There were just two pegs left in the bags after the first 11 had been drawn in this Spratts match. They were pegs 10 and 12, and our names - Trevor Cousins and myself. How I yearned for 12. It's had some good results and it was only in June that Trevor had won from 12, while I was third on 10. I thought it would be nice to reverse them this time.
Nope - out came my name and: "Ten". I immediately made Trevor favourite.But what do I know? The water at that end was calm at the start, in the Northerly wind. But it soon swung round Easterly and we had some ripple in our faces. It was bright sun, but there was a bit of a breeze, thank goodness.
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| Flat calm before the match, but by the start I had a little ripple on peg 10. |
Fish were showing in spasms, and I guessed Trevor would start by mugging them. But once the match started I could not see any, so I took a chance and dropped a rig with corn into the left deep margin. There was some shallow water inside to the left, but it was close to the platform, and even then it was a good three feet deep. The right offered a slightly longer area of shallow water.
After about 20 minutes I had a knock or two and then a 6 lb common in the deep water. Chocks were away! In the first three hours I found another four or five nice carp and F1s in that swim, and I now had 35 lb on my clicker - nothing in the right margin, though. Not a lot of fish in my net, but I didn't see anybody catching much else, so I waited patiently for things to improve.
Then halfway through the match, Wendy walked along, past me and up to Trevor. When she came back I asked what trevor had. "He's got a few," was her answer. I thought: "Yes. I bet he's got a lot of few, as well!" To be on the safe side I decided I would start a second net with the next fish, as Spratts fish to a 50 lb limit, with nets over 60 lb disqualified.
Roughly at that time occasional fish started to show around the swim, just under the surface. I'd had one carp adding an extra section and putting the bait down the left margin against the reeds. So when a fish swirled there I added that section again and lay out the rig. Immediately the elastic stretched - a fish must have taken the corn as soon as it hit the surface. That mirror was about 8 lb, and ended in my net.
A fish from the right deep margin was followed by two cruising together in towards the bank, and again I lay the rig flat in front of them, and again one took the bait immediately. And not long after that it happened a third time. That rig had a 0.5 gram float, with bulk shot two feet from the hook, and two droppers. So the fish must all have taken the bait without thinking. I had a shallow rig ready, but I never managed to pick it up before any fish that were showing had vanished.
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| To my left, in the corner, Trevor lived dangerously when showing me his fish after the match. A pity I still couldn't get the fish pictured peoperly! |
I fished the mussel just off bottom, allowing the wind to drift the bait into the side. I am sure that the silt and muck that has built up on commercial waters means that often the fish don't want to root about in it, and prefer food that is sinking, or at least not in the silt.
Eventually I took off my sweat shirt, so sat in a T-shirt, but was careful to apply sunscreen not only to face and arms, but also on the backs of my hands, which take the brunt of the sun.
It's almost inevitable, with fish moving around all the time, that we foulhook some, and I did lose about three. One of them, I could clearly see, was hooked on the top of the lip, and I actually had it drifting in over my net when the hook pinged out. I lifted the net, half expecting the fish to be in it, but no - fish gone!
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| Bob Barrett, on my right, had all of his 46 lb 7 oz on a feeder. |
Within a minute of him leaving I had a near-double-figure fish on mussel and then a foulhooked fish turned on the turbo chargers and took my rig, with only eight minutes left on my watch. Rather than fish around in my boxes for a replacement I picked up a heavier rig I'd used for cat meat (I think I had had just one F1 on it) and adjusted the depth.
I put a mussel on and dropped it into the right margin, again in the deeper water so it drifted into the side. I'd had several very tentative bites, most of which I had missed, and just as the bait hit the shelf I got another. The float sort of sank very slowly under, which is often the sign of a liner, but it stayed there, a couple of inches under the surface.
I felt I had to strike and the thick orange elastic slowly came out of the end of my pole. It was slow but steady, and it kept going up to the platform on my right. Luckily I was able to add a couple of sections, and the fight commenced. I kept the pole low to the surface when I was able to, and eventually the fish surfaced and drifted slowly towards my net. It's not a big net, but luckily the fish went in head first, hooked in the mouth, and it was mine, easily the biggest of the day, with just seconds left. Not enough seconds, though, to get another.
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| My very last fish was my best of the day at 15 lb 15 oz, but it was lively and proved very difficult to hold! That's my excuse. |
I had no idea what anyone had caught, except that Trevor had had 'a few' earlier on. But I guessed that as I had had three lucky fish shallow he would have had a bagful mugging. I thought I had about 35 lb in the first three nets and that big fish of around 14 lb, for around 120 lb.
First to weigh in was Neil Paas on 1, which I know can produce good weights. He had 78 lb 12 and after that weights fell quite dramatically, with the next three totalling just 4 lb 6 oz. John Smith was the middle one of those - he had had four small carp but had put them back and packed up already. Yet in the June match on Elm he had won on 24 with 145 lb.
Bob Barrett on 8 somehow again managed to catch on a feeder when everyone else had problems, and totalled 46 lb 7 oz. I was next, and my first 35 lb net went 53 lb - to my horror - and I began to think, as Dick Warrener suggested, that the lost foulhooked carp I almost landed might cost me the match, as happened on Six-Island earlier this year when a huge fish had escaped through a hole on my landing net as I tried to unhook it. Because he said Peter Spriggs had today also got four nets in front of him...
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| Peter Spriggs on peg 18 had four nets in front of him, like myself. He needed 38 lb in his final one to beat me... |
My next net was 36 lb, and the next one went 46 lb. So thank goodness I had put that last fish into the fourth net. Out it came to be weighed - 15 lb 15 oz of it. John Garner took a picture, but it was still lively, and I couldn't hold it properly. Never mind - I had managed to put 146 lb 15 oz on the board. But Trevor was next to weigh.
Apparently he managed to mug only five fish early on, and then caught some down to the bush to his right - the area where Callum, a week or two earlier, couldn't catch. But Trevor's total was just 108 lb, so I was leading.
Ah - but Peter Spriggs was on 18. also with four nets out. After three had been weighed Mick Ramm, on the board, said Peter needed 38 lb catch me. I have to say Peter had been much more conservative than me, and he was stopping below 40 lb (very sensible). That last net was his smallest, though, and brought him to just 125 lb 8 oz, which had included barbel. John Garner on 24 had 64 lb 10 oz, which also included a barbel or two, and that left me as the winner.
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| Peter Spriggs found a few barbel, as did John Garner on 24. But they are small, compared with what we were catching a couple of years ago, and I wonder if the bigger ones are still there. |
I give myself 8, which I rarely do. Afterwards I knew I hadn;t fished the prefect match, but felt I'd just concentrated on putting fish into the net, without worrying about what others might have. I was glad I'd takren frech mussels out of teh freezer that morning, as in this hot weather they start to deteriorate quite quickly. The older mussels I cut up and pur in - only a few, perhaps four halves at a time. Peter Maskell uses even less, he told me. And Callum judge puts in hardy any at all.
My next match is a two-dayer at Grange Park Fishery, Messingham, near Scunthorpe this weekend with JV club. Never fished there before. The weather forecast is for 30-plus degrees, so I will take the umbrella, and be prepared to sit in the van with the air conditioning on if I start to feel dodgy in the heat.
THE RESULT
East bank West bank
22 Mike Rawson DNW 3 Wendy Bedford 4 lb 6 oz
20 Mick Ramm 25 lb 10 oz 5 John Smith DNW
18 Peter Spriggs 125 lb 8 oz 2nd 7 Joe Bedford DNW
16 Dick Warrener 46 lb 13 oz 8 Bob Barrett 46 lb 7 oz
14 Dave Hobbs 75 lb 4 oz 10 Mac Campbell 146 lb 13 oz 1st
12 Trevor Cousins 108 lb 3rd
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