This was a midweek club match, and 14 fished. My peg was in the corner at the Car Park end of this strip Lake, and while the four strips (Elm, Cedar, Oak, Yew) tend to fish best about two-thirds of the way down from the car park, Cedar is the one most likely to produce the top weights from the Car Park end. So far as I know no-one has fathomed out why. Anyway, I was not unhappy with the draw (actually I’m not unhappy with any draw at Decoy) even though the light Southerly wind was blowing down to the other end and all was calm at my end of the lake..
I prodded around the margins before the match and found two spots, to my left, where there was a hint of a shelf – the closest was about 20 inches across, between two sprouting stumps of old bushes, and went about a foot out before plunging down. But I decided to leave that, and plumbed up four swims – one out at 10 metres, another on a plateau near the lefthand end of the lake, where the depth was only about 3 ft, the margin down on my right where it was almost 6 ft, and a metre farther out, where it was six inches deeper.
Just after the match started the wind increased and turned through 90 degrees so it was right in my face – a lovely ripple but not easy to fish shallow now if I wanted to, which was a pity because fish were moving under the surface. So I decided to concentrate on the margins for the moment, and started down on the right, with catmeat over corn and hemp. This produced a couple of F1s and a lot of liners caused, I am sure, not just by fish hitting the line, but others actually playing with the bait. But because there were fish near the surface I put out a shallow rig in the side with a 6mm expander.
This immediately produced a pricked fish, then a missed bite, then a fish properly hooked. It was a 2lb F1, but the rig had a size 18 PR22 on it – a very light-wire hook. So I played it gingerly and while doing so promised myself if I landed it – and even if I didn’t – I would change the nrig for something a bit more substantial. I did manage to land it, and wound that rig back on a winder so I wouldn’t be tempted to use it again. Then I got out another rig with a stronger PR 478.
That didn’t bring any more bites in that area, which made me wonder about the rate of fall of the pellet – something which I experimented with next morning (see below).
Anyway, occasional fish to 4 lb or so came from the deep margin to the right, and I couldn’t see anyone really bagging, so I stayed there and halfway through the match I estimated I’d got about 30 lb. But I needed to make something happen, so I threw some expanders into the little cut-out to the left and followed them up with my new shallow rig, set at the depth of the shallowest shelf – about 18 inches. Amazingly the float dipped and a 5 lb mirror was hooked and landed. Things then picked up and slowly my catch rate increased, with a couple of carp from the shelf and then a couple of barbel, which had moved in, from the right.
The barbel were a real menace, the occasional one coming in quickly if I caught it off-balance, but most just refusing to give in – as they do! But at least I was putting fish in the net. The, at 2 pm, Peter went for his third net and I extimated I had 40 lb in one net and 14 lb in the other, so I was well behind if he had around 90 lb (50 lb limit on this fishery).
But while he was gone I managed to land a 5 lb carp and hook a 4 lb barbel, which I landed just after he had returned, so that reduced the margin a bit. Then Martin went for another net, and I suddenly saw that Trevor – who wins more matches than anoy other angler in the club – had three in front of him already. But I had a job to do, so concentrated on catching anything I could, from both swims, and suddenly my clicker showed 36 lb. One more fish and I went for another net at 2.45 pm, at about the same time as John, in the next swim.
The last hour and a quarter saw fewer fish than I had hoped for, and I remember the last fish was a foulhooked barbel of around 4 lb which I clearly saw hooked in a pectoral fisn, but I lost it after playing it for four or five minutes. No time to re-cast, and I wondered if that lost fish would cost me. My clicker showed 36 lb when the match ended. Apart from a brief look at my close-in line in the deep water I hadn't even picked up the other rigs I had ready.
I followed the scales round, as I like to do. Peg 1, opposite me, saw My Man Of The Match, Ted, weigh in 104 lb 14 oz. I’ve mentioned him before – he’s 89 and I have so much admiration for him. How many other 89-year-olds can regularly catch that sort of weight, without any help? We had a re-add for Terry on 5, and he finished 3 oz short of Ted! Then came Trevor, with four nets, who totalled 166 lb 1 oz – obviously a winner because no-one else had four nets. He had fished corn down the steep sloping shelf to his left, at about five feet deep, laying the rig out and letting it fall into the shelf. Very simple. And they all came from his lefthand margin - he had three quick looks in the righthand side, but never had a bite there.
Ted was second-top weight on that bank, and we came back along my bank. Martin, former Vets National winner and my regular travelling companion to that match, jumped into second place with his 123 lb 10 oz, But he was overtaken by Peter on 20, who totalled 135 lb 6 oz, no doubt taken on his special home-made paste, but he had 6 lb docked from one net...which was to prove costly.
Next to me John Garner overtook Martin with 124 lb 7 oz. I was admitting to 115 lb to 120 lb, as I reckoned I had 39 lb in the first two nets and 36 lb in the last one. Well, I was well out – my last net had 44 lb-plus; my first net had 49 lb 8 0z (!) and the second one had 42 lb...totalling 136 lb, and beating Peter into second spot by 10 oz. So a good day was had by all. (Well, all except Peter).
Experiments
Some of the carp from the shallow margin swim had come to the shallow rig fished just a foot deep against the grass in the lefthand cut-out, while at other times I had to fish full depth and lay the rig in against the slope. But I noticed the expanders seemed to be falling like stones, and wondered if a slower fall would have worked.
I have always been perplexed by writers describing expanders as being light in the water – ie not heavy, whereas I have always found them to be heavy. Certainly when I’m fishing sensitively (as I usually do) an expander – and especially a 6 mm version - will sink my float if it’s not resting on the bottom. That’s how I know when I’m touching bottom.
And I was sure that in this match |I would have caught more if I could have got the expander on my hook to sink slowly. The rules say you have to have a foot of line below the float, so if the fish are in the top foot of water the pellet has shot past them in half a second. I was amazed, when I dropped a 6mm expander into a bucket at home, how quickly it sank – like a small pebble.
So next morning I experimented. The expander has to be completely soaked, because a hook will not easily go through the kernel of a half-soaked pellet. But with a fully-soaked pellet a size 16 fine-wire hook is noty sufficiently heavy to sink it; so it needs squeezing. I found that it seems to be necessary to put the pellet on the hook and squeeze each one – you can’t do a batch. I always have a tub of water on my side tray, so it will be a question of checking each pellet before use. It will take only secionds to check that it has a verty slow rate of sink – time well spent. I hope.
I guess the same reasoning will apply to a 4mm expander, but this season seems to have seen a roach explosion on all the waters I fish, and I have found a 6mm has a better chance of missing them and catching a carp. So recently I’ve been sticking mainly to 6mm on the hook.
Next event for me is a two-day festival on Decoy, followed by that day out with Jon Whincup.
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