This was a club match and I was drawn in the far coner (no permananet pegs here) where a charity match had been won a few days earlier with 160 lb-plus. I was not unhappy with my draw, as I remembered I had fished it previously and caught fish.
There was little wind and I guessed that would favour both Peter, who fished floating Chum Mixers here if he can, and Trevor, who has already had four weights over 200 lb, mainly on floating expanders. I really ought to have set my stall out to fish floaters, but decided to stick mainly to cat meat, feeding mainly corn and cat meat.
I started off by bait-dropping corn out at top 2+1, and then put some cat meat and corn out only a couple of metres out towards the corner to my left, where the reeds are pretty thick – as they are all round the margins. The fish here are big, so there was no point in using delicate tackle – my rig for the corner was 0.3mm – about 12 lb, with a Kamasan Animal size 12 hook. I didn't expect much early on, but gave it ten minutes on the three-section line and then moved to my main swim.
A four-pound mirror came quickly, and then more at ten-minute intervals, so that after two hours I had around 40 lb. To give that swim a rest I went out onto the other line occasionally, but managed only a couple there. So most of the time I was back to my lefthand short swim. And after four hours I had around 85 lb, losing one fish in the reeds. That was strange – I played it for several minutes, broke down to my top two, and up to then it had shown no inclination to stay away from the open water. Then, suddenly, it got its head down and struggled its way into the reeds, with me quite unable to put on any more pressure without risking breaking my top two. The tight purple Hydro just kept stretching, and I wonder now whether the fish was foulhooked.
Anyway, it weeded me and I managed to get the float back usinh my long landing net handle with a hook on the end. Another fish took my rig from my margin pole. This is more than 30 years old and stiff, so the fish don’t fight quite as much, and I am certain that fish was foulhooked as it made a typical run out to the centre of the lake and never looked like stopping. So far the best fish was about 11 lb.
So with just less than two hours to go I fetched another net – only to sit with just one more fish in the next hour. I had left my right margin, deliberately, and now put in a load of dead maggots, which always seem to bring carp in. But this time – nothing, just the odd roach pull. Perhaps it was because this was shallower than the lefthand swim. Then in the last 20 minutes three more fish came from the left swim, and I finished an unauspicious match with 103 lb 10 oz. So a good day’s fishing.
Trevor won with a handsome weight – 237 lb 15, all taken on his floating expanders, with his best fish 14 lb 5 oz. He holds his rig over the surface and tries to drop the bait into the mouth of a surface-feeding fish. Of course this method is banned on most match fisheries, but Kingsland is essentially a ‘pleasure’ fishery and it’s allowed. Peter was second with 161 lb 9 oz, all taken on his floating Chum Mixers and including fish over 13 lb. Mick was third – after a stange experience. He had four nets and went, first of all, to pull out his fourth net – empty! We looked for ages to find a hole in it...then the penny dropped. He had accidentally carried on putting fish into this third net! Our club rule is 50 lb maximum so poor Mick, with well over 80 lb in his third net, lost more than 30 lb from his total, which in the end was 129 lb 5 oz. Ted, who is aged 89, was fourth with a magnificant 113 lb 10 oz – what a performance!!!
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