-looking golden mirror from a swim very close to
the bank, so I had another look inside. Eventually, after putting in a few
grains of corn and expanders every 30 seconds, the fish came in and I had a
good spell – perhaps 25 lb in 45 minutes.
Suddenly it gets very cold
Then the wind suddenly got up and became very cold and I had
just two fish in the next two hours!
Callum next door also had a poor time, but Tony was still catching carp like
roach: one after the other. Then he went
for a third net. I saw later that his fish were smaller than mine – mainly
between 1 lb and 2 lb, while mine were between 2 lb and 3 lb with the
occasional four-pounder.
At 2 o’clock the wind
became warmer and dropped a little, and bites suddenly started again, but only
slowly, and I firstly foulhooked a 4 lb barbel on a bunch of maggots in the
deep swim, and then caught a few small carp and just one more barbel, on corn.
For the last two hours I alternated between the two swims, where a very small waggler
with a long thin antenna showed me I was getting bites on the drop on the
inside swim, which didn’t materialise into proper bites. But I had enough
proper ones to add another 25 lb in the last hour, but only one on cat meat, in the long swim.
The fish were chunky and fought like tigers.
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| John Smith - third with 83 lb 1 oz after losing several which took his line round the aerator which sits not very far out. |
As before on this lake I noticed the fish seemed to hog a
certain line in the shallow swims – a foot inside or farther out and you couldn’t
get a bite. I’d get two fish on an expander, and have to change to corn for the
next couple. They were very finicky. And I got the impression that sparse loose
feeding was better than putting in bigger amounts of hemp and corn.
The weigh-in
John on 1 had 83 lb 1 oz, best 10 lb, and had lost several fish which
took him round the aerator. Although it was windy and cold here during the
match, he had a just little shelter from the high bank opposite. I weighed 74 lb 4 oz, which ended in fourth place,
and Tony weighed in a wonderful 136 lb 9 oz to win; he told me he fished with bulk down to
about six inches from the hook, and set it so the bulk was just off bottom. I
saw that he was getting fish as the rig drifted in the wind.
Next door Dave Garner, who always fishes waggler, took all
his 100-plus on cat meat. He was several pounds over his net limits and was
credited with 100 lb for second. He fished with a shot on bottom to hold the
bait still. He’s a whizz on the method.
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| Tony Nesbit - winner with 136 lb 1 oz. |
But as I walked along with the scales I suddenly realised it felt five degrees warmer as we walked towards the North bank, which gave shelter
from the wind – and there water here was much calmer.
We have our final Fenland
Rods match there next Sunday – the Les Bedford Memorial – so if the wind is
still Northerly I won’t be upset if I get a swim at that end of the lake.
My small waggler
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| The result. I am there again on Sunday, when 14 are expected to fish the Les Bedford Memorial. |
I was so impressed with the waggler I bought specially for
this match that I have made up a pole rig using it, fixed at the base of the
antenna and at the bottom, like a normal pole float. Using it took me back to
the days when I used to catch roach on the Fen drains, using very long antenna
floats (before they were called wagglers) and watching each small shot sink the
next bit of the antenna. I got into our National Championship team several
years fishing exclusively for roach on the drop using floats like that.
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| A proper antenna float for seeing bites on the drop. |
This float (left) perfectly showed those tiny shot sinking. I look
forward to using it Tuesday on Willlows at Decoy, if conditions allow. But I think that my 3AAA waggler was probably overgunned for the lake on this occasion.
One other thing – I had a pint of casters with me but
stupidly didn’t use them. I am fairly sure they would have got the fish feeding
in the margins during my blank spells.
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