Embarrassed on Willows

 Peg 25, Friday, July 21
Yes - you read that correctly. I drew dream peg 25. And I didn't win, in fact I prefer to forget what happened - which wasn't much. It was the Over 55s Friday match, with 18 pegged on Willows and ten on Lou's.

I had Chris Saunders, of cat meat fame, next to me on 24, with Yammers on 22, and our corner was plagued with that horrible pussy willow fluff which sometimes covered the whole area, sometimes quite lightly, but at other times formed huge clumps of scum you couldn't get a rig through. Poor Yammers probably had it worst - at times it must have been like fishing through a Persian carpet.

My home for the day - it's a cracking peg , and I've won there...but not today!

Early fish

The weather was cool, and the water looked sort of dead. But I made the sensible decision to start on a feeder cast to the island, holding the rod in the air to keep the line away from the scum nearest to our bank. Within a couple of minutes I had a 1 lb F1 on a yellow washter, and two or three more followed; then a 2 lb mirror; then a 3 lb mirror foulhooked. Then, because Chris had mugged a couple of good carp I made the stupid decision to go onto the pole.

Every now and then the fluff would hang together to form
horrible clumps of scum. But after the first couple
of hours I could usually find a fairly-open space.

I expected to catch immediately near the small island on my right, but all I could do when I put a rig next to the margin was hook twigs - big bundles of them. After seeing a few carp in the narrow channel to my right I had a look there with cat meat and had one or two small carp, and spent the next couple of hours trying to work out what was going wrong - I'd be getting liner after liner, then a proper bite shooting under, and when I struck the elastic would come out for a second and I would be attached to a bundle of twigs, or a reed, or a small branch.

Constantly  twigged!
Hanging a bait off bottom did no good, so I had to assume that the fish were in the snags, and when they tried to suck my bait in a twig would stop them getting the bait properly. Moving well away from the bank didn't stop it happening.  Meanwhile Chis was struggling, but managing somehow to pick up occasional carp by moving all over his swim - long, short, top two, left, right - that was the only way he could find fish, and some were around double-figures.

Chris Saunders fished brilliantly, all over his swim, with cat
 meat, and kept finding fish when I couldn't get a bite. He
also mugged on or two when they came in under the scum.

There's not much of a margin on 25, but I did try there, with not a touch. However, every now and then I would get a fish from somewhere else (there was no pattern), and suddenly three carp all over 7 lb came in the space of ten minutes from a spot three sections in front of me - but I never had another touch there. Towards the end I had a fish or two in the channel; tried the feeder again with no result; and then took a five-pounder dropping in on a top two next to reeds on my left. Mussel brought one small F1 and another foulhooked and lost.

During the last hour Chris had several fish to his left, to the aerator, and by the end I estimated he had three times as many fish as me. I thought I had 50 lb, and he had 150 lb. Nowhere near! I had 70 lb and Chris had 118 lb 15 oz for third, and told me I should have stayed on the feeder. Shamefacedly, I agreed. Our lake was won on 1 with 178 lb 11 oz on paste in the right margin, with Smug Smalley on peg 30 second with 143 lb 15 oz, all taken in the second half of the match in the margins.

There were several anglers I didn't know. This was Allen Wiggins,
who had 100 lb 14 oz of mainly small fish on peg 17.

Chris Saunders had several big carp in his 118 lb 5 oz, next to me.

A match I prefer to forget, though several anglers did say, afterwards, that 25 is not as dominant as it used to be, and from the results it's clear that anglers struggled all over the lake. For Willows the weights were very inconsistent. I just hope that that willow fluff has gone next time I fish there.

Lous was won on peg 7 on the feeder with 5 second - the flier peg 6 was left out. My next match is the Veterans National on Partridge Lakes, Culceth, Warrington, on Wednesday. Cat meat is not allowed there, so I expect to fish mainly with luncheon meat in the margins and across on the mud line, and shallow with casters.

THE RESULTS

WILLOWS

LOUS