Sixteen of us were in Festive mood for this last Spratts match of the season - it's always followed by the distribution of prizes in the club house, and mince pies if we're lucky. And this year there was the added bonus of a four-man team event with every team winning cash - a legacy of last year's part-completed season brought to a sudden stop by Covid.
The morning started off cool, with hardly any breeze, and my Peg 7 had a back wind - just about the only positive I could find before the match, because I would have chosen a peg a little farther down the lake. In fact the breeze became very cold, and by the end of the match the poor wretches sitting on the opposite bank, facing it, must have been shivering. I was reasonably warm, though, at the end, although my second and third keepnets lay unused on the bank.
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| Not much wind, but what there was was very cold. |
As usual, this match started with a bang when Bob Allen fired up his rockets that could have been heard in Peterborough.
In Winter I like to fish the strips at 14.5 metres if I can, as the fish so often seem to hog the middle area. Peter Harrison, beside me on 5, did the same. I started on a maggot feeder, but when Peter took his first carp after about 30 minutes, on his pole, I followed suit, baiting with two red maggots. I started by using a small pot on the pole to bait with, but after a couple of times doing that I found that it took so long, and I had to be so careful shipping out, that I put out bait in a bigger pot - just a dozen maggots and a little hemp.
The result was a small roach, and then a 3 lb carp foulhooked in the tail, which I played with my heart in my mouth, as I hadn't seen much else caught, and over an hour had gone.
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| Peter Harrison whupped me on Peg 5, taking about eight fish around 7 lb each. |
Peter took two or three more carp, all around 7 lb, and then, at last, I hit a big one. The float just slowly drifted under and the 17 hollow Preston elastic stretched way out, almost to Peter's swim - and he was two swims away. But then the elastic came slowly back, and I could feel that it was a big fish. I had a problem breaking the pole down, and in fact at one point had to push it right out to 14.5 metres again and start taking the sections off one by one. But it worked., and in the landing net I estimated the fish at around 14 lb.
Next drop and the float went down and another big fish pulled out the elastic. I immediately started to ship the pole back, tried to take off the bottom two sections, but couldn't do it immediately because of the pressure the fish was putting on the pole. It took me several seconds to take them off, and the fish came off. I should have just held it for 30 seconds, and shipped the pole back when the strain had been taken off it a little. A schoolboy error with fish that size.
An hour or more followed without another bite - I tried corn, and also had a look in the margins where I had potted in dead maggots. I also started another line at top-two-plus-three, with corn, but never had a bite. meanwhile Peter had had another three or four fish. Then a 2 lb F1 came to my feeder, but nothing else.
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| Oldest man was 90-year-old Joe Bedford, who framed in fifth place. |
Approaching the last hour and out of the blue I had a bite on the pole which resulted in another double-figure mirror in the landing net. But, again, the fish seemed to have vanished. Suddenly other anglers started catching - Martin had a couple opposite me, and to his right Trevor Cousins had started catching on a feeder. Half an hour left, and I put the feeder out again, and got a real hummer of a bite - the rod was pulled nearly off the rest.
I picked up the rod and felt an enormous power. The fish just kept swimming - I couldn't hold it. It went across to Martin and I had to call out a warning to him. Then it shot up to where Peter was fishing and turned just in time to avoid fouling his line. Then it went the other way - right across the lake again and almost to Trevor, who must have been 50 yards away. Just before ploughing into Trevor's keepnets it shot back to my side of the lake and threatened to shoot through Steve Engledow's swim, to my left.
I felt I simply had to hold it, and the rod bent absolutely double as I plunged it beneath the surface and refused to give line. Then the inevitable happened - the hooklength broke at the hook. Definitely the hairiest fight I can remember having, ever. Later I assumed that the fish must have been foulhooked - but how unlucky to have that happen when fishing a feeder!!! But whatever it was, it was bi-i-i-g.
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| Top weight in my team was Peter Barnes with 34 lb 12 oz. |
So when the match finished (signified by a five-minute display of Bob's coloured rockets that were very impressive) I had just five fish, including the roach, and Peter on my right had about eight or nine, around 7 lb. The favoured pegs were to my left, so I was obviously out of the running, but assumed that Peter would be well up.
Then Peter told me that someone to his right had caught "all day." That was Mike Rawson in Peg 1 - a swim which can certainly produce in the Summer, and when Mike sat down there at the start and we were discussing it I said I had in the back of my mind that it could produce in the Winter, but couldn't remember any details.
Mike kindly came down to help me get back to the van, picked up my rods and pole holdall, and as we approached his peg there came a shout of "hurry up" from Bob Allen, who takes down the weights but who likes to get away quickly. As we got there I said I wanted to take a picture of the winner, and Bob told me quite forcibly that I was in the wrong place, then, and that Shaun Buddle, who was almost opposite him, would turn out to have won.
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| Shaun Buddle would have won if he hadn't lost seven big fish. In the end he was fourth. |
Despite his murmurings of dissent I got a picture of Mike, just in case Bob was wrong. To be honest, though, I now assumed that Shaun had probably won. The really good thing about that incident was that we knew we had the real Bob Allen with us, and not some clone substituted by aliens, cos no-one does "Hurry Up I Want To Get Home To Tea" quite like Bob does!
Anyway, Mike weighed 83 lb 1 oz and was obviously chuffed, because irrespective of the result it was a cracking weight on the day. Peter Harrison weighed 57 lb 2 oz, a little less than I had assumed, and my five fish weighed much more than I had assumed - 34 lb 3 oz. The biggest fish must have been almost 16 lb. I actually finished seventh with that.
I took a picture of 90-year-old Joe Bedford with his five for 44 lb 15 oz and we made our way round to Shaun on the other bank. His catch totalled 51 lb 4 oz, so he hadn't won. But he told me that he had lost seven big fish, which would be why Bob thought he had. Then on to Trevor, whose last-hour purple patch on the feeder had brought him 70 lb 10 oz.
No-one else could beat those weights, so that left Mike as the winner of our biggest match of the year, and his first Spratts match win. Now Mike has nearly an hour's drive to Decoy, and on the way he used to like to stop for a Costa Coffee. But Covid suddenly meant that he had to order his drink by using an app on his mobile, and that created a problem, 'cos something went wrong the first time he tried it, and now Costa was off the menu.
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| Mike's first Spratts win - 83 lb 1 oz of beautiful Decoy carp from Peg 1, which was at the other end of the lake from the pegs most of us fancied. |
PS. Just as well I don't hanker after a Costa Coffee because I would have no idea how to even download an app to my mobile, let alone use it. If I need something like that doing I get my 14-year-old granddaughter to do it for me.
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| The full results, including the four-man teams. |
Afterwards Terry Tribe, who has been in hospital poorly sick, came to see the presentations, and he asked why I hadn't used worm as a change bait over the maggot swim. I have worm with me, from my own wormery, and agreed I should have done so. In fact all sorts of baits took fish - Mike used maggot on a feeder, insisting that a flourocarbon hooklength was the reason he did so well.
Joe Bedford had used hard pre-drilled pellets for his fish, while Trevor had used double sweetcorn, and Shaun had taken some on paste and others on pellet. So although the water must have been cold, the fish were obviously not feeding only on small baits.
The new owners of Decoy did us proud, with lovely hot potato wedges, and mince pies. Everyone had a substantial prize, and the team winners were announced as Mike Rawson,. Steve Engledow, Shaun Buddle and Wendy Bedford (who caught her one fish 15 minutes before the end of the match).
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| I've taken so many pictures of Trevor smiling with a winning catch that I thought I'd offer a different side - his backside. |
I forgot to take a picture of the prizes, but did remember to remind everyone of Mark Parnell, who we lost this year, and of Ted Lloyd, who at nearly 94 simply can't now summon up the energy to come to the matches. And without exception we all thanked Trevor for doing us proud yet again - this is the most friendly club you could ever imagine, thanks entirely to Trevor, who books all the matches and then runs them with no problems of any sort. We are very lucky.
I then wolfed down the last of the potato wedges, followed them with two mince pies, and made my way to Judy's cafe, where a cup of tea awaited. And so ended a great season with Spratts. I'm booked in Sunday to fish with JV club on Cedar, but I am not looking forward to it if the forecasts of Zero degrees and high winds are correct. Here in the Fens there's nothing between us and the North Pole.
THE RESULT
28 Alan Porter 34 lb 1 oz 3 Mick Ramm 22 lb 2 oz
26 Wendy Bedford 8 lb 12 oz 5 Peter Harrison 57 lb 2 oz 3rd
24 Martin Parker 20 lb 12 oz 7 Mac Campbell 34 lb 3 oz
22 Trevor Cousins 70 lb 12 oz 2nd 9 Steve Engledow 13 lb 1 oz
20 Peter Barnes 34 lb 12 oz 11 Joe Bedford 44 lb 15 oz 5th
18 Shaun Buddle 51 lb 4 oz 4th 13 Bob Barrett 7 lb 14 oz
16 John Garner 11 lb 6 oz 15 Bob Allen 17 lb 11 oz
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