The learner driver had just finished his driving test (as he thought) and leaned back in his seat to see the driving examiner smiling and nodding happily. "Now," said the examiner, casually, "What would you do if you were driving and Mr Fog came down?"
The learner was keen to humour the examiner, so thought he'd reply in the same, jocular vein: "Well, if Mr Fog came down I'd place Mr Right Leg on Mr Brake and press. Then I would take Mr Left Foot and place it on Mr Clutch and press while taking Mr Left hand and taking hold of Mr Gear Change, moving it to a lower gear. Then I'd release Mr Left Foot and place Mr Right foot on Mr Accelerator Pedal."
The examiner look straight at the learner driver, and never moved a face muscle. He remained poker-faced for several seconds.
Then he said, in a slow, posh voice: "For the removal of doubt I will repeat the question:
"What - would - you - do - if - mist - or - fog - came - down?"
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There was plenty of mist or fog (or both) as I drove to Decoy on Saturday, with a virgin following me in a van behind. That's a virgin match angler, you understand - Alan Smith from my village has been fishing with me a couple of times and thought he'd like to fish a match. So he guested in this Fenland Rods roving match on Beastie, the oldest lake on the complex.
Eleven of us had our name drawn out of the cocoa tin, and Callum Judge drew out the first milk bottle top to see who would have first pick of the pegs 1 to 17. He drew out his own, and promptly picked Peg 17, next to where Peter Spriggs had had 180 lb a few weeks ago.
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| My lefthand margin, with tall reeds flopping over. |
Soon after, Alan's name came out and Allan Golightly and I agreed that Peg 5 was a good choice for Alan, who knew nothing about the lake. It had a good reputation, with a tree on either side to fish to, and the island to cast to on a feeder. Alan has no pole - just a feeder rod and a waggler rod. Allan chose Peg 1 for himself, and I was about the sixth name to be drawn.
I had several options left I would have been particularly happy with - 2, 6, 8, 13 and one or two of the pegs still left on the spit facing the main lake - that is the four pegs 14 to 17. There was no wind to suggest that the fish might prefer one area, so I took peg 2. It's one of my favourites, and the swim where I had my first ever 100 lb. Bryan Lakey was sitting behind me at the time and was as chuffed as I was, because 100 lb then (about 20 years ago) was a very good weight - perhaps equivalent to 200 lb now. Not rare, but not common.
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| My best spot in the right margin is just hidden by the reeds growing next to the platform. |
You will see from the pictures that Peg 2 is fairly hemmed in, with tall reeds flopping into the water just to the left and rather sturdier reeds a few metres to the right. I didn't put Alan here because it's not possible to fish accurately to the margins with a waggler. He would have been hooking the reeds. He would really have needed a pole to get the best out of this swim.
The mist (or fog) remained quite dense until just before the start when the Sun put his hat on and came out to play. There was hardly a breath of wind - a beautiful Autumn day.
I started, as always in this swim, at 13 metres looking for bream. And fishing a 4mm expander on a size 12 hook and dropping in just half-a-dozen loose ones from a tiny pole cup, and found a 1 lb bream within two or three minutes. Immediately I potted in about a quarter of a large pot of pellets and hemp - enough to keep the bream there I hoped as I am just as happy catching them as carp. Soon after, though, came a 6 lb carp, and next drop a 3 lb bream, followed by a foulhooked fish lost.
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| We didn't weigh my best fish - it was probably 15 lb-plus. |
The Yellow Preston 17 elastic worked well, but I was nervous about fish taking me round the reed beds, or into them, so I changed to Matrix Orange Slix (rated 18-22 I think) which is so much softer than it sounds, and I felt that was perfect.
Two hours after the start, with an estimated 35 lb in my first net a huge carp came from the left margin. I landed this much more quickly than I did the six-pounders, and estimated at probably 15 lb-plus, so had to put it into a second net to avoid exceeding the club's 50 lb limit.
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| Callum had first choice of swims and made it pay with 88 lb 13 oz for second spot. |
I have asked several times whether that 50 lb limit could be amended because there are now a lot of fish well over double figures, and it's so easy to estimate a fish at 14 lb when it might be 16 lb and so go slightly over the limit. It happens to all of us - and it seems so unfair that fish have been caught but not counted. I will always aim for 50 lb maximum because I can't lift out more than that. But I have seen anglers who rarely frame lose weight, which saddens me greatly. The reply has always been 'No: It's 50 lb!'
However, others brought up the question at the draw for this match and it appeared afterwards that our limit, for this match at least, was put up to 55 lb at that time - but I didn't hear that. I have no idea if that will carry on. In any case I will still aim for 50 lb per net.
Back to my swim, and at this point John Smith on Peg 8 came up and asked what I had. I said: "About 50 lb" and he nearly fell in. He hadn't had a fish, and said the others between the two of us were all struggling - Dick on 4 hadn't had a bite.
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| Kevin Lee's best fish, from Peg 14, weighed 16 lb exactly. |
It took some time, but just as I was thinking about going long again the fish started to oblige. As with both margin swims, I had a lot of liners, which assumes that fish are off bottom; yet the only way I could catch fish there was to fish several inches overdepth and to slowly twitch the bait along.
This twitch brought another fish well into double-figures on corn, and half-a-dozen fish from 4 lb to 7 lb including three in three casts on mussel. Then came a lull and as it was getting difficult to see the float in the left margin, because of the angle of the sun, I put in maggot close in to the end bank on a top two; but that brought only a roach, a perch, and a lost carp. A bunch of six maggots in the swim in front of me brought just one 3 lb barbel, and then sport tailed right off.
A change to cat meat on the hook and putting some meat in brought another fish or two and with half an hour left I literally said to myself: "I'll give it another few seconds before going back long". I carried on twitching the bait, closer to my keepnets than I had before, until it was no more than a metre away...and just as I was going to lift the rig out the float pulled under. That was the start of a manic 20 minutes which brought over 20 lb - four carp - all close in, and about two metres away from where I had been putting my bait! They all went into a fourth net.
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| Mike Rawson's 30 lb 4 oz from peg 9 next to the bridge. |
Allan Golightly must have had a terrible afternoon as he weighed 46 lb ll oz, after saying he around 50 lb halfway through the match. My fish weighed 135 lb 14 oz. Dick had found fish eventually on 4, finishing with 28 lb 1 oz, and Alan's first match ended with 15 lb 10 oz - two carp and some bream.
Small fish will stay in one spot picking out feed for hours on end - roach shoals will hang around for ages. But big carp are a) not shoal fish and b) will not stay long in one place. They come in, eat, and get out again - you can see that when they come into shallow water and wave their tails at you. They rarely stay there for long. It's probably an instinct to not stay in one place, to avoid predators.
When a matchman has a superb day catching fish in one place it's not because fish stay there feeding all day - it's because he's feeding sufficiently often to get carp which are swimming nearby to come in and investigate. You need only one fish in your swim to have a chance of catching it. And in warm weather carp in particular are prone to swim about here, there and everywhere. You can see them on the surface come into the bank, stay perhaps a minute or two, then drift out again. That is exactly what is happening under the surface.
You so often, on difficult days, need to keep feeding to ensure that there are fish coming in, because they probably won't stop for long.
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| The result of my last 20 minutes on quite a difficult day - 20 lb-plus. |
I haven't yet asked Alan how much he fed. I fed a big tin of hemp, nearly three tins of sweetcorn, about a pint of pellets and nearly a tin of cat meat. By modern standards that's actually not a lot, though it's more than I usually feed. For this match I never put in more than half a big pot of bait at a time - I just kept it going into all the swims I was fishing.
Up to John Smith in the corner, and his best fish we weighed at 16 lb 14 oz. Interestingly all the fish we are now weighing turn out to be heavier than our estimates - yet two months ago they all weighed lighter than we guessed. Obviously they are gobbling food ready for Winter (when we will be unable to catch them because they are not hungry).
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| John Smith struggled on Peg 8 at the start - but this 16 lb 14 oz common carp was some consolation! |
Round to the 'spit' and I was pleased to see Mike Rawson weigh in on Peg 9, which can be difficult because you have so many options there - including the channel under the bridge where big carp pass through. Hook one of those and you need your wits about you to stop them charging back under the bridge and breaking you.
Then the four pegs from 14 to 17 weighed, where top was Callum on 17 with 88 lb 13 oz, some of which were taken right in the side. He was closely followed by Kevin Lee with 84 lb 1 oz. So I ended as the winner, but I was more pleased with how I fished than with the result.
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| Mel Lutkin with 52 lb 3 oz. He organises our Christmas dinner and presentation night. We have decided this year not to have one because of the problems with Covid. But thanks for all you have done, Mel. |
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