Winding down for Christmas on Horseshoe, Decoy

 Peg 4, Horseshoe, Sunday, Dec 19
Twenty-four of us fished this JV match, on Beastie and Decoy, and first cast with a maggot feeder saw me hit a good fish. What a start...then when it was halfway in the line went slack. Just like that! I still can't work out why the line should have broken - it was the same gear I'd landed 80 lb on just ten days previously. 

A quick trip back to the van for another feeder exactly the same saw me re-rig, but the next 90 minutes brought not even a liner. (I had other feeders with me, but I keep some in the van just to keep the weight of my box down). So it was out to 11 metres to the lillies where I had put in some dead reds, and immediately I had bites from small perch. Stupidly I left that swim in disgust after three fish in three put-ins; in fact I should probably have kept fishing there.

Peg 4 on a dank, dismal December morning.

Next I went to a swim about 15 feet from the bank, past a little drop-off, where two or three roach took the bait and promptly dropped off. One or two stuck on the hook, and halfway through the match a 3 lb F1 came in. But that was the end of my excitement for the day.

Roy Whincup shows his best carp, caught while fishing for roach.

Rob shows us how
Four swims to my left Rob Goodson was catching the occasional carp casting right across to the far bank, and I reckoned he was on a pop-up. He told me later that he did, in fact, fish one pop-up on a bomb about a foot off bottom, and later changed to a feeder (presumably a small banjo or something similar) with a pop-up just an inch up. I had a rod and reel all set up in my holdall especially for fishing pop ups. with line stops so I can quickly adjust the depth. But I didn't bother to get up and get it out.

Overall winner Rob Goodson, who I've known for years - a
brilliant angler and a great bloke. His carp weighed 51 lb 6 oz.
The light was very poor at this point - my excuse for the fuzziness.

To my right on peg 2 Roy Whincup ended up fishing for roach on a pole about six metres out, and hit a good carp, a smaller one or two, and a bream, plus several roach. He weighed 19 lb 1 oz - a brilliant result from that swim. But it was Rob Goodson who won the lake with 51 lb 6 oz. I totalled a measly 3 lb 13 oz for almost last. It appears that the fish have decided I should wind down for Christmas! Perhaps the break will get my brain into gear again!

On Beastie the weights were a little better allround, with Lee Kendall top on peg 5 with 43 lb 6 oz including an 18 lb 4 oz beauty on a size 18 hook with light hooklength. Back in the cafe we all won a prize - my box of biscuits, I confess, was particularly undeserved after the way I had fished.

Lee Kendall with that 18 lb 4 oz beauty from Beastie, landed on an 18 hook.

I've stripped off the line from that offending reel and put on some 6 lb Maxima ready for the coming bonanza(!).

Horseshoe result.

Beastie result.

An oven curbs my fishing plans 

A new battery for my trolley has got it going again, but the configuration is slightly different which means I will have to  raise the wood I stand my box on by about half an inch. Why is nothing simple now?

 Next match will be sometime after Christmas - I was intending to fish at Pidley on Wednesday, but my attempts at renewing the bulb in our oven resulted in my having to take off the door (which was easy). That was followed by admitting defeat at unscrewing the bulb cover, and then attempting to put the door back on, which proved impossible. In doing so I somehow triggered a mechanism which snapped one of the hinges shut. 

So on Wednesday I will, as a penance, be waiting at home all day for a Bosch mechanic to come and show me how to close a door! What an ingnominious end to 2021...except that if everything goes according to plan I will be back at Pidlley on Wednesday, December 29th, for another humiliation. Why do I put myself through it?

Have a good Christmas everyone.