I get bad wind - Six Island, Decoy

 Peg 9, Six-Island, Decoy, Friday, August 6th

I reckon that the old saying about buses also applies to swims. You go weeks without having a peg you really fancy, or would have chosen yourself, and then, bugga me, they start coming along one after the other. BUT the old saying doesn't point out that there's a catch - there always is!

Corner swim 9, before the storm came upon us.

Take the peg drawn for me in this 16-entry Spratts match. I  must have fished that lake, which has 25 pegs, a hundred times in the last 25 years, and only once have I ever drawn Peg 9, and I won from it. Every time I have a match there I hope to draw Peg 9..unless the South-West wind is really bad. Which it was on Friday!!! It's not a particularly noted swim - just that I have always fancied drawing it again.

My right margin - most fish came the near the bush.

I remember, many years ago, when Peg 1 on Willows was noted for usually producing barbel, and I drew it on a day when frost had turned the grass white and there was absolutely zero chance of a barbel taking a bait. And while history didn't repeat itself exactly, Peg 9 on this day was certainly not easy to fish. The wind was blowing a hoolie right into the corner, and sometimes right into my face, and two or three bouts of torrential rain were so fierce that I heard someone talking afterwards who assumed it had been hail.

A good start on the feeder
But I'm not complaining, as I like a challenge (though preferably in the dry). To be honest the conditions were good for fish feeding - it just felt right. And within five minutes I was playing a fish hooked on a Method feeder with a washed-out yellow wafter. Another ten minutes without a bite and as Shaun on my right had a fish close-in I switched to the pole, with a 0.5 gram Tuff Eye float and corn, on about three feet of water.

The sun came out at the end (Sod's Law).
Here Wendy shows a good fish taken on feeder.

The right margin looked good, with a small bush and a nice clump of grass. but it meant fishing into the wind. Nevertheless during the times when the gusts abated I managed to catch fish - good ones from 4 lb to 6 lb. Shaun also had some good fish close in, and also about seven metres out. Opposite, John Smith had a sudden purple patch, taking two or three fish one after the other, before apparently starting to struggle.

I turn my back

When the heaviest rain started I was playing a fish, but my 30-year-old Goretex jacket with torn lining still kept me dry. It was impossible to fish to the right during that storm (and there was no way I was going to risk putting up an umbrella) so I turned my back to the rain and had a look in the left margin, against a line of reeds, where the water was a bit shallower. That brought just an odd touch on the float, but no fish. But it also completely flattened Shaun's umbrella. Somehow he resurrected it for the next downpour, but I fear the damage my prove to be terminal!

Alan Porter on Peg 6 had 65 lb 10 oz mainly on a feeder.

Then it was out at ten metres to the end bank, on my left, and in the first two casts two carp came in, of 4 lb and 2 lb. But after that seemed that some undertows suddenly started, and the float was being pushed all ways. In any event no more fish came. I had tried fishing a stationary bait in the right margin, and never had a touch; but when the bait was allowed to drift around I had bites. However I couldn't control the rig sufficiently well towards the end bank, and gave it up.

My big mistake

During the lulls in the wind and rain I picked up another fish or two from the right margin, and eventually turned to the left, where I had been dropping in corn. I had half-a-dozen fish there in the last two hours, including two or three on cat meat (which I had to move about to get a take), but I made the mistake of fishing too close to the marginal reeds. I am now sure that the fish were dropping down into the deeper water six or eight  feet from the bank, as I found out at the end that a lot of the anglers had most of their fish in the deeper water. Indeed the fish I caught seemed to be moving out slightly, down the slope but I didn't take the bull by the horns and target them properly down in the deep water.

Shaun landing his last fish, which beat me!

And here it as - all 7 lb 12 oz of it, landed after the match finished.

All day long I had tiny touches on the float which I am certain were carp mouthing the bait. They looked a bit like roach bites, but in my experience roach tend to jag the float about, and these were gentle dips which, when they eventually turned into proper bites, invariably produced a carp. Trouble was so often they didn't turn into a proper bite.

Shaun's second-placed 87 lb 6 oz, all taken on a mysterious home-made paste.

Peter Harrison, with three nets, waits on Peg 18 for the scales to arrive.

Beaten on the bell

I couldn't see what most of the others had been doing, but I guessed that Shaun, fishing paste all day, had beaten me as every time I looked round I seemed to be just in time to see him strike and hit a fish. In fact he was playing one when the match ended. That went into his third net, on its own, and was weighed at 7 lb 12 oz...and that fish allowed him to beat me!

Shaun weighed 87 lb 6 oz to my surprising 82 lb 14 oz. Then the weights stayed below mine until we came to Peter Harrison on 18, who totalled 99 lb 8 oz for the win. That left me in third spot, and I felt that if I had been just a little braver, and had fed a deeper swim close to me I could have possibly won. 

Winner Peter Harrison with his best fish.

Peter Barnes - almost last to weigh. And who could resist
 that happy, smiling face?

So I was happy to a) have a swim drawn for me that I would have chosen and b) framed in difficult conditions, though three of the top five of us were had the wind into us. The next match was to be on Elm lake, where I won on Peg 12 two or three weeks ago. Would Fate be kind to me again (yes it would) and would I cock it up (what do you think?)

THE RESULT

2 Wendy Bedford         27 lb 12 oz
3 Peter Spriggs            59 lb 9 oz
4 Mike Rawson         17 lb 2 oz
6 Alan Porter             65 lb 10 oz        5th
8 Shaun Buddle          87 lb 6 oz        2nd
9 Mac Campbell        82 lb 14 oz      3rd
10 John Smith            56 lb 6 oz
12 John Garner          64 lb 4 oz
13 Trevor Cousins     70 lb 11 oz      4th
15 Joe Bedford           7 lb 13 oz
17 Bob Allen              44 lb 3 oz
18 Peter Harrison       99 lb 8 oz      1st
19 Mick Ramm         12 lb 13 oz
22 Martin Parker       50 lb
24 Peter Barnes         53 lb 14 oz
25 Bob Barrett          43 lb 6 oz