The heat hits us all on Magpie

Peg 27, Magpie, Pidley, Sat, June 22
Summer had arrived at last, and I chose peg 27 on Magpie because acccording to Tim Bates in the shop "The bay is solid with fish" and I fancied using casters shallow next to the lillies. I was full of optimism, and my bait bags were full of casters, but the b*****y fish had gone on holiday! In the words of Victor Meldrew I Didn't Believe It.

This was Fenland Rods' annual rover, and my name came out fairly well down in the choosing order. Famous peg 36 had gone to Mike Rawson and 19, which has been yielding big catches to 14-metre poles fished shallow to the far-bank reeds, went to Callum. We had been given pegs 14 to 27 plus 35 and 36, and I had walked along the previous day, quite fancying the lower numbers for their margins. But I needed to practice fishing casters, and plumped for 27, which was also the shortest walk from my van. Given the heat during the day that turned out to be a bonus.

Not a lot of Raspberry Ripple on this part of Magpie Lake!

I start shallow

Afterwards I was pleased I did it 'properly'. I had two shallow banded rigs out (I use Connectadjusts, so can alter the depth at will), plus a left margin rig and a right margin rig, and a stronger meat rig. The bottom in front of me was so soft I ruled that out immediately. So I started caster shallow, catapulting casters to one of the lily pads because they were too far for me to throw casters in the light wind.

Fishing to the nearest lillies was out of the question, because you need to srike sideways at 90 degrees and hold the fish. So I had to go out to about eight metres, where fish were humping the lillies about.

The first fish, after about 45 minutes, was a small rudd. Lots of minutes later came the first carp - a near-5 lb common. I had Matrix Slik 18-20 in, and this  was just powerful enough to keep the fish out of the lillies, even though it was hooked only inches away from them. It's the elastic Ben Townsend recommended in a You Tube video taken on peg 36.

Lots of more minutes later an F1 took the banded caster, and ages after that, came another F1. Then I actually saw a carp hanging under a lily leaf, just sucking it, and hanging there for several minutes. It obviously wasn't interested in feeding on any bait I could offer.

Mike Rawson playing one of his fish, taken in the margins of peg 36.

The halfway point

The match was now halfway through and with those four fish in my net, and my casters almost two pints lighter, I wandered up to Allan Golightly on 26 to see how he was faring in the heat. He had three, whilst Bob Allen, on his right was still blanking. 

In fact the only person I had seen landing a few was Mike Rawson, to my left on the island peg 36, and I reckoned he had half-a-dozen. That was the moment I decided that I simply had to have a look in the margins, and the response was almost immediate - two big fish hooked...and lost. Probably foulhooked. In the next hour I had a couple of F1s on corn, but after losing more foulhooked I altered tack completely.

Cracked it! 😁
I put on a 4mm cube of luncheon meat and dropped in down right beside the marginal reeds to my right, which had been twitching occasionally. First drop, and a 3 lb carp took the bait...in its mouth. Soon after, another came in. Bingo. Cracked it! No more there so I went to my left and dropped the bait down right beside the reeds there and Lo and Behold two F1s came out. All without putting in a single piece of loosefeed.

But all good things come to an end and after a long biteless session I came back to where I had foulhooked, and lost, the first two. Same thing happened - in went some pieces of meat and a few micros and some hemp, and the fish were there within a minute. 

Nightmare
A couple more came in, but then I had the Ultimate Nightmare: I hooked about 16 fish...and landed just one! I am sure that three or four were properly hooked, but they were fighting like tigers, and with the fish almost ready for netting the hooks kept pinging out. Afterwards several other told me that had happened to them - we reckon they were just hooked on the outisde of the mouth.

Dave Garner - back in action after an
operation on his back - 32 lb 3 oz.

A good last 20 minutes

Meanwhile Mike was still landing the occasional fish, and was way ahead of me. Then, with 20 minutes left, things changed. Three fish in three drops, all on meat, and all landed. Five minutes left and I drop in, get a bite, strike, and the fish screeches away into the nearest lillies only six feet away. And I am snagged. That was the end of my match, the worst possible end, of course, because that fish was lost, as was my rig. The only time a fish had taken me into the lillies.

The weigh in
The heat was now pretty intense, but two liberally-applied doses of suncream had kept my bare arms, and my face, from any sunburn. First to weigh was Dave Garner, on 35, only a short hop away from me, and I reckon he did well, using only his waggler, to get 32 lb 3 oz, because all his fish would have taken a stationary bait on the bottom, while I had to keep lifting my bait to get a bite.

Mike Rawson  on 36 had bigger fish than me.

On 36 Mike Rawson beat that with 34 lb 13 oz taken in the margins - another good catch in quite a good run he's been having. And when my three nets (catches are split at Pidley) went 37 lb 2 oz and Allan on 26 had 32 lb I actually felt a little sad that I was top weight in that four-peg section, and not Mike. (But only a little!)

Round to Bob Allen and he, also, was in the 30s with 35 lb 11 oz, Joe next door (aged 93) had stuck it out for 18 lb 9 oz, but his sister-in-law Wendy had not had a bite on her feeder. Things were looking dire. Dick Warrener had one carp and some 'bits', but then we came to Martin Parker, in the narrows.

Martin had cast a Preston ICS bomb with a banded 8mm pellet to the far bank and had had six fish in the first couple of hours. Then he put out paste on a pole and first drop had a carp. Naturally that meant he stayed on the pole for a long time - too long in fact, because he had one bite in the next couple of hours, which he missed. And it wasn't until Dick next door asked why he hadn't stayed on the bomb that he went back to it.

Joe (93) stuck it out to the end in the incessant heat for 18 lb 9 oz.

That move back to rod and line proved decisive and he ended up with 77 lb 9 oz. Callum on 19 was another in the 30s - 35 lb 3 oz, but Kevin Lee on 17 found fish out in front on paste and ended with 70 lb 1 oz. Then yet another '30' came to the scales - Mel Lutkin with 34 lb 4 oz, and last to weigh was Dave Hobbs, who had some ripple on end peg 14. I fully expected that Dave had caught well, but no - he struggled to 36 lb 10 oz.

Kevin Lee - runner up.

Callum Judge - almost beat me.

Dave Hobbs was one of eight of us to weigh
in a catch in the 30 lb bracket. 

That meant that Martin was first, Kevin second and, amazingly, with eight catches in the 30s, I was third with my 37 lb 2 oz. It also meant that Mike Rawson had won my section by default. A strange, difficult match an a lake known to hold good numbers of carp. I suspect that they haven't spawned properly yet. But it meant another frame place for me.

Marks out of ten
If I had not fished shallow I'm pretty sure I would have had more. But it was good practice for caster fishing. I had several 'bites' which I missed while doing that, but the fish weren't really interested. I stuck to my plan until I felt it wasn't working but I still had time to win. I didn't win, but I did enough to put myself in a position where I could have won given a bit more luck, and if those fish hadn't come adrift. So I think I'm worth probably 8/10. "Couldn't have done much better."

Next match Tuesday on Decoy, on Yew lake. No point in trying to guess where the best weights will be, as the heat is likely to result in a topsy-turvey match.

THE RESULT