The beasts went AWOL on Beastie lake

 Peg 15, Thursday, April 28
I was looking forward to this Spratts match on Beastie - last season I beat my personal best match weight with 231 lb from Peg 18. But things were different this year - a bitterly-cold Easterly greeted the 13 of us, and a really big weight was never on the cards.

That Easterly wind, from my left, put a nice ripple on the surface of my peg 15, on the spit. And I fancied it for a few fish at the start. I decided to use maggot because it was so cold, and in fact fishing a pole at 2+1 and feeding every 30 seconds by hand I had a decent start with a gudgeon within a few minutes - my favourite fish the gudgeon. Whenever I catch one it brings back memories of my youth, and catching them on the North Level drain, and of frying six or eight at a time to eat - they taste delicious. I wouldn't do it now, but in the 1950s they were plentiful and food of any type was at a premium.

After the wind turned our swims became becalmed.

Soon after that gudgeon I had a perch, some roach, and a bream around 2 lb, with its head covered in those rough breeding tubercles. Only the males have these. In the next couple of hours I had three or four more bream, and a 1 lb F1, only for bites to have slowed when the wind went round towards the North, giving the three of us, on pegs 15, 17 and 18, calm water. The only way of fishing in the ripple would have been to cast out a feeder to the island, and since Bob Allen on 17 had tried that and not had a fish, I stayed on the pole.

Fish were arriving at platform 16
Another bream or two, plus some small roach, came from the deep margin on a top two to my right, and I decided I would have to look at fishing the platform to my right, Peg 16, which was unoccupied. This brought a bream immediately, and I stayed there for the next three hours or so, picking up a bream perhaps every 20 minutes on a 4mm expander or a grain of corn,  plus two more small F1s, but losing the occasional fish obviously foulhooked. All the time I was seeing what looked to be liners, so I stayed there hoping for more F1s. I also got snagged in the same place four times, luckily losing my hook only once.

A late carp around 10 lb on the pole boosted Bob Allen's catch.

Bob on 17 seemed to be catching some good roach, about 4 oz - they would come in fits and starts. After the match he showed me that they were not roach, but small carp. Strange that I never had one. My bream wouldn't take a static bait on the bottom - it had to be drifting or pulled along slightly, or lifted. Worm, which I had expected to work, didn't have a sniff.

Where was the sun?
The cold never let up, and the sun never put in an appearance - heavy cloud stayed with us all day, and with about 50 minutes to go proper bites had dried up completely, so I went back to the original swim, but this time potting in about six grains of corn at a time, with corn on the hook.

 

Carp!

Another couple of bream showed there, and soon I was playing a carp which I assumed was foulhooked when it suddenly shot off almost in front of Bob, stretching the 17 elastic around 20 yards. In fact it wasn't foulhooked, and must have been stacked with the fishy equivalent of testosterone, because it weighed only 6 lb, but it finished in my net.

 About the same time Bob hooked, and landed a carp around 10 lb, and soon after I had another of about 4 lb. They were coming on! But not in my swim - I spent the last 20 minutes with just one roach, but did have a frisson of further excitement when I hooked what I assumed was a bream because it didn't take much of my 13 hollo elastic out.

Bob Barrett  on 3 had several carp with his bream.

Then I decided that bream was an F1, because it became a little stronger; and then I realised that it was, in fact, a big carp when it swirled mightily on the surface. Finally it showed its muscle and shot off towards March, eight miles away, taking the whole of my rig with it. I can't remember the last time that happened to me. 

No last-second excitement
After that fish broke me there was then one minute left and I had time to drop in a spare rig and...it would be nice to say I hooked another, but no, the shout went up to end the match and my dream of a last-second bonus ended with it;.

I hadn't seem many fish caught by the others - Dick Warrener on 18 had certainly had some carp, though they turned out to be small - up to 3 lb mainly. Two days earlier Tony Evans had had 197 lb from Peg 26 in he Open (not in today), on maggot on a short pole and in the margins, which included a 22 lb 7 oz grass carp! That sort of fish had stayed away today.

The weigh in
It turned out that the anglers in the 20s had had mainly bream, while those opposite from 2 to 7, had contacted some carp. When the wind had turned it gave both those areas a good ripple, which shows we know so little about how carp react to changing weather. Peter Harrison on 4 had the leading weight round to him - 60 lb, with Peter Spriggs going 3 lb over the club's 50 lb limit, and being knocked back to 50 lb. which cost him a place.

Peter Harrison  - winner with 60 lb 15 oz on Peg 4,
taken on pole and feeder (but not at the same time).

Putting my 15 bream at 2 lb each I estimated I had well over 40 lb, but I thought that the largest three or four bream might make 3 lb, giving me perhaps 55 lb in total including the two carp, three F1s, and 2 lb or 3 lb of bits. In fact they must have averaged around 2 lb, as my total was 50 lb 13 oz for a surprise second place. I was happy with that on a difficult day, and my tactics of targetting the bream, and putting whatever I could in the net, rather than sticking it out on big baits for carp, was clearly the best one on the day in that swim.

THE RESULT

2 Martin Parker        26 lb 4 oz

3 Bob Barrett            36 lb 5 oz

4 Peter Harrison        60 lb 15 oz     1st

5 Peter Spriggs         50 lb               3rd 

7 Shaun Buddle         44 lb 12 oz    4th

15 Mac Campbell     50 lb 13 oz      2nd

17 Bob Allen            26 lb 6 oz

18 Dick Warrener     35 lb 13 oz

22 Trevor Cousins    37 lb 10 oz

23 Alan Porter          29 lb 7 oz

24 John Garner        31 lb 8 oz

29 Mike Rawson      19 lb 2 oz

30 Joe Bedford           4 lb 7 oz     

Next match
Next match Saturday on Cedar peg 14 to 26. The wind is forecasted to change from North to South West during the morning, in which case we are likely to end with it in our faces, which is fine by me. But fish often don't like those quick wind changes, so it could be difficult again. I would like a high number please, at the car park end; Peg 26 would suit me a treat! There are lots of barbel in Cedar, so dead maggots will be on the menu.