The fish play hide-and-seek on Oak, Decoy

 Peg 22, Sunday, May 22
Eleven fished this Fenland Rods match, on pegs 16 to 30, on the Eastern bank of this strip lake. Before the match started John Smith told me he thought the swims at the far end (the lower numbers) would fish best as the South-Westerly wind was blowing into that corner, and apparently Peter Spriggs had won the Friday Old Codgers match on Yew lake, the strip next door, from that end.

I still thought that the pegs around 21 would dominate, as they have good, shallow margins, and are noted swims, so I was very happy with 22, even though on the left side there was a patch of irises which meant only the righthand side offered me a margin, with Allan Golightly on the next platform, so it was really half a margin.

Since I can't find out how to caption a video, this was my swim at the start:

The wind got up quite strongly soon after the start, and it was cold enough at times to have some of us put on extra clothing, except for the last 90 minutes, when it warmed a little. That cool wind, I am convinced, was the reason the shallow margins didn't fish well along most of the bank. 

My plan
My plan was based on a Facebook entry by Tom Edwards, from the Boston area, who in my opinion is one of the very best commercial match anglers in the UK. In a recent match on Oak he said that 'hard pellet short and then the margins is the only was to win on Oak.' So I started on  a banded 6mm pellet in the deep margin, on a top three, and missed a bite first drop. The plan was working!!

Nope, the plan came unstuck when, five minutes later I foulhooked a 2 lb barbel which threatened to snag me under platform 20, stretching the 13 hollow elastic to its limit before ending up in my landing net. So immediately I put out another rig on stronger elastic with maggot bait to lure more of those pesky barbel which were lining up along the bottom and waiting for my bait to descend.

On Peg 24, on my left, John Smith hooked several
good fish on a waggler, but landed only two, the
others obviously foulhooked as he came back with scales.

So I waited, and waited, and waited a bit more, for that bite, which never came. So I went back to the pellet rig...and promptly, in the next hour, foulhooked about five big fish which came adrift, plus one that didn't. That's always been my fear with using hair rigs on a pole - the bare hook is the problem.

The shallow margin
So I had to look in the margin to my right, before I had expected to, which was about six inches deep next to the bank, running down to about two feet before falling at least another two feet in a sheer cliff-like drop. I chose to fish at 18 inches, dragging the rig back until the corn touched bottom, and Yes! An 8 lb common was my reward.

Meanwhile Allan Golightly on 21, to my right, had landed two or three fish that looked to be at least 10 lb (though other anglers' fish always seem to be bigger than they are), including  two which I think he said were foulhooked. Everyone had the same problem - probably fish that spawned last week and are waiting to do it again. 

In the next 90 minutes two more came from my shallow swim, plus another couple lost on the banded pellet in the deeper swim. From then on I alternated between corn in the deep swim and the margin, where fish, frustratingly, would come to loose feed - I could see the swirls - but although I had several good-looking bites they must have been liners.

To my right Allan Golightly spent time in the
middle of the match fighting two good fish for ages,
both foulhooked, but he landed them.

My theory
Every time I put bait in the deeper swim I had liners, but also two more carp around 8 lb. I am convinced that fish were coming to feed but were not really interested, as putting my rig in a spot where I hadn't put in feed gave me the occasional liner, but always from fish just under the surface. 

Then, with 45 minutes to go I tried mussel - and first cast, even before it had hit bottom, my bait was taken properly and another eight-pounder came in. The tight Middy blue elastic 18-22 (I think)  was perfect.

Small pieces of meat
Callum Judge, three swims to my right on 18 had been catching on 2+2 and now carried on taking fish fairly regularly - perhaps one every 20 minutes and I guessed he would win easily. He told me later that, not for the first time this year, he had been catching on very small pieces of cat meat but had fed just three biggish pots of pellet, micros and a little hemp all day.

One more came to mussel before my match ended and I finished with eight carp and that barbel. I had lost eight foulhooked, and two which I bumped in the margins.

Martin Parker (who has a complete head) with
had two double-figure carp in his 63 lb 2 oz.

The weigh-in
The weighing started at Peg 30, at the car park end, where Dave Garner brought 52 lb 13 oz to the scales. Dave hardly ever ends up out of the frame, so clearly I wasn't the only one who had struggled. The weights that followed were all in the 50s and 60, top being Pete The Meat on 2 with 64 lb 9 oz.

Those weights, when I saw them for the first time, astonished me, as I tend to think that everyone else will be bagging up when I am having trouble, and Oak can produce some very big weights. More head-shaking when my comparatively-meagre 68 lb 9 oz topped the weights down to me. I really had assumed that I had been banjoed by almost everyone.

Beyond me Allan Golightly was two decent fish away from beating me, with 52 lb 15 oz, and Martin Parker was even closer to me with 63 lb 3 oz, including two that were well into double-figures.

Callum Judge was the first of the last three to weigh,
ending as winner with 119 lb on a very difficult day.

Far end pegs ruled
Then came the final three, at the windy end of the lake, and as John had forecast earlier they took the top three places, with Kevin Lee catching 101 lb 10 oz on 2+1 and Callum winning with 119 lb on 2+2 and his meat. Kevin told me that he had just two fish in the margins - a small barbel and a small carp.

Kev Lee  prepares to take his runner-up  101 lb 10 oz to the scales.

James Garner (son of Dave on Peg 30) somehow managed to take 
several fish from his shallow margins in the last two hours.

In the corner James Garner, who rarely fishes our matches now was third with 92 lb 7 oz, thanks partly to a good last two hours where he managed to magic some fish out from his margin. If James fished all out matches I have little doubt he would end as our Club Champion - I've never known him to have a poor weight. 

THE RESULT

So I ended fourth, in the last frame place, and I'm back there Tuesday, where I suspect we will fish both banks, and that means that some of us will probably have two full margins to fish in. The wind is forecast to be North-Westerly so the far end may be favourite again.