Hammered on Oak, Decoy

Peg 21, Oak, Sunday, July 31
It was with mixed feelings that I walked to my peg on Oak after the draw - it was two years, to the day, that my best fishing mate Bryan Lakey died. Bryan had an incredible insight into how fish behaved  - he almost thought like a fish, and could immediately decide on an effective approach to any swim on a given day, while he had a disarming way of making fishing seem so simple. When I collapsed on the bank with a severe attack of vertigo, Bryan was the one who packed up and drove me home. A true friend. I still miss him.

On the other hand Peg 21 was the swim I would have chosen, as it's one of the few swims on the four strips which has shallow margins to both left and right, without huge clumps of reeds or irises getting in the way. The swim on the left, 22, has reeds and irises to the left, but a nice shallow run to the right (towards Peg 21), and fishing there I had 199 lb 14 oz in a match earlier this summer. Now I had that shallow area and another to the right. I was walking (or rather trudging) on a cloud down to my swim.

Nothing in the way of bankside features for me, but the shallow margins here are really nice.

Wind in our faces
The strong wind was coming in almost into our faces, but a little from the left - not warm, but not cold enough to make most of us put on our jackets...until the rain came(!) I started in the deep water while dropping corn into the shallows, about 18 inches deep, to my right. After half an hour without any bites  I simply had to look in the side, and had a liner immediately. Around this time Kevin had a big fish fishing in the deep water right against those reeds.

Back out on three sections (any longer was not easy when the wind blew harder) I started to get liners, and then at last I got a fish in the righthand shallows - about 3 lb. To my right Callum had, I think, two fish, while Kevin had also had some more. Then a ten-pounder came from the shallow swim. But after three hours I had just the two fish, while Kevin must have had eight or nine, all around 10 lb, and all from the reedy swim.

Kevin, to my left, had a good first half of the match, with fish around 10 lb.

In the deep swim
The next couple of hours saw Kevin slow down, but he was still landing a fish every 20 minutes or so, while Callum was getting bites on four sections, though he was missing most of them, and foulhooking the odd fish.

 Meanwhile I was concentrating on the deeper swim at three sections, and did manage about three more fish approaching 10 lb on corn, and one on mussel from the shallows. Then, after a slow spell, I put a mussel out to four sections, where I had not fed, and got a bite very quickly. 

Foulhooked!
I struck; missed; but then immediately hooked into a fish, obviously foulhooked. That fish swam around, tail out of the water with its head down, for ages, and I suspected - correctly - that it was hooked in the snout. Eventually it came in, at about 6 lb. 

Callum was on my right. I think this particular fish was foulhooked. He caught all his fish pole fishing at 2+2. 

Now every time I put bait in I had liners or proper bites. It was easy telling the difference - the proper bites pulled the float timidly straight down two or three times - liners gave just one knock. But I couldn't hook any of them. Later some of the other anglers said they had the same problem - fish were coming to loosefeed, and messing about with the bait, but not taking it properly. Kevin was still getting the occasional fish on cat meat, close in beside the reed bed, as was Callum, fishing farther out.

Winner Kevin Lee with one of his four nets of fish.

At last the wind drops
Twenty-five minutes to go and suddenly the wind dropped and it felt warmer, and I felt that now the fish might come into the shallows. First drop with corn in the righthand shallow swim and I had a bite; then next drop the float shot straight under and I was playing a fish, about 8 lb, which ended in my keepnet. Next drop and another good carp came in at 10 lb. Five minutes without a bite and I felt I had to do something, so with two minutes to go I patiently fed corn with my big pot, then dropped a mussel in on top, and  LITERALLY one second before the match ended I had a bite and hit the fish. 

So for the umpteenth time this season I was playing a fish when the match ended, and unlike the match two days previously, I landed this one, about 6 lb. I'd had three good fish in that last 25 minutes. It did seem that the deep water was better most of the day for most of the anglers, but with beautiful shallow swims to left and right I probably spent too much time there. For the length of time I tried different baits - expander, corn, paste, cat meat, mussel and worm - mussel was by far the most effective bait. 

I was thinking I wished there
were more of them...

The weigh in
John Smith was the first to weigh on 30. He had a couple of fish on a waggler from the middle, and took the rest on pole towards the corner, on the end bank. He totalled 109 lb 7 oz for second place. Next door Martin Parker had a purple patch towards the end when he landed most of his 57 lb 8 oz, while next to him Peter Spriggs didn't have a fish for the first three hours, but ended with 86 lb 12 oz for third. 

As I expected, Kevin Lee won easily, with 166 lb 8 oz while my nine fish went 71 lb 5 oz for a surprising fourth place, and last in the frame. I thought I had fished it OK, losing only a couple of fish foulhooked - which almost everyone else did also - and trying all the available swims. I had just one liner in the lefthand shallows. I have to assume the fish didn't really want to feed in the shallows with that really strong wind on their back. Bryan would have realised that right at the start...

Next match probably Sunday on Horseshoe Lake at Decoy, in a Pairs match. There are lots of F1s in Horseshoe, so I expect to be fishing pellet for a lot of the time, possibly off the bottom.

                            THE RESULT