Yew Lake, Decoy, Peg 3
This was the third Ellis Buddle Memorial. Ellis was a member
of our club but died three years ago., and was a great inspiration to me. He
would sit there, fishing, with his oxygen cannister by his side and the pipes
up his nose to help him breath. Smoking did for his lungs. But he still used to
frame.
I remember one day on Kingsland Silver Fish Lake when hecame
second with about 65 lb of chub, beating former National Champion Bryan Lakey
on the next peg, and Bryan was more made-up than Ellis himself. On another occasion,
on the main Kingsland Carp Lake it was a hot day, sport was slow, and I wandered along during the match to see
Bryan; on the way back to my peg I heard this plaintiff “Mac, can you help me?”
from Ellis. I slid down the bank to him and saw his problem – he had an 18 mirror
carp in his landing and couldn’t lift it up to unhook!
Somehow we managed to lift it up, unhook it, and get it into
his keepnet, though you can imagine how difficult that transfer was! Anyway, he
was always grateful for the help he was given – lifting his gear out of the car
and putting it back, as he hadn’t enough strength left in his later years to do
it himself.
So Ellis leaves me
with great memories – which is more than this match did! The temperature
dropped heavily overnight and the wind was Northerly with a little bit of East
in it, which meant that the end pegs, from about 10 to 15 and 16 to 20 on the
other side, were calm, and the rest had ripple, with most at the car park end,
and my bank had a slight headwind; so my swim, end peg, was the coldest in the
match. And it felt it – I was shivering towards the end. It was, as always, a
drawn-team event, with five teams of four (I didn’t fish last year’s match, but
was 2nd in the first one and in the winning team).
A slow start
As it was so cold I started with a Method feeder, with just
a couple of liners, but no fish. Then on pole at 11 metres, on a 6mm expander
over 4mm pellets, with no signs of a bite for half an hour. So I had a look
down the side in the deep water, where there was a considerable tow, using a
4mm expander over 4mm pellets. No result. Two hours had gone by. Back to 10
metres, and then I remembered that once I had had fish by putting on an extra
section...and it worked! First drop-in a 5 lb carp came in. But no more, though
I did foulhook and lose one.
Two hours left and I was cold and desperate, the wind had
got up and was so strong I couldn’t even fish 10 metres any more, so put in a bait-dropper of dead maggots right
in front of me and tried tripping a bunch of four reds trough. The tow was
quite pronounced – I’ve fished the Trent on occasions when the flow was less
than this!
...and a slow finish!
Two hours of hard work brought two carp with two lost, and a
2 lb tench at the end, plus a tiny perch. John Buckenham, opposite, who had won
the first two memorials, had one on a pole and half a dozen on the Method, so I
didn’t feel I had done too badly. One of the lost fish snagged me about ten feet from the bank, and I had to pull for a break. My guess is it's an umbrella stuck in the bottom, as my hook was definitely not on the bottom, but a fair way above it. Anyway, Di knows where the snag is and Decoy will have a search around for it. They are very good with that sort of thing.
My five fish weighed 16 lb 6 oz, which was towards the bottom, but
at the weigh-in I couldn’t believe the difference between my end of the lake
and the other end – it was ten degrees warmer down there, with virtually no
wind, and my mate Peter won it in the corner on peg 15 with 74 lb 13 oz. He was in
the winning team, so well done, Peter. My team was third, with the two best weights towards the calmer, warmer end.
Just for the record the only DNW was
next to me on peg 4 – probably not a very experienced angler but I felt he
fished a tidy match, concentrating on the bottom of the shelf and fishing to
the end of the match without a fish.
 |
| Richard Morris was in my team and was third with 40 lb 10 oz, including this cracking mirror. |
 |
| The result. |
No comments:
Post a Comment