A brown envelope on Cedar, Decoy

 Peg 4, Cedar
Eighteen of us fished this Friday Over-50s match, organised by Roy Whincup,  n Elm and Cedar lakes at Decoy - nine on each lake -  and I must have been so excited by the prospect of fishing in decent conditions that I left my phone at home, so no pictures. 😞

What elastic?
The main decision I had to make on the bank was what elastic to use. I very much like a lightish orange, rated about 10, but there were anglers on both pegs 3 and 5, and they were too close to me for that - about 12 to 15 metres away I guess. I discarded the lovely Preston green 13 hollow because I thought that if I foulhooked a big fish it would easily scream through one of those swims. So I settled on a yellow 17 hollow. It turned out to be the right choice.

I was very happy with Cedar 4 - this lake tends to fish best in the first few pegs, say 1 to 7. All the pegs on this lake were on the West bank, with the strong wind at our backs, so we could fish right across; and almost everyone started like that - feeder or bomb cast 40 metres to the far bank. I started on a bomb and bread popped up.

I got lots of tiny liners, and when I brought the rig back not only had the bread gone (which I expected) but the pop-up on the end of the hair was also missing. It happened again and I wondered whether fish were actually just picking at the bait, and not taking it in. But then the liners stopped.  A change to double frozen sweetcorn brought my first carp, about 3 lb, after about 50 minutes. 

Peter's good start
To my right Peter Harrison had already landed a fish or two, and after about 90 minutes he had five or six to my one. A change back to bread not popped up brought me two more bigger fish around 8 lb. But by this time I think Peter had landed eight! I was being banjoed...

Then Peter's fish went off and we both had a look in the deep margins. I had been flicking maggots under a bush to my left and I remembered that Lee Kendall had had over 100 lb a few weeks ago from peg 5, fishing under that bush. So I started there, hoping for barbel. Peter had one fish in his margin - a 5 lb barbel - while I had only two small roach. Then we both had a look on the long pole - 13 metres in my case. I dribbled in 4mm expanders, bit had no bites on pellet or corn; Peter was also struggling. 

The angler to my left on 5 was Dave Thornton, and he had had fish on a feeder or bomb, and now started catching on a pole. I tries to see what he was using, and fancied the bait looked a bit red, so I put three maggots on my size 12 hook - I know it seems big, but I like to start on a hook that gives me confidence when I play fish, and in any case I threaded the first maggot round the bend. In fact Dave told me afterwards he hadn't caught single fish on maggot, and had put it on his hook for only one cast!

An F1 gives me a clue
But soon I had an F1 at 13 metres, and immediately decided to catapult in maggots, because I thought F1s were more likely to be roaming around the swim than the bigger carp, which I think tend to cruise slowly along on the same line in water as cold as it is at the moment. So spreading the maggots around made sense to me. This tactic seemed to work well, and three more fish came -  an F1 and two 2 lb bream.

When the sun went in it became very dark, and it was difficult to see the very thin red float top, so I changed it to a black top - you can do this with the Drennan Tuff-Eyes - and it worked well, though the bites were tiny. I had to fish about four inches overdepth and every bite came was the water tow tightened the line and just dragged the float a tiny amount along the bottom. But the bites were minute and I don't think I would have seen them on a thicker-topped float.

I carried on catapulting about 15 maggots in at 13 metres, then putting in about 15 more with the tosspot, and fishing that one spot, and it worked! A near-10 lb mirror took the maggot bait, and two or three more around 4 lb. A look out at 14 metres brought another first drop - strange how often that works. And then looking in the slightly deeper water a metre or so to the left of where I had been fishing brought two more quick ones.

Two fish lost
I pricked two fish in successive casts, and the next cast saw me land a six-pounder foulhooked in the side, and I was glad I had a strong elastic on, because it must have been almost in Peter Harrison's swim at one time. Peter seemed to have slowed up a lot after his first good spell, and I know he lost at least one good fish foulhooked. But I assumed he had around 70 lb or 80 lb.

The final half-hour saw another fish about 4 lb and the very next cast a fish took the bait within seconds, the only time I had two fish in two casts on the pole all day. Peter had a couple more towards the end, on a bomb I think.

The weigh in
On Peg 1 Perry Briggs started at 13 metres to a bunch of green reeds against the end bank, but couldn't catch there, so he went out on another section and found 100 lb on double corn, which won the lake. Peter Harrison's catch went only 43 lb - way less than I had guessed. And my fish went 68 lb 1 oz, which beat Dave Thornton by a couple of pounds, and was second on the lake, winning me that end section by default. I was very happy with that.

Elm lake fished very much as expected - with peg 8, a swim which so often produces in Winter, even though it appears no different to any other - winning with 84 lb, with the better weights around it. But everyone had a decent weight, except Smug on peg 1, which has been described to me as the worst peg on the complex in Winter. Last year I had that swim on a cold Winter's day and caught one tiny perch!

My next match is Sunday on Oak. The forecast is for a change to a Northerly wind which I expect will keep weights well down. But what do I know?

THE RESULT

Cedar

1 Perry Briggs 100 lb 13 oz        1st

3 Pete Harrison 45 lb 3 oz

4 Mac Campbell 68 lb 1 oz        Sec

5 Dave Thornton 66 lb

6 Shaun Buddle 41 lb 4 oz

7 Keith Rayment 38 lb

9 Chris Baldwin 59 lb 4 oz

10 Chris Saunders 34 lb 6 oz

12 Phil Stubley 52 lb 5 oz

13 Ernie Lowbridge 60 lb 8 oz      Sec

Elm

1 Smug Whiting DNW

3 Roy Whincup 67 lb 14 oz

4 Pete Spriggs 40 lb 6 oz

6 Gordon Parker 72 lb 4 oz

7 John Crouch 80 lb 15 oz

8 Allan 84 lb 4 oz 1st

9 Steve Richardson 61 lb 5 oz

10 Jim Regan 53 lb 8 oz

12 Ron Cuthbert 28 lb 12 oz

Not sure of the two section winners.