Ray Mumford helps me catch on Crow.

Peg 15, Sat, June 1, Crow Lake, Pidley
Sometime in the 1980s I did a feature with the late Ray Mumford on a lake in West Drayton, Middx, fishing for a day with just one pint of maggots. He had an excellent catch of roach, and some tench, and I later did one catching barbel at Kingston-on-Thames with him (when he again did the business). Ray had a reputation as being quite eccentric, and that became obvious when, on a club carp lake at Godalming, Surrey he insisted that he tie my hook on the line, rather than let me do it. (We never had a carp and I caught what the club said was the only tench in the lake).

But he could be charming, as I found out when he and his wife, Bridgette, stayed with us overnight at our house in Wisbech. And he could be very funny. However it is the explanation, on that blazing Summer's day at West Drayton, about competing fish I remember best. He told me: "If there are 20 fish in your swim and you put in 19 maggots that at least one of those fish ends up having expended energy trying to get one. So next time you feed, that fish will be even more determined to compete with the others.

"Put in ten maggots, and at least half of the shoal will be looking for bait for the next few minutes. But put in 21 maggots and it may be that every fish gets one, and that sense of competition is diluted." Well, it made sense to me than and still does. Trevor Cousins tries to mug fish a lot of the time in our Spratts club matches, and he has told me more than once that very few of the fish he successfully mugs are on their own. Almost always he need two or more fish to be swimming along to mug one successfully, the sense of competition coming out in the carp. Ray's lesson stood me in good stead in this match...

Peg 15, about halfway along Crow. Don't think we saw the sun all day.

Definitely unfishy
It was on Crow and took place in a Northerly wind, and at the start it wasn't just cool, it was actually cold. The overcast day made it all feel as if it was going to be hard, and Ray's lesson would be needed, as it felt decidedly 'unfishy.' The original entry of 15 had been cut following a telephone call the previous afternoon - Joe Bedford (aged 93) had injured his shoulder knocking in a fence post! What can you say? He comes to matches with his sister-in-law Wendy, so we were two short.

I started, as did many, on a feeder, with luncheon meat, cast to the shallow water near the far bank, about 40 yards away, but in the next 30 minutes I had just one tiny liner. Dave Hobbs on my right had three in that time and I changed to a pole. 

I had spent a long time plumbing up (must have been a plumber in a previous life) and found that while the drop-off was about a top-three out, in front of me it was cut-back a little, creating a small semi-circle of water about three feet deep. So I started there and immediately found a strong tow right to left, against the wind.

I find fish off bottom
I had decided to concentrate on luncheon meat, because it's so easy to vary the size of bait, and used my short tops because the water here is quite shallow. So because it didn't feel that the fish would be feeding madly, in went just half-a-dozen cubes, and my bait. Even before I had a bite Dave had more fish on a feeder, but by dotting the float right down (almost overshotting it) and holding it in the wind, against the flow, I found F1s averaging a little under 2 lb just off bottom. 

Sometimes I would touch the bait on the bottom by letting the float go, and then lift it by holding it back in the wind. Bites often came within a second. So two hour after the starts, when I had 15 fish, never feeding more than a few cubes at a time, I reckoned I had over 20 lb. That little semi-circle seemed to hold the fish, as fishing past it produced nothing.

Dave seemed to be ahead of me, however, and he was still on the feeder. No idea what he was using - probably wafters. I considered changing back to a feeder, but as I was putting the occasional fish in the net, and Allan to my left was struggling, I kept on the pole. Next move was to pick up one of the other five rigs I had ready (I had even assembled a waggler but never used it) and come up onto the shelf just to my right, to see if there were fish closer to the bank. And there were.

Still on 4mm cubes of luncheon meat, and feeding just half-a-dozen at a time, I had a nice spell with several quickly, and then they tailed off. I kept looking in the really shallow water to my left, with corn, but never had even a liner there. Eventually I went back to the front swim where I had a few more, using the same rig, including one 5 lb common, but then had bite after bite, only to strike and find that my meat was gone. Allan said afterwards he had the same problem - they were even nicking his pellet out of his band!

Into the margins
So I had, now, to look in the margins to my right. The wind was increasing and it was easiest to fish back wind. Corn picked out a 3 lb F1 and then a 'proper' carp of perhaps 5 lb. I could see swirls there, but the fish wouldn't feed properly. Hemp brought fish in, but they were cagey, and in the last couple of hours I had only two or three more carp around 4 lb on cat meat, and a big F1 on mussel.

Dave Hobbs on my right took an early lead over me, but seemed
to suffer a bad spell mid-match, though he finished strongly. 

When I'd had a fish in the shallow water I should probably have immediately gone back to the front swim and kept putting F1s in the net - not quickly, but just enough to keep ticking over. Dave had had a bad spell mid-match and was now fishing in his margin. In fact it was because I saw him land two or three nice carp from his margin that I stayed there too long. I should have rested it - I have this theory that sometimes the fish, when finicky, will stay away when they know there's a rig in the swim, but will eventually return if it's taken out.

Mel Lutkin was the first to overtake leader Kevin Lee,
who had drawn the Golden Peg, by just 3 lb. Nice One, Mel.

Afterwards I found out that he had a nice two feet of water right against a bed of reeds, while my immediate margins were less than a foot deep, and at two feet (a couple of metres out) there was no feature to hold the carp. So when the match ended I wasn't playing a fish as has happened a lot recently , and had probably only three in the last hour. I was not a happy bunny. I estimated that Dave had perhaps 100 lb-plus, while I had an estimated 70 lb. I'd lost about three foulhooked, but that was probably not as many as most of the other anglers.

The weigh in
Kev Lee on 1 was golden peg, and when I saw he had weighed in 72 lb 5 oz I suspected I would probably be out of the frame even if I beat him, since the higher-numbered pegs tend to produce the better weights a lot of the time. However, the wind was blowng down to 1, so perhaps the other end had struggled. Who knows?

Shaun Buddle brings up his last net, which put him in the lead.

Peter Spriggs on 3, who has won so many of our matches, had a disappointing 41 lb 2 oz, and I was told that Mel Lutkin had caught fish "all day" so watched that weigh-in with interest. Well, he'd hardly caught all day, but had a good catch, fishing at nine metres with half a mussel, and indeed had overtaken Kevin Lee with 75 lb 3 oz, and most importantly, he had saved the golden peg.

Shaun Buddle, though, eclipsed both Kevin and Mel with a good last hour, taking fish from the edge, and had exactly 82 lb. Dave Hobbs hadn't had 100 lb after all, but totalled 73 lb 9 oz, so already things were close at the top. Then I weighed in and Callum Judge checked his calculations and asked when we had last had a tie at the top? I'd also got exactly 82 lb...

Amazingly no-one else beat that, with Dick Warrener on 23 coming closest with 78 lb 2 oz on luncheon meat for third, leaving Shaun and I tied as winners. So another unexpected frame place for me. I'm on a roll. Next match on Cedar at Decoy on Friday, where I expect to have to use my long tops as the water is deepish, and the extra elastic is better when you hook one of those turbo-charged double-figure carp I shall be targetting.

Still overcast and cool, as Dick Warrener watches his catch being weighed
by Kevin Lee. The result was 78 lb 2 oz, putting Dick into third place.

Marks out of ten
I felt I made the right choice in using the short tops, and chose a good array of rigs in the strong wind, though I never used the heaviest one I had ready for fishing out at 13 metres. The meticulous plumbing paid dividends, but I spent too long in the shallower water because I could see the swirls of fish coming in, and was having liners on my special method. The fish weren't feeding properly, and if I hadn't had a bite within a minute, knowing the fish were there, I should have done something else. 

My rule of thumb should be that if the fish are there I should get a bite within a minute, or give it best. I gave in to temptation (not for the first time) so I think I was worth 7/10. Simply put I could have had more. But Ray's advice was so important on a day like this. And well done to Shaun - a nicer bloke it would be difficult to find.

A true story
Ray Mumford was always outspoken, which was probably the reason he was never picked to fish for England. He told me about the time he was a delivery man for the London Evening Standard - he would go and load the papers into his van amd deliver them, as fast as he could, to local shops. He said it was an easy job, but the others on that shift used to do as little as possible (I'm not sure exactly what they had to do, but Ray was not impressed).

One day he turned up for work to find all the others sitting outside drinking coffee from their flasks. "What's going on?" asked Ray.

Answer: "We're on strike."

Ray: "How the hell can you be on strike? You never do any bleedin' work!"

THE RESULT