Out of the wind at last!

Jay Lake, Rookery Waters, Pidley, peg 18

I don’t know who these boffins are who keep telling the media we’ve had the warmest spring for a century, but sure as hell they don’t live in my neck of the woods!

Throughout the whole of December, January and February I never saw the temperature guage in my car register above 6 Degrees Centigrade, and since then we’ve not had more than two warm days in a row, while a cold wind has been almost constant the rest of the time. And it was no different on this day – I was glad I’d put on two layers of thermal clothing in addition to my normal stuff and Goretex waterproofs.

Jay is a snake lake with shallow margins but with a steep drop to the deep water. The new platforms, covered with Astro Turf are just great – I’d not fished here since they were put in. You could mount a machine gun on them, and could probably park a tank! And it brings the distance to the far bank down to 13 metres on most of the lake, and that’s where a lot of matches are being won. And a track has been laid to allow everyone to take their car to their peg.

And Hallelujah! I had been in two minds whether to risk another day being almost blown off my box, but for this Over 60s event, which attracted 12 or 14 anglers, but I drew one of the few swims with a back wind, a chilling North-Easterly. About time, because I’d got really fed up having to face the wind in match after match while others basked in the watery sun with back wind!

Plenty of time to plumb, which always takes me at least 20 minutes, and I found a small hole around 5 foot deep, about two inches deeper than the surrounding area, a little to my right at about 8 metres. That allowed me to fish a bait off bottom in the deep water, touching bottom to one side, and laying on an inch a little farther away. Perfect!

But I still liked the look of the swim to my right, just off the bankside reeds, though it was on a slope dropping from three feet to four where it started to level off. I also plumbed the far bank at around two feet, and had a rig ready for that.

The start saw me put in some expanders and luncheon meat in the hole, while I threw half-a-dozen small cubes of luncheon meat down to the reeds and kept doing this every two or three minutes for the next 20 minutes while I fished the hole. Nothing there so I had a quick look in the reed swim, again for nothing, then went across to the far bank with an expander pellet, fed with a tosspot on the pole.

I fished there for about 15 minutes, fishing the bait on the bottom near the far bank, touching bottom a metre away, and off bottom a further metre towards me, but never had a touch. I would have expected a liner at least, if there were fish there, and I gave up on it, and decided to return only if I became desperate. So it was back to the hole, and soon a 1 lb carp took my luncheon meat, followed by a three-pounder. Then a lull and I had a look inside, to my right, which unfortunately meant my pole was now being held sideways to the wind, and it made perfect presentation quite difficult as the pole was buffeted around somewhat. But it brought three carp to 3 lb in the next half-hour, at which time I had to see a man about a dog and had a wander back to peg 46, which faced the wind, to see my mate Alan. He had just one fish from a nice-looking swim near the bridge, so that gave me some idea of how the lake was fishing.

When I’ve caught a fish or two I try to get a feeling of what sort of weight might frame, and I plumped for 35 lb at this time. There’s no science in it – just a gut feeling. Anyway in the next two hours about eight more fish, around 2 lb, came from the side swim, to a method I have never seen anyone else use, which allows me to fish at dead depth (though I know there are doubters on the Maggot Drowning site). It was not easy in the wind, but I was happy to keep odd fish coming in.

Then I went back to the deep hole, without putting in any more feed, and a 6 lb carp took my luncheon meat cube straight away! Then a smaller fish, then nothing! So it was back to the side where I kept on picking up odd fish to 3 lb, perhaps one every 15 minutes. I simply fed six or seven cubes with each drop-in as the water was still extremely cold, and I didn’t want the fish filling themselves. I had purple Hydro elastic quite tight, and managed to encourage every fish to swim away from the reeds when hooked, not losing a single fish all day. You’ve got to talk nicely to them!

The big carp from the swim I hadn’t fed for two hours reinforced my idea that fish will come towards feed without any intention of feeding, but the odd one succumbs. I assume there was some feed left on the bottom and this carp was just having a look. That’s also the reason I kept feeding the side swim – to keep something falling through the water.

I used to live on the banks of the Upper Welland, and catch chub. The water was absolutely clear much of the time, and you could see chub responding to loose feed – they came for a look as soon as it hit the water, but within 40 seconds seem to lose interest and drift away. That scenario imprinted itself on my brain.

That reminds me of the time I was feeding shoal of chub from a bridge, with casters., and I could vaguely see the fish intercepting the bait – chub have thick white lips and a black edging to their tail, so I could just about make out where they were moving to. The sun went in and because I could no longer see the dark casters going in I dropped in a single white maggot, to check where it was falling. Unbelievably I saw a chub come to the maggot, turn away, and take the rest of the shoal with it. If i hadn’t seen it I would not have believed it. That convinced me that the choice of bait can sometimes make a huge difference. The only explanation I could think of was that the fish had been caught several times on maggot, and instinct took over.

Back to peg 18 and I stayed in close until the weigh-in, with the fish seeming to drop down the shelf for ten minutes and then come back. The first two anglers were DNW, and 15 lb. So I was pleased when I weighed 55 lb. By the time I had packed up the scales were round to Chris Saunders, a well-known local, and I was still top. But Chris did me by 10 lb, and told me he had, unexpectedly, found fish two-thirds of the way across, in the deep water, on cat meat. He kept coming back determined to make a closer swim work, but it never did.

My estimate of 35 lb to frame was a bit on the low side, because there were two 45 lb as well. But it was not wildly out. The wind had, apparently caused severe problems for most of the anglers, who were side-on to the wind and they found it almost impossible to fish properly right across. On a good day in the summer weights here can top 150 lb. So overall a satisfying day when I hadn’t really been looking forward to another day in the wind.

Tomorrow it's off to the first Kinsgland match of the year, then two days later there again. I've got a decent record on these lakes and find there are few decisions to make - the swim and conditions tell me what to do.