I just miss out on Four-Island, Decoy

Peg  8, Four Island, Sunday, Mar 6
I can't remember who wrote the poem "Welcome, Wild North-Easter", which we learned at school, but sure as hell he didn't live in Whittlesey!

To be fair the North-Easter, from somewhere between the Arctic and Siberia, that greeted the 20 of us from the JV club at Decoy wasn't wild, but but it was cold, and the fish didn't like it either. I found it coming into me from the left on Peg 8, which I had never fished before. But I had seen Chris Saunders catch there a few weeks ago next to the reed bed on his left, and he told me that his best spot had been just over the far end. I would have preferred to be pegged on the other lake, Six-Island, where 15 were pegged, but c'est la vie. (that's French for It's A Bugga).

My home for the day, though I would have preferred to be on Six-Islands.
The lake winner John Emmerson, is on the opposite bank. Six-Island is over to the right.

A poor start
That wretched wind made it difficult for me to present a bait properly just over the far end of the reed bed, and I decided to start fishing a pole a little to my right at ten metres, towards another reed bed, using maggots. This lake is deeper than most at Decoy - almost five feet in the side and I had six feet out on my ten-metre swim.  After two hours I had one roach and another which had dropped off, on maggots, and a small F1 on corn. Then it was time to switch to the lefthand reed bed.

Maggots there brought me two tiny roach, which I didn't fancy catching all day, so I potted in about ten grains of corn out towards the far end. Immediately a four-pound common took the bait, but another twenty minutes in that spot didn't bring even a liner. A switch closer to me, still beside the reeds, brought an immediate F1 about 2 lb on corn, but nothing else, and that was the pattern all day - one fish at a time from each swim.

I spy fish!
Then, about three hours in, the sun came out, the wind seemed to be a little warmer, and three F1s drifted out from the reeds on my left. I could see them clearly; and suddenly I could see another three or four farther out in the ripple. I had three maggots on the hook and flicked the bait out to the pod in front of me, and a 2 lb F1 took the bait immediately. 

Ian Frith took this near-double on Peg 2 on Six-Island 
 from about halfway to the island, on corn (I think).

Obviously the fish were up in the water, so I quickly took a top two with a shallow rig attached out of my holdall, baited with maggot and prepared to drop it in beside the reeds. Honestly, in the two minutes it took me to do that the sun went in, the wind got colder, and I never saw another fish anywhere in the swim. I wasted 20 minutes trying shallow, before going back to dropping in anywhere I had put in bait.

An enjoyable time with a few F1s
A move back out to my original swim brought nothing, but when I took off a section and dropped into an area I hadn't baited, a 3 lb F1 came in. Back to the reeds and a 4 lb mirror took corn, and then two fish in two drops out in the original long swim - the only time that happened all day. I had to keep switching round from laying two to about six inches of line on bottom - the fish wouldn't take off bottom.

Three or four more F1s of 1 lb-plus came in the last half-hour, all on corn, from the last swim I had tried, and when the match finished I'd had an enjoyable day and probably had 20 lb-plus. I like that type of fishing - looking for one fish at a time, putting in just half-a-dozen grains of corn at a time. Of course I had no idea how the 15 anglers on the main Six-Island had got on, except that the angler on Peg 18 there had gone home a couple of hours earlier.

The weigh-in 
Opposite to me on Four-Island I'd seen John Emmerson land a couple of fish on feeder, including one very big fish after the match had finished. He weighed 39 lb, followed by Smug Whiting with 30 lb 6 oz  from Peg 6, facing the wind. I know he caught several fish from the platform to his right, which was sheltered a little by an island. Now Smug weighed my fish and said he thought they might beat him, but No - 29 lb 13 oz for me, which was third on the lake (just 9 oz out of the money). Those F1s must have weighed more than I thought.

Four-Island.

John Emmerson in fact came second overall by 1 oz - beaten by Barry Gibb on Six-Island 11 with 39 lb 1 oz (obviously) all taken on a feeder cast to the island. And afterwards Smug reckoned I would have caught on a feeder cast out towards the reed bed on my right. I'm not sure, as I could fish there with a pole fairly comfortably most of the time, and was happy with my presentation. But John had certainly done better on a feeder, so perhaps I should have tried. The trouble is that the swim screamed out "pole."

Six-Island - weights were lower than had been hoped for. (I blame the North_Easterly).

I hope to fish next Sunday on Yew, but no fishing during the week for me - in an attempt to find out why I am anaemic my doctor has prescribed a barium meal, and a Covid test at hospital, and I must then isolate until Friday, when I have a colonoscopy. That's a bit of a bummer...