Patience required on Beastie lake

Peg 17, Beastie, Sunday, Oct 14
Years ago I used to play The Great Game Of Britain with family and friends. It's a board game with contestants starting in London, travelling via (via throws of the dice) the railway to various spots in the UK and Ireland, and returning to London. First back wins! But all the contestants can, at various times, block the line or send everybody else to wherever they wish. 

A typical scenario would see someone waiting at Peterborough on the LNER line (as it was then), requiring only one throw of the dice to get back safely to London. BUT at that point everybody else would gang up on them, trying to block the line at Stevenage or, in extreme cases, if the opportunity arose by picking up a card, placing them back in John O'Groats or even over in Ireland, necessitating a ferry back over the Irish Sea just to get back to the mainland, and then several line changes. 

These shenannigans saw more family arguments and blow-ups than Monopoly, and on one occasion I witnessed a brother and sister, both in their 60s, almost come to blows. Not a game to play on the first night of your holiday!

A great game, but do not play on the first night of a holiday!

A new game
Now Cambridgeshire County Council are playing a version, involving roadworks, and called: "Get Mac". Somewhere in the bowels of a Cambridge bunker someone is rising at 7.30 on a Sunday morning and locking on to my mobile. (It has a tracker so my dear wife can work out when I will get home from fishing, and prepare the gruel for me when I return).

That spawn of the Devil in Cambridge will then put in a call to his colleagues: "He's just bypassed the Road Closed sign in Upwood and is heading for Ramsey. Get out the signs and cones and the 15-minute traffic lights and put'em at Pondersbridge. He'll turn round and try the Benwick Road, so  put more at in Benwick. Then he'll have that terrible eight-mile detour via Grunty Fen. Tee-hee-hee."

My left margin, taken after the match had ended.
The sun, low in the sky, made it unfishable at the start.

I beat the Devil
For the rest of the year that will be my first problem to overcome when travelling to Decoy, as roadworks spring up everywhere, and Road Closed signs are sprinkled about willy-nilly. But three roadworks on my route on Sunday saw me beat the Devil Incarnate and still arrive in good time, only to see the Golden peg go to Peter Spriggs for the umpteenth time this season! It seems that will happen most weeks, sure as night follows day. Not that I'm jealous.

I was quite happy with peg 17 on the spit in this penultimate Fenland Rods match of 2023. Three others asked to go on the spit, because there are no steps, and we all agreed, and drew for the remaining seven pegs. So then there were five on the spit and five on the East bank, pegs 3 to 7. The wind was cool, and I didn't think it would affect sport much, as the water was still warm. But I was wrong

A carp next door

Next to me Allan Golightly had a carp around 8 lb first cast on his feeder. I had three casts with mine without so much as a liner, and went out to 2+2 on the pole with banded hard pellet. That produced some liners and some dodgy bites, but no fish, so it was time for a look in the margins, which had the cool wind into them.

A bent rod - but Allan is there somewhere. Shooting into the sun is never advised!

There is a snag in the right margin, only a couple of metres rom the platform, which Mike Rawson kindly told me about. I found it with my plummet and tried dropping a mussel in there, as it's the obvious place to find fish. But nothing happened. The left margin was out of bounds at that time because of the blazing sun, low in the sky, so I had a look with corn long to the reeds on the right. There I had some bites that looked like roach, but no fish.

So after two hours I was fishless, while Allan had added three tiny perch to his carp; Mel on 9 had a carp and a smaller fish; and Dick Warrener on 18 had hooked one carp and lost it. Things could only get better!

The right margin, lined with tin in places. The reeds
where I found fish are a little less than ten metres away.

Worm winkles some out
Back out to the longer swim with corn, and eventually a small F1 took the bait. That was followed by a carassio, and then a 2 lb bream. Things were looking up. More fish came, but they were small F1s, then a roach. A switch to worm saw a tiny perch and then a 3 lb carp, more small F1s, and a gudgeon (my favourite fish). Seven different species!

My weight was still nothing to write home about, but the sun had moved round and I could now fish the left margin on a top two. So I put in a little hemp and corn, but first had a look in the right margin again, close to the reeds. That saw a good session with F1s coming steadily, though not quickly. They seemed to move about - a couple from the margin against the tin along margin, then they would move out a metre to deeper water; then they would move over to the reeds. But I soon had 25 lb on the clicker, though several had been hooked on the outside of the mouth.

The best perch I've landed in years, over 1 lb. Mel Lutkin has to shield
his eyes from the aura it was giving out!

I have to be patient
Into the left margin, using my special method, and this showed me that there were fish there. It was a matter of being patient, and waiting until they decided to feed properly. The first two were nice F1s on corn, and with half an hour left I put on mussel and this picked out the better fish. In that time I had a surprise perch of 1 lb-plus, three or four carp, from 4 lb to 6 lb, and was playing the last one when the match ended, landing it five minutes later, and it was the best of the day at 8 lb.

Sod's law
Dick had said he was interested in my special method, so after a few minutes packing up I called him over to watch. I just wanted him to see how the rig behaved, so dropped it in with a mussel, but Sod's law prevailed, and seconds later it produced a bite, which I missed. I hadn't been able to explain what was happening, so dropped it back again. Two seconds later, before the rig had settled, a 5 lb carp was on the end, foulhooked! Dick obviously didn't want to stay for ten minutes while I landed it, so he went back to finish packing up.

I landed that fish and put it back, and the scales came round. After everybody else had gone Dick came back and I attempted, again, to show him how the rig worked. In went the rig and blow me, before I could talk Dick through it all, I was playing a near-10 lb carp. I swear that given another 30 minutes of the match I would have added at least 50 lb!

We get it right at last
So we went to Dick's swim (he had weighed in 22 lb) nearly an hour after the match had finished, and putting in only a couple of halves of mussel I dropped in and mercifully there were no bites immediately. I talked him through how the rig worked, and dropped in again, and promptly hooked and landed an F1. Dick had a go, and soon also was able to see a bite and hook another F1, which actually came off. Then he was able to get another bite, which he missed.

I felt the demonstration had been suffciently good for him to see the advantages of using that rig (which I will not describe in print as I have been told on the Maggot Drowners forum that it is impossible and in any case the few people I have demonstrated it to over the years have never actually bothered to use it). I think Dick is likely to actually use it. Good for him.

Playing that last fish after the whistle put me behind, and Allan Golightly's
first-cast carp was the only one I photographed.

Peter loses £100 by 2 oz!
Allan Golightly said that Peter Spriggs had three nets out, and when the scales came round Peter said that yes, he had weighed  97 lb 2 oz. I assumed that would win, but Shaun Buddle, standing next to me, was smiling, and said, quietly: "I had 97 lb 4 oz!" So poor Peter lost £100 by 2 oz. The top four weights all came from the first five pegs, and I weighed 53 lb 4 oz for fifth, which I was happy enough with, as  it had been an interesting day, but clearly the spit swims had all struggled.

Marks out of ten

I give myself eight. I though I fished a pretty good match, but could perhaps have out in some dead maggots, which might have brought fish into the right margin, where I never had a bite. And I should have had more quick looks with my special method, every now and then, throughout the match, as it helps show if fish have come in.

Next match is on Six-Islands on Tuesday, but looking at the low weights in the recent JV club match I would guess that anyone with 40 lb with an hour to go could be looking at winning. There could be some fishless, as temperatures here have dropped badly in the last couple of nights.

THE RESULT