An undeserved brown envelope

Cedar Lake,  Decoy, peg 6

I was initially pleased to draw on the West bank in the second match of the two-day event, as the wind appeared to be slightly behind, and rain had been forecast. In fact when I got to the lake the wind was straight down from the car park (peg 1 with peg 26 on the opposite bank) to the far end. But Cedar tends, sometimes, to produce better weights at the car park end, and with 13 pegs on my bank I was almost halfway along, so I was at least content.

Several of us put up umbrellas before the start when the rain started, and I fixed sideways on to the strong wind mine on my right, which kept all my luggage dry, though the rain did hit me.  I made mistake by not dropping my rig in before the whistle; if I had I would have realised that there was a considerable tow from left to right, against the wind, close to the bank.

My swim to the right - there was a narrow shallow area.

 

My swim to the left - there was no shallow margin.

Hurrah for maggots

I started, as I usually do,  at about 8 metres, with corn and pellet, and did not get a bite for 20 minutes. Then I came in to the side and bait-droppered dead maggots down to the bottom of the shelf, which was less than three feet from the side, to my left. There was no margin at all here, though there was a tree and a bush, which no doubt had roots underwater, so I had to be careful of those.  That was when I realised that there was a tow – a big one – which was not obvious farther out, and I was now effectively  baiting upstream of me – not ideal. But the maggots immediately started to produce bites, with an F1 followed by a barbel, followed by a 3 lb carp.

In went more maggots, and I had a quick look out at 8 metres, and hit a 1 lb bream immediately. Back to the maggots and another couple of fish came before they died. By now the rain had eased off and almost stopped. I could fish the righthand margin in a fachion by holding the top two in my left hand and peering round the side of my umbrella, so had a speculative drop in there after throwing in a dozen pieces of corn, and fancied I had a tiny bite! So I got up and took down the umbrella so I could fish the margin properly.

Problem with wind

That was probably the best decision I made all day, though the wind took my breath away.  Sheltered behind my umbrella I hadn’t realised just how strong it was now. Ten minutes later I had a 6 lb carp on corn, followed by a couple more. I tried cat meat. The fish seemed to want to feed at about four feet, part-way up the shelf, but wouldn’t come right up into the shallow margin. My best spell came when I fished a piece of cat meat just off the bottom and drifted it into the side, so it just touched the side.

But of course after a time things changed, and I found I had to drop down onto the bottom, where a near-5 lb barbel obliged and, later some carp the biggest of which which must have weighed nearly 15 lb. Playing these big fish was a bit dodgy as when they stretched the elastic almost to halfway across the lake the wind blew it into a real curve. My doubled Preston 8 slip was probably too light for the conditions, and even the Middy 22-24 was affected by the wind.  However, I think I lost only one fish properly hooked, plus a couple which were foulhooked and came back with a scale on the hook. I decided to stop with these elastics and not to tighten them as I was at least landing the fish.

Towards the end of the match one angler from Elm, behind me, walked past me with his tackle shouting out to a mate something about the b***y wind. I soldiered on taking odd really nice fish – not many but there were several between 6 lb and 10 lb. I just couldn’t really get the fish going – there was always a gap between them. But I estimated I had 40 lb in the first net, 35 lb in the second, and 25 in the last (we were given three nets at the start). Unfortunately there was a bush between me and the two anglers to my right so I couldn’t see how they had got on. But the anglers opposite appeared to have had a similar sort of day to myself.

This near-15-pounder was a handful.

The weigh-in

I helped with the weigh-in and Nigel Baxter was on peg 1. Interestingly, three years ago I sat behind him, with his agreement, and watched him fish a whole match on this peg. From memory he had about 75 lb and came about third. What pleased me most was that he seemed to fish roughly as I would have done. So how come he is that much better than me? That’s the eternal question. Some of it, I think, is down to instinct. He is also able to read the conditions well, to choose an effective starting method and - crucially - is willing to change methods mid-match if necessary, which lesser matchmen (including me) tend not to do.

Anyway Nigel had been for a fourth net today and weighed 167 lb 7 oz, while on peg 3 Ben (I believe he comes from Boston) put 172 lb 9 oz on the scales. I weighed 47 lb-plus in the first net, 35 lb for the second and 30 lb in the last net (I started this with an hour to go) for 112 lb 4 oz and with the next angler not weighing and the final angler in my five-peg section in the corner on peg 13 getting 87 lb I took the section by default – Ben and Nigel taking the top two places on the lake.

The ‘best’ areas

The previous day on Yew it would be easy to say that the favoured area two-thirds of the way down held more fish because the best weights were there, which is not taking into account the calibre of the anglers. However, today on Cedar the difference in catches was more marked, as you can see from the results, with the end six anglers – three on each bank – definitely dominating, as can happen on Cedar.

You can also see that I was bottom of those six, so although I was happy to pick up a brown envelope for my five-peg section it was probably not really deserved. Still, that’s fishing. And I’m not giving it back!

Cedar result, with the best weights
at the top end of the lake.

 

The result from Elm, which
produced top overall weight.