Fun in the sun for me on Magpie

Peg 11, Magpie, Pidley, Sun, Sept 3
Many years ago when I used to fish the single National Championship it was always held on the second Saturday in September and it was always red hot. The Wisbech team used to travel in a bus, leaving about 3am, and we'd try to get some sleep, which always proved next to impossible. Sometimes we did well, such as on the Severn, when I got a round of applause from the spectators when I weighed in 7 lb of bleak,and sometimes abysmally, such as on the Oxford Canal, when I and several others blanked blanked and we came back to the bus so despondent that we could not actually bring ourselves to speak to each other. 

But it was the heat I remember, while in recent years I don't recall September being that hot...except that this year it was for the 11 of us that fished the Fenland Rods match on the famous Magpie lake at Rookery Farm Fishery. We put 14 pegs in - four on the island and then 1-14 missing 3, 6, 9, and 12. In the event pegs 1 and two pegs on the island (which I would have liked) were not drawn.

Bright sun and water like a mirror. Not the best conmditions for catching fish, but some were caught...

No casters for me

The end three - myself and 13 and 14 had some shade at the start, but the sun got round later, and there was no wind at any time, so it was hot! I'd decided not to buy casters, but to concentrate on luncheon meat, which I like fishing with. Each swim here has the bank cut back each side of the platform, giving a shallow margin. Because of the bright sun I decided to start on the left corner of the cut-back, where it was almost as deep as it was farther out.

From that moment it was a straight-forward match for me. To my right Dick Warrener had a bad start, as I did, but I fancied I could detect liners, so I stayed in that swim. Then a 5 lb carp obliged, and I kept feeding just the occasional few cubes and some hemp. To my left Shaun Buddle on end peg 14 started catching fish early, fishing cat meat long to a line of reeds to his left. On his right on 13 Kevin Lee also had a bad start.

Blank spell mid-match
It took me another 90 minutes to get about four more carp, followed by a blank spell. Dick had just a couple of small fish, so I decided to just put the odd fish in my net if I could. I have no doubt that in an Open the anglers would all have been blasting out casters and catching shallow, but I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to do that for several hours before the fish started biting. I had a very quick look at at 11 metres with banded pellet, but it didn;t feel right, and I came back to the inside swim.

Bites were so scarce that when Dick hooked a fish I dropped my pole
into the bankside vegetation and grabbed my phone to take a picture...

A change to the corner of the right cut-off, using the same rig, brought a couple of F1s on corn, and now Kevin started catching fish. I wandered up to him and he was in the shallow water to his right, a lovely-looking swim next to the roots of an overhanging tree. My margins were open, and I'd not seen any movement there, but I made the decision to have a look. The water was between two feet and three feet deep.

Fish in the shallows
It took a little while to get a bite, but I did find one five-pounder on meat in the left margin, I tried worm there and immediately got a tiny perch, so finished that experiment immediately. I then took five more on the right margin, on corn.

I had to fish the corn just off bottom and left it drift into the slope, where a fish would take it, probably having watched it move and come to a stop. That was what I imagined, anyway. Just dropping it onto the bottom brought nothing at all.  A couple of fish were foulhooked and came off. I had to feed something after landed every fish, and although I kept looking in the left margin I never had another fish there.

Shaun Buddle brings in one if his three nets of carp.

In that last couple of hours Kevin landed several more than me, as did Shaun, and Dick also started catching the odd one. I didn't know it at the time, but Dick's fish were smaller than mine. At the end, using three nets, I know I had a total of 13 carp and F1s. But I had no idea what the anglers on the island, pegs 28 and 30, had as I couldn't see them.

The weigh in
Well, Peter Spriggs continued his terrific run of catching fish with 122 lb 2 oz on cat meat on peg 28, with Callum on 30 taking 48 lb 5 oz. On the main bank Allan Golightly had 34 lb in the scum which formed there, and then weights dropped badly, with some catching no fish at all. Dick had 24 lb 3 oz, and I thought I might possibly beat Callum to go second. Indeed I did - 60 lb 5 oz.

Part of Shaun's winning catch, taken on cat meat.

Kev Lee included one or two much bigger fish in his 95 lb 12 oz catch.

But Kevin had 95 lb 12 oz, all taken on cat meat in the side, and Shaun pipped Peter to top spot with 122 lb 14 oz on peg 14, saying he had to keep dragging the bait along the bottom to get a bite. "They wanted it moving," he said. So I ended fourth.

Marks out of ten
I give myself 7/10. I didn't panic when I couldn't catch fast, confident that I was presenting the bait OK and would see bites if the fish started feeding. Really, I scrapped my way to that fourth place, and looking back was beaten by three better anglers on what were probably better pegs. So I was happy enough.

THE RESULT