Oh, dearie me!

Midweek club match, Elm Lake, Decoy, peg 23

I have to be honest and say that before the match I did not fancy my draw at all. In fact it’s possible  I moaned a bit and called it the worst peg in the complex! I’ve fished it before (obviously) in a festival and did badly – mercifully I can’t remember the details; but I remember Afe Edgeley, a cracking matchman, coming last in one of the festival matches from the same swim.

Elm has 24 pegs – 1 to 12 down the West bank and 13 to 24 back down the East bank. I would have much preferred 24 to my left, as at least I would have had a corner to fish to. But it was not peggd today. As a general rule the best weights tend to come from the far end of the strips, so I moaned that I was also at the wrong end. Thirteen fished (unlucky?) I was not optimistic.

Peg 23 had no margin when I last fished it – it’s an almost straight drop down to about 6 feet of water (Elm appears to be probably the deepest of the strip lakes) and to the right there’s a tree which means you can’t fish along the bank that way. However, since then the prevailing Westerleys have caused bank subsidence on some of the lakes, and on this occasion I managed to find a small area, ten metres to my left, which was only 18 inches deep for a foot or so out, before dropping away. I carry a small pair of hand shears with me, and cut the bankside grass so I could see into a bit of this small hole if I stood up. Sort of desperate, really.

A handy little tool.

This will be a short report because I had to leave before the weigh-in to play a bowls match. The water had a decidedly greenish tinge from some sort of algal bloom – as did the other strips – and scum was collecting at our end, blown there by the light North-Easterly. The sun shone all day.

I started in the shallow margin to my left mainly so I could reassure myself I had at least tried it, and, to my surprise, using a 6mm expander, hooked and landed a 5 lb mirror first drop-in, followed by a 3 lb barbel also on an expander. To rest the swim I then came in the side, at the bottom of the shelf in the deepest water – about a metre out from the reeds, and hooked another carp first drop-in, on corn followed by a 2 lb barbel, also on corn. So 12 lb in the first 15 minutes!

Of course it didn’t continue like that so I alternated between the two swims, but took only two gudgeon from the shallow one in the next two hours (one of my favourite fish, and a sign the water is in good condition) , and odd carp from the corn swim. I then had a drop in to the right margin on top two, using cat meat, without putting any feed in, and foulhooked a barbel. So I fed cat meat and hemp here and took another three or four small ones quickly. But the carp swim then went dead.

I now want to avoid being last!

A little over halfway through the match, I had an estimated 35 lb and Peter Spriggs went for a third net! Followed, in the next hour by John, the other Peter, Terry and Trevor. I had at least started on my second net by now, but my target was to avoid being last, and hopefully  beating Mick Linnell – a former Peterborough National angler, on the peg to my right. Despondent was not the word.

With an hour and a half to go sport suddenly started to really pick up, though in only spurts, and I had to feed before every fish. However, with 45 minutes left, and an estimated 40 lb in each net, including a couple of barbel approaching 5 lb, which took forever to land, I went for my third, shortly followed by Peter Spriggs and John going for their fourth!

When I sat down again I continued to catch well –  carp to about 4 lb, and the occasional 2 lb barbel – on cat meat. But I had to tease the fish into taking the bait – they seemed to be playing with it and wouldn’t take until I dragged it along the bottom. Lifting it produced no response. Strange. Two of the last fish were bream of 1 lb and 2 lb - I have noticed that when the carp disappear there's often a bream or two there, presumably cleaning up. Anyway I reckoned I had 22 lb in that last net when the shout went up to end the match. I had lost only three fish all day, none of which I think were foulhooked.

I had to leave my catch to be weighed, and estimated my nets held 40 lb, 40 lb and 22 lb, so I might have broken the ton. Mick, to my right, estimated he had 60 lb, so I then knew I was not last.

The result

I spoke to John later that night and he told me what had happened at the weigh-in. The following relies on my memory of that conversation...the main weights being: Terry on peg 5 had 109 lb most on a straight leger with banded hard pellet, John on peg 8 (four nets) had 127 lb 10 oz, Trevor on about peg 11 had 116 lb, Peter Spriggs (four nets) on peg 15 had 137 lb and won, the other Peter on 20 had around 120 lb for fourth. Then came my catch – last to weigh.

John spared me the exact details but apparently I was way, way  over in my first two nets and had a lot more than 10 lb deducted, my total weight being given as 127 lb dead for third! If the disqualified fish had been added I would have won!

I thought the fish felt heavy in the landing net, but dismissed it from my thoughts at the time. So they must have weight almost 50% more than my estimate – solid fish in great condition. And at the end of the day I had a good day’s fishing from what used to be a crap peg(!)

I love Elm peg 23 now - one of the best pegs on the complex...

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