A difficult day on a snagpit

Decoy Lakes, Damson, peg 13

This was a midweek match, and 15 of us fished. Damson holds a lot of small fish – up to 1 lb or so – and although there are apparently lots of bigger fish I’ve never seen many caught in a match.  Peg 13 is in the first corner, but I didn't fancy it much, because there was no ripple, but a fair amount of thickish scum between me and the corner. I plumbed up a swim near the corner, but never tried it.

On previous occasions as soon as bait has been thrown into the water small fish have attacked it like piranhas for an hour or two; then it’s usually been a case of trying to catch fish in the side. The lake is the deepest one on Decoy – I found about seven feet at 6 metres, and in fact I started by putting in pellets at that distance, hoping to catch up in the water. I couldn't fish much farther out as Peter, on my righthand bank, and I would have crossed over each other. 

But was confident, fresh from my day with Jon Whincup, that it would work. But it didn’t work. Apart from the odd swirl there was very little happening. The sun was bright, and with hardly any wind things didn’t look good, but at least I had a try, and two fish hooked themselves in the first 25 minutes or so – one an 8 oz F1 and the other a small rudd.

So it was back to the method most of the other anglers were fishing – top two in the side. However I wasn’t confident about that. I’d already had my plummet snagged while plumbing to my left, and to the right scum actually stopped my light rigs getting through. There were the remains of trees on the bank, and trees have roots in the side! But most of the bites I had were close to the side, where the scum was thickest. Carp were sipping the scum almost all day, but as soon as they saw a bait laid in they swam up to it, had a quick look, and scarpered!

Peter, across the corner, started very well and at first I thought he was fishing paste, but when I saw him use a baiting needle I knew it was cat meat. So for most of the day I fished cat meat as close to the bank as I could, where the water was about two feet deep, or a piece of corn a little farther out, where the water was just a little deeper with no scum on the surface. But there were snags here as well, and several times I had a bite, struck, and found myself immediately snagged. I tried fishing corn off bottom, above the snags, and I think, in view of how Terry fished, I should have stuck at that. I kept dropping in to my left and put in some corn there but never had a bite.

To cut a five-hour story short I kept winkling out fish, mainbly around 1 lb, with three beween 3 lb and 4 lb, all day, on corn and meat, with the odd one on 6mm expander, for 73 lb 4 oz, but I always felt I should have had a lot more. I think if a ripple had appeared,as it did in some swims, the fish would have fed better. I had dips on the float all day, some of which werecertainly liners, as carp were swimming around all the time. But some were definitely fish playing with the bait, as often there were 20 seconds of movement of the float which finally developed into a proper bite. I had a really good spell about 1 pm, but sport tailed off towards the end.

Terry had a magnificent 158 lb 8 oz, fishing 4 mm banded hard pellet on top two down the side, starting off the bottom. I really should have started like that. More than once this year I’ve been beaten by someone fishing pellet off the bottom down the side. And that performance is the best I have seen this season.Terry is about my age, no longer a perfect physical specimen, indeed sometimes he can hardly walk because of leg trouble. But when that comepetitive instinct is aroused Boy, can he fish! He was end peg on the far bank, so had the longest walk, and I doubt whether he’d ever fished on that bank before, so it was all new to him.

I ended seventh, and once again my long-handled landing net with hook on the end came to my rescue on the many times I was snagged. Most times I managed to get everything back, but I did lose a few hooks. Fishing further out and deeper would have got me away from the snags, but I don’t think I would have found the fish there. The problem with this small-fish fishing is that  you can’t really afford to lose half an hour (as I did at the start, and later when I tried to my left) trying another spot as there are no bonus fish to bring you back.  I averaged 12 lb an hour, and you can see from the weights that another 12 lb would have made a difference to my placing.

So I think I didn’t fish it very well. I must get it into my head that carp tend to be off the bottom for most of the day. I don’t fish pellet as much as I did a couple of years ago, when I could hardly go wrong. Back to the drawing board!

Superb performance by Terry Tribe.

My swim in the corner.