Bagging!

Oak Lake, Decoy, peg 13

This was a regular invitation from the Telford lads, who used to organise a three-day festival here which is now defunct. Instead, there are some two-day events – each day a separate match, so no overall winner.

But I knew I was in for a bit of a thrashing when I saw who was either side of me – Shaun Coaten, a big-weight specialist on my left, and Awesome Dawson to my right. Nevertheless I like fishing next to better anglers, as I can sometimes pick up hints – one of the most satisfying is that they rarely fish much differently to me, but they just do it better! Much of it is in the feeding.

Anyway, I was a little disappointed to see I hadn’t got a really nice nearby inside swim – the best long strip of shallow water was up to the next platform, which I duly plumbed up at about two-and-a-half feet. There was a small tuft of sedge grass about four metres along to my left, and a couple of feet beyond that a little bit of bank sticking out with the remains of a bush on it. Between the two was a flat bit the same depth, about 18 inches square, and I started there with corn,

Tony Dawson also started abnout a foot from the bare bank, and had three or four fish quite quickly, while I had nothing. So I went into the deeper water just over a top-two out and got a 5 lb carp. But after 45 minutes that was the only fish I had, while Tony had another one or two in the deep water and Shaun had started like an express train fishing the end bank to his left – he must have had 40 lb in the first 45 minutes!

One or two more fish came to me on cat meat from the deep water and then the fish started in my close-in swim – first was a mirror of almost 12 lb! From then on I concentrated on the close-in swim with maggot (feeding dead maggot or corn) and slowly built up a weight while Shaun went for a third net after about two hours, and Tony was not far behind. I had about 40 lb at that time, but then I settled down. Meanwhile Tony really started to work his close-in swims, fishing mainly to his left, but resting it from time to time and going to the right.

I had been feeding expanders down to my right and first put-in one was taken by a barbel, followed by a few carp. My mistake was that I was feeding the left swim and fishing to the right for one fish, then feeding the right swim and fishing to the left – a classic tactic. I realised too late that in fact the fish were coming in quickly to the feed and leaving within a minute or two. When I cottoned on things looked up and I went for a third net after about four hours.

Sport died down an hour from the end, when the wind turned and became very cold, and eventually I went back out to my deep-water swim with cat meat, and found fish willing to feed well. Tony was now on his fifth or sixth net, as was Shaun. I went for my fourth with 30 minutes left, lost a fish and landed two before the all-out was called. I reckoned I’d got 40 lb in the first net, 42 lb in the second, 40 lb in the third, and 7 lb in the final one – about 130 lb.

Well, bottom weight down to me was 98 lb and he was over in one net! Tony weighed 226 lb (from memory) and my first net weighed 52 lb 14 oz – far in excess of what I had estimated. The next one was even bigger – 57 lb 14 oz and just one fish away from a disqualification (how can I keep doing this?). The third net weighed 48 lb-plus, and the last one 8 lb-plus – total 157 lb 7 oz, and nearly 10 lb lost because of my rubbish calculations. Shaun weighed 210 lb, and although I had been well beaten I didn’t feel bad – I’d caught more in six hours that I’d ever caught in a season on natural waters! And the 10 lb lost was not relevant because my section had a 169 lb in it, on the opposite bank.

Every other angler on the lake weighed in over 100 lb and I was about 8th from the 12. Happy with that, as they are all better anglers than me, and I didn’t do anything really stupid – except I should really go to Specsavers and get a new pair of glasses...

PS. The prawns stayed in my bag, as it wasn’t the sort of day where I felt a bait change would make much difference – it was all down to feeding and presentation.

PPS. The next day this lake was won from my peg, fishing just past the small promontory, with paste. I really should have had a look there when sport tailed off. My error.