A busy time over the weekend, which I will remember more for something other than fishing - the death of my favourite-ever singer, Judith Durham, classsy lead singer with the Seekers and later a solo artist. I saw her live three times and her pure, enchanting voice thrilled me. She was like the girl next door who sang like an angel. There'll never be another Judith...
This was my first time with the Over-55s, who always fish on a Friday, and I was happy with Peg 4, which offers several options, including an island in front which was not reachable with a pole on this occasion because of the strength of the North-Westerly wind. On my left, on Peg 6, sat the legend that is Peter Holland. There were 17 on my lake and six on Four-Island.
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| Peg 4, but the wind was too strong to fish a pole to the island. |
I started putting out some hemp and pellets down the track at about 6 metres, and then maggots into the righthand margin, where I was hoping for barbel. In fact I took a few F1s, eventually, but they were small, and when I landed a 4 oz specimen - presumably part of a recent stocking - I went out long. But despite an occasional liner on expander and then corn, no fish came in.
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| Good to see an old mate, Ron Cuthbert, on Peg 3. |
By now Pete had found some good carp, not far out, in what I assumed was the deep water just over the margin shelf. So I went there, in the left margin, with the wind, and did find better F1s, but no better carp until the second half of the match.
The better fish came on cat meat, and I now saw that Pete was using the same bait, so I kept trying it. The water around the vacant platform to my left was much shallower than my swim - about 18 inches, but I had, eventually, to try there, and to my surprise hooked a 4 lb F1 immediately. But it perhaps spooked any other fish there, because bites then came only slowly, on corn, and I had to move out to the deeper water.
 A nice fat carp for Roy Whincup on Peg 7 on Four-Island lake. |
The last two hours saw my sport get slowly better, and I finished with about five carp over 6 lb, plus the F1s, for a total of 61 lb 12 oz, and never saw a barbel. Pete won the match with 163 lb 7 oz, putting just a couple of chunks of cat meat out with each cast, and he told me had had to be very accurate with where he placed his rig. He wrapped a piece of electricians tape round he pole to show exactly where he had to hold it - less messy, and easier to remove, than using Tippex.
I was disappointed with my catch, which gave me ninth place on the lake. A better angler would have had more, I am sure. The pegs on the South bank, in the wind, didn't fish particularly well, and although the wind appeared to be coming from behind pegs 24 and 25, Gordon Parker, on 25, who was second with 125 lb 9 oz, said he had a good amount of ripple.
On Four-Island the winner was Chris Saunders, on Peg 5, who took the bulk of his fish on cat meat close to the reeds in front of him.
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| Runner-up Gordon Parker on Peg 25 with 125 lb 9 oz. |
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| Six-Island |
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| Four-Island. |
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