Vets National

We watched the weigh-in on Covey Lakes yesterday and I would like to draw here. Last time I was on Spey, which I’m not complaining about as I was second on the lake and won my ten-peg section (Mark Addy won the other) . But Covey is more open, and you can see what other anglers are doing, while Spey is more overgrown, and anyway today there’s not much colour in Spey, while all the other lakes are a nice brown. There are 11 lakes in all, six Coveys, and five others. The talk is that Covey 5 and 6 are the lakes to draw.

The Tuesday match, held in bright sunshine with not much wind, was won shallow on caster, but it’s obviously possible to get big weights from the margins. That suits me. So to our B&B about five minutes away, after having a good meal at the Toby Carvery near Leigh.

The match – blow me, it’s Spey 2 for me and Marsh 18 for Martin, and it’s raining! It rained on and off almost all day, and I had a fair walk from where we decided to park the car. But the match doesn’t start until 11 am so even I had enough time to set up. I had leger rods with me but the margins looked good and I didn’t get them out of the bag. And at least I had back wind.

I plumbed up across at the far bank, at 13 metres, but made a decision to go over there only if things were dire – I could see the poles of anglers to my left, so reckoned I would be able to see if the far bank produced (it didn’t seem to). So at the start I did what I usually do –put some bait out long. I decided on the bottom of the near shelf at four sections, and put casters in with a bait dropper; that gives me confidence that the bait gets to the bottom without allowing fish to intercept it on the way down.

There was a beautiful-looking cut-out in the bank three sections to my right which should surely hold fish at some time; it was about two feet deep and I had a look here. Nothing, but I kept throwing in half a dozen 4mm cubes of luncheon meat (cat meat banned here) every couple of minutes for the next two hours.

A drop-in with expander on a size 14 (maximum allowed) on top two to my left brought just the odd knock, so I also started dripfeeding expander in there. Then it was out to the longer line with caster, but nothing happened. The angler to my left on peg 4 (we were on alternate pegs) had had three or four fish, one from the far bank, one in the deep water and at least one other in the margin, so I looked like being hammered. I guessed, after a good look, that he was using corn, which I had with me, but I decided to stick with what I had started on for the moment.

After two hours fishless, I started getting missed bites or liners on the long line after I loose-fed caster so came up in the water to fish caster shallow. Within a few minutes I had five small rudd in five casts, all of which hooked themselves, and I decided to carry on, hoping the carp would move in. At exactly that point the wind moved direction, and started coming from the left, putting a ripple on the water and dropping the temperature slightly – and despite another 20 minutes fishing shallow and putting in loose casters I never had another bite!

So it was back to the righthand margin, using a yellow-tipped Maver Invincible float to show up against the reflection of the dark bankside vegetation, and suddenly a 1 lb bream put in appearance, followed by another smaller one. I put in a few more cubes of meatand a few casters and left this swim, and started again four sections to my left, beyond a patch of lilles, where I had plumbed up before the match at about two feet deep; I had it in my mind that this swim, with tall reeds by the side, could be the best – and so it proved. I think it important, especially when there’s not a lot of colour in the water, to rest a swim early so the flashing of the hooked fish doesn’t do too much damage.

I had to change my rig in the lefthand swim from yellow Invincible to a black-tipped Drennan TuffEye (there are four differently-coloured tops with each TuffEye) as the light had dropped and I could see the black better. It was time well spent as I had a bite on meat within a minute, and it was a 3 lb F1. I took another fish from here, fed, and went back to the right – but there was nothing there. No matter, the idea was to rest the lefthand swim, so I didn’t worry. I then remembered that the previous time I had fished here I caught on worm (I hadn’t cottoned on to this before the match) so on went a worm...and up came a perch! End of experiment.

Then it was back to the lefthand swim and two more F1s, then nothing from the right. Then more fish from the lefthand swim, and I felt I had to start concentrating on this one, but still feeding both swims after every fish with half-a-dozen pieces of meat and a few casters. One fish was particularly difficult, even though I was using black double Preston 8 Slip elastic, and after some minutes I still hadn’t seen it, but I got the landing net ready and hoped to scoop it oput. That meant I had to pull the elastic, and when it was near the net I was ready to make a dive for it...when the fish suddenly wrenched the pole down and broke me. Actually I had noticed a wind knot a few inches above the hook and hadn’t done anything about it, so it was certainly my fault. I suspect the fish was a foulhooked barbel, as I had got one of 4 lb.

I tied the new hook by hand, but was prepared to use the hooktier if I had problems with cramp in my left hand while tying it; thankfully I got it right first time.

I was, however, having trouble netting my fish because of the umbrella behind me, so at one point I took the landing net handle apart (it’s a Matrix two-piece put-in) and used it short. When the fish started to get a bit bigger I used the handle long but pulled the two sections apart to put the fish in the keepnet. Why not take down the umbrella? I just felt that I could cope and I was better off keeping my hands fairly dry and warm, and being able to keep my towels handy and dry, rather than sitting in the rain. There’s nothing worse than fishing with cold wet hands – it can lead to mistakes.

I carried on in the lefthand swim, catching perhaps one fish every six or seven minutes, mostly around 2 lb until about 45 minutes before the end, when I looked to my right again, where I had still been feeding every drop-in with meat and caster, and immediately got a 4 lb carp then three or four F1s. Then back to the other swim, and just before the end I lost a fish which pulled off, so that meant just two lost fish all day, which I was very pleased with. The bites were very delictae, and it seemed the fish were knocking the bait before actually taking it, so I had to be patient before striking.

Although I got the impression there were fish around all the time I wondered whether my blank spells were because the fish were retreating into the reeds. The wind was a bit gusty, and seemed to alter its angle occasionally, so that might have affected the fish as they are very susceptible to alterations in air pressure. It was rare to get two fish very quickly, and even then I had to lift the bait and drop it to get a bite.

Anyway, I was first to weigh and totalled 20.975 kilos – that’ s about 46 lb in real money, while the angler to my left, who had started so well, had 14 kilos. He had continued moving around his swim – far bank, then deep, then the margins, and I was pleased I had decided to concentrate on the inside as I got a bit of a feeling for where exactly I needed to be. For instance, in the righthand swim I needed to be about six inches beyond the middle of the cut-out, where the water was about an inch deeper than it was nearer to me. In the lefthand swim I needed to feed four feet from the side but fish 18 inches farther out to get a bite. Don’t know why, but you have to go with what works.

The best bit was that as I trudged back to the car the other anglers all told me I had won the section, that some had not weighed, and others had only a couple of pounds. And indeed I had won the lake, and the section, while Martin had just over 21 kilos, but 29 kilos had won his lake.

The match was won by the legend that is Harry Billing (he had been second once) on Covey 3, fishing past in the margins, while Danny Sixsmith (who won my section on Tunnel Barn Farm last year and was third overall) was second on the new Covey 6 after feeding several pints of live maggots and fishing maggot on the hook. This area of Covey 6 – from pegs 151 to 173 – produced five of the top 15 weights. You needed 26.200 kilos to finish in the top 20, so a good match allround, with 160 fishing.

The talk had been that you needed to use light elastic, and I had put a 6-8 through one section, but I had to really hold the fish to stop them getting into the reeds when hooked, so I never used it, and I felt I couldn’t possible have got away with a light elastic. The double Slip was fine, and it was black Hydro in the righthand section. I carry a range, and am quite willing to change if things don’t feel right. Perhaps light elastic would have been fine on Covey if fishing shallow.

So another good result – I’ve had a 15th, two or three tenths, a seventh, and several section wins in Vets Nationals. I’m not looking forward to next year, though, if the match is on Woodland View, Droitwich, as rumoured. The lakes there are so different from each other. The first time it was on Woodland View and Moorlands (together) I won the 40-peg Bank Lake on Moorlands (and won an AT medal) but came nowhere overall. Then the last time I was in the worst section on High Pool, which fished worst of all. But if Martin goes than I suppose I’ll go.