Hard graft in the sun on Cedar, Decoy

Peg 19, Saturday, Apr 30
I knew things would be difficult for this match on Cedar when I had to scrape ice off the windscreen before I set out. Then at Decoy there was hardly any wind and the sun was blazing down with not a cloud in the sky. Then the pegs I fancied gradually came out of the bag without my name being called...I would have liked any of the first five pegs 22 to 26, as they often have an edge on this lake, on both banks.

However Peg 19 was my home for the day and it wasn't long before the inevitable happened - carp started showing in twos, threes and fours, with the odd solo swimmer, just under the surface, obviously thinking about spawning. But with the water still cold after three solid weeks of North-Easterlies it's not warm enough, so the poor fish will are probably doomed to swim around for a week or two yet, and not eat much.

Lots of sun; lots of topkits; lots of options - but no wind and not many fish!

All of this is not an excuse for myself, as we all had trouble catching. After three hours some had no fish at all - Allan Golightly on my left was fishless, the two end pegs past me had one fish apiece, and I had managed two! I started on feeder, then went to 11.5 metres where I managed to foulhook a fish while shipping back, but it came off. Then after an hour of trying shallow with maggot or pellet, with only a couple of liners, I put in dead maggots to the right deep margin looking for barbel on a bunch of five maggots, and Lo and Behold...a big barbel that must have been over 5 lb was my reward almost immediately. 

That barbel was followed by a 5 lb carp, and that was followed by an hour with nothing. But, as cloud came in over the sun, a move to the slope just off my platform brought a little flurry - three more big barbel (one foulhooked which took me ages to land) and a couple of carp, the best about 6 lb, carp, all on maggot followed by a 2 lb barbel.

Change of elastics doesn't work
I had been using a 10/12 hollow elastic which was fine for the carp as I never felt in danger of pulling out, but it took me a long while to land the big barbel. So I changed it for a stronger solid, and immediately hit a good fish which I bumped, so I changed back to the hollow, and never lost any more.

Callum Judge, two swims to my right on 17, had a really
good last hour and ended with  57 lb 15 oz for second place.

Then the sun came out again, during which time one carp of 3 lb took a piece of corn on the 11.5 metre line, and then the last hour produced only an 8 lb mirror, on cat meat, in the deep margin swim. The sun was making it to difficult to fish the left margin, but I certainly should have dropped in there, as I had fed it with corn earlier.

Meanwhile Callum Judge on 17, to my right, had a good last hour on small pieces of cat meat, and must have had five or six carp. He told me afterwards that the fish wouldn't look at a big piece of cat meat, so he cut his cubes into quarters. But I had no idea of what those in the higher numbered pegs to my left had caught.

The weigh in
Dave Garner one of our our former club champions, in corner peg 14, had boosted his catch to 28 lb 8 oz. That pretty much confirmed my suspicion that the better catches would be at the other end - if Dave can't catch, then the fish there are not catchable. Next door Martin Parker had two fish, but Callum on 17 bucked the trend with his 57 lb 15 oz runner-up catch, taken from a nice four-foot ledge he found in his margin. A very good performance I reckon.

John Smith - this was part of his 57 lb 1 oz
third-placed catch of mainly carp from peg 22.

Peter next to me, who is rarely out of the frame, had to rely on bream for much of his 22 lb 8 oz, and my four big barbel and a few carp went 44 lb 4 oz, which I was satisfied with from that peg in those conditions.

Better weights at the other end
Along in the higher numbers John Smith had taken a 10 lb carp on his first cast and managed three more good carp shallow (how did he do that?), and said he would have had more on a pellet waggler if he hadn't broken the top section before the match started. Unlucky or what? 

Anyway John ended with 57 lb 1 oz, and two to his left Kev Lee wrapped up the match with 86 lb 10 oz on Peg 25, with fish from his deep right margin on cat meat and paste. The other weights tended to be slightly better at that end, except for Mike Rawson on 26, my favoured peg, who didn't weigh in, though I know he had fish.

Kevin Lee with the best fish from his 86 lb 10 oz winning catch.

THE RESULT

Some of Kevin's other fish (Fenland Rods fish to a 
voluntary 50 lb net limit in all their matches).

So I ended fourth, on a day when the fish were coming into my shallow margins when I put bait in, but they were not feeding properly and I wasted a bit of time there. But when they wave their tails at you it's so inviting...

My next match on Willows on Sunday. The early pegs seem to have been more consistent than those in the higher numbers, where the water has been sheltered from the wind recently. A big warm wind from the West would be ideal.