Now back home after ten days away looking after our daughter's dogs. But at least I managed to get a bit of gardening done - two lines of different types of beetroot, and the first courgettes planted, while the second-early potatoes 'Charlotte' are chitting and ready to be planted. Last year I planted them on the compost from my wormery and they did reaslly well.
Some tiny plugs I ordered turned up, and I managed to pot all 120 of them. The Bizzy Lizzies are fine, but somehow slugs or snails have had a go at the petunias and nibbled off the first leaves. How do they do that? The pots are well off the ground in our nice new summerhouse/shed. There's no trace of those silvery trails that they leave behind. Daren't put them in the cold frame so I've had to leave them overnight in our other, dark shed, where so far nothing seems to have tried to gobble them up (though there are still mice in there). I hate those slugs and snails and mieces to pieces.
Beastie peg 24 was my home for the Sunday JV match - my bogey peg. The wind was awful but, as always, deceptive at the start and stupidly I put out some bait at 10 metres before going on to a feeder with wafter, cast almost to the island. That produced a quick 8 lb mirror, and a move to the pole saw four or five F1s. But I couldn't resist trying in the side for better fish.
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| Ernie Lowbridge, to my left, with a 15 lb 14 oz mirror. |
It took a long while before another carp came in on a top three, by which time it was impossible to fish the long pole line. Then calamity! Halfway though the match I turned round to add the number 4 and 5 sections, to fish farther along the margins, and there they were...Gone! Just vanished. Never saw them slide in, though the wind must have lifted them off the bank and slid them down between my nets.
I felt around the swim with my 12-foot hook, but never found them. I wasn't the only one to lose sections, because the wind was now horrendous, and occasionally I could feel it getting under the box and lifting it.
The annoying thing on our bank was that although the wind was so fierce, our margins had a little shelter from it, and there wasn't much of a ripple - just a horrible swell.
Two more good carp came in, to my special method and cat meat, plus another F1 or two and a bream, and I weighed 50 lb 4 oz for nowhere in the match, but I wasn't anywhere near last. Rob Goodson, who lost his Number 4 section, had to fish the margins on peg 6, and won with 132 lb 2 oz. The fish tended to be in the windiest pegs. Chris Saunders was second on 20, fishing cat meat in the margins.
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| Pete Molesworth was on 26, which had some shelter, and included this 14 lb 11 oz common in his 95 lb 6 oz. |
Of course by the time we had weighed in the wind had dropped and conditions were near-perfect.
THE RESULT
Next was the Spratts club match, and I was drawn peg 23 - at least I knew exactly where it was!
I have a spare Xitan, so was able to extract the Numbers 4 and 5 sections, leaving me fully equipped, pole-wise. But i will have to try to get another two, as mine have been repaired and after a few years it seems to me that sections become brittle. Such a pitty that those I lost had hardly been used!
Yet again it was windy, but not too bad at the start, and after a fishless half-hour on the feeder I was able to go out to 10 metres, fishing with corn. Over the next 90 minutes I managed half-a-dozen F1s, and at 12 o'clock I hd a word with Shaun Buddle, on 24, who said he had 6 lb. I had 10 lb at that stage.
Then the wind invcreased and I had a look, shallow, in the left margin, where I had been flicking casters, and that brought some small bites, which I thought were probbaly from F1s but may have been roach. Eventually, dropping the bait down to three feet brought a single F1, and I didn't even see a bite for that one!
Back out and another F1 came in, but then the wind increased again and I decided to have a look on cat meat in the margin. First drop, and within seconds I had hit a big fish. It surged along the ,argins towards Shaun, and to be honest I hadn;t got enough sections ready to add on, and the line was now cutting across the reeds.
I hung on, and felt that the fish wasn't buried in the reeds, but was coming back slowly towards me...when suddenly everything went slack. The line had broken just below the float. I wouldn't have expected a weak spot there, so I think it must have caught on a sharp reed or a snag. Nothing for it but to pick up another rig I had ready, and drop that back in. Seconds later I was into another carp, and played this one for bout 30 seconds before the hook pulled.
I think that one was foulhooked, although I didn't feel that when I first hooked it. But when a fish stops running and the elastic slowly pulls it back it's usual for the fish to slide back fairly easily. In this case, however, it felt like a sack of spuds - the fish hardly moved at all. Unfortunately I wasted the next couple of hours trying for another on cat meat or mussel. The right margin was more difficult to fish, as it meant facing the wind, but I should have been more positive there.
I should also have gone back out when the wind died momentarily, feeding with the big pot and following it up with corn...but I didn't! However, cat meat eventually brought in about five nice bream from the left margin, all of which were covered in the breeding tubercles. Then, five minutes before the finish I hooked another big fish which also came off, probably foulhooked. All-in-all not a good performance.
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| To my left John Garner on peg 23 managed to fish long for most of the match, ending with 40 lb. |
Afterwards I tried to find my lost sections in Shaun's swim, using the rake Mike Rawson lent me. I've seen him recover several sections with it, for other anglers. But today I couldn't make it work, and Shaun had a look, using his own rake. Nope. Four-hundred pounds worth of Xitan sections are resting in a watery grave.
The raking took up all my spare time (hence only one catch picture) and by the time the scales got to my bank I could see I would be well down the list. Peter Spriggs was leading with 77 lb 10 oz from peg 5. Next to me, John Garner had 40 lb, almost all taken out at abouit 10 metres on the pole. He was managing to fish there when my pole was being blown all over the place - perhaps 22 is a little sheltered.
My fish went 24 lb 6 oz, which was ninth overall, while on 24 Shaun had found fish late on and totalled 51 lb for fourth. He found that lifting the bait was the way to induce a bite
I give myself 3. The oldest lesson in match fishing is to not come off a swim where you are atching fish, except to perhaps rest it for a time. I left the 10-metre swim and 'rested' it for the next two fishless hours!
I can't blame myself for two of the lost fish, but I didn't have everything ready for hooking the first big carp. If I had I think I would have had a chance of landing it, even if it was foulhooked. Next match is Fenland Rods Club Cup on Yew. I am running a section pool this season, for the first time. My experience is that all match anglers are spurred on to try for the section if they are having a rough time (as (I am at the moment) and know they can't possibly frame. Let's hope the anglers are happy.
3 Dave Hobbs 28 lb 2 oz
4 Bob Allen 17 lb 6 oz
5 Peter Spriggs 77 lb 10 oz 1st
14 Joe Bedford 20 lb 6 oz
15 Dick Warrener 25 lb 7 oz
17 Mike Rawson DNW
18 Neil Paas 69 lb 12 oz 2nd
21 Steve Engledow DNW
22 John Garner 40 lb
23 Mac Campbell 24 lb 6 oz
24 Shaun Buddle 51 lb 4th
26 Trevor Cousins 38 lb 14 oz
30 Peter Harrison 59 lb 9 oz 3rd
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| The sweetest feeling - John with a golden coin, courtesy of Bob Allen. |
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