Vets National, Partridge Lakes

 First, here's the result of the Spratts match on Elm, Decoy, which Martin Parker and I missed because we were traveling up to Partridge Lakes, Warrington, to fish the Vets National. I have no details, except that the weights consisted of fish.

Now to the National, on Partridge Lakes, Culceth, which was almost three-and-a-half hour drive for us from Peterborough (and four hours for me cos I live farther away). In the previous two matches on Partridge I won my section of ten, fishing Spey lake. But this time the Masters (55-65) were on Spey and other lakes while the Veterans (those over 65) were all on Covey 1 to 5, according to the Angling Trust. So you can imagine my surprise when I read that the winner came from Covey 6!!

Everybody knew that the winner was likely to come from 5, except that if 6 had been in it would likely come from there. Got it?

The day before the match Martin and I watched the weigh-in of another match, and had a most interesting conversation with a gentleman John Turner, on Covey 2, peg 27. He's a very good matchman, but did no good with, I think, 30 lb-plus. He said the cold water had put the fish off, and that in any case the early Covey lakes were not favourite. He had most of his fish shallow.

Next day, we drew, and I drew.....peg 27! It's a nice-looking swim (as they all are on this lovely fishery) with a mud line opposite, which has been cut out, and margins either side which have also been cut back to give a couple of feet of water right next to the bank.

Peg 27 on Covey 2- a lovely-looking swim, 13 metres across. The whole complex
was really neat, with the grassy banks having been mowed.

I started with quick look in the margins either side while throwing casters out, but soon went shallow with a banded caster. It was slow - about three small F1s in the first hour, while the angler to my right on 30 had about five. Next hour I had three, plus a 4 lb carp which I mugged,  and he had about ten F1s. Then the wind got up and the few fish I had seen vanished, and bites stopped. The angler on 30 had flat calm water, with a thin scum, and was sheltered by the island, and managed to keep on catching.

I had a gudgeon from the mudline on luncheon meat, and hooked another carp which I managed to mug, but it came off at the net. There was nothing in the margins, so I finished by fishing the deep near margins, near the reeds, in about four feet of water, and landed about six or seven more carp, while losing about five in a row right at the end.

In the meantime rain started about half an hour before the end, and continued while we walked back to the van. Made worse for me by two blokes having parked their cars in the entrance to the lakes before we got to the lake, which meant that again I couldn't walk my trolley straight through. Then we stuffed our tackle back in the van. That entailed , of course, dumping all our gear on the road and then taking our trollies apart to stack in the van, before loading up everything else - and the rain still fell.

Fifty vehicles parked on the road, but the rules obviously
didn't apply to the owners of these two.

Nowhere!
Nearly forgot - I weighed 16 kilo for nowhere, beating the angler on my left who had 11 kilos (a big weight had come from there the previous day), while Martin had 8 kilos, for nowhere. The angler on 30 won our lake with 37 kilos, and finished well up. Turns out he is Dickie Carr's regular travelling companion to matches, though Dickie didn't fish this match.

The rain fell while we drove back to our digs, half an hour away, because we had left Martin's overnight bag there. Then on to the M52, and the M6, with the rain still falling. Is there a worse road to drive on in heavy rain than the M6, hemmed in by those massive lorries?

Mercifully our sat navs then took us off the M6, which was just as well because the notices showed that lanes were closed ahead of us. So on to the A50 to Stoke, then A52 to Derby and Grantham, and then the A1 home; and still it was raining, and my van is restricted to 50 on unclassified roads (and 60 on the Motorway). Another three-and-a-half hours of my life wasted. Then home, and I got back at 10.30, and it was still raining, the only bright spot having been Martin's wife rustling up mince and mash, which went down a treat.

Then next day drying everything. But I took the opportunity to wash three years of mud off my footplate, while emptying hundreds of old casters and dead flies out of the box draws. You'll not recognise me on the bank.

Will I fish it again?
Three years ago the National was booked for Decoy, but the Angling Trust cancelled it, because of Covid, even though other big matches they organised went on before that date. Never had my money back! Don't know where it is next year - not sure whether I will be interested. A long way to go when you think you never had a real chance of framing. Still, I met up with Dick Clegg again, though several other regulars were not there, which was disappointing.

A moan
The Angling Trust did that bloody stupid thing of giving some of  us three pegs each, while they could have easily put most of us on the better lakes (4 to 6), as the swims are a fair way apart. There are 72 pegs on 5 and 6 alone (and only 80 were registered to fish).

Marks out of ten
Can't be arsed. 

Next match was Sunday on Yew, which I haven't written yet. Don't miss the next exciting instalment. 😟

Now, as I write, my van is in the garage with a problem (amongst other things) with the catalytic converter, which will cost over £600. I feel about as happy as Steve Tilsley does driving through Turdes.