Best forgotten

Magpie Lake,  Rookery Waters, peg 2

This was the Wednesday ‘Pidley Pensioners’ match and I was cock-a-hoop at peg 2. As Frankie Howerd would have said: “ My cock had never been so hooped!” The day was gloomy, and quite warm for the time of year, with not a breath of wind all day, but light rain on and off. A strange sort of day so dark that at times it was difficult to focus on the float.

Peg 2 has form, and had lilly pads at 10 metres, and when the temperature drops at this time of year the fish hang around the pads for cover. I had Will Hadley on my right on Peg 1, and he knows the water better than I, so I kept an eye on him. Before the match started I managed to get my pot unscrewed from the top two as I was shipping out to check the distance to the pads, and it sank, so I had to traipse up to the shop to get another. I was a little late starting, and Will had a fish shallow, fishing to his lillies,  at least 14 metres away, before I had properly started.

 

My swim. The lillies are at 10 metres, and the far bank about 20 metres away. Not a breath of wind all day!

So I also started shallow, over to the lillies, with banded 4mm pellet, and had two in the first 20 minutes plus a couple of knocks. Then a blank spell and I went down to the bottom underneath the pellets I’d been feeding and had a 3 lb carp straight away on 4mm expander, but then nothing for half an hour. So I put in maggots in the deep water two metres from my righthand bank and had a four-pounder first drop-in. But then all I got were tiny nibbles, or liners.

Lost fish

So it was back to the long line for an hour for two more fish. Meanwhile Will was getting two fish to my one from the bottom, and I estimated he had at least ten. The next two hours saw another three or four fish from my long line, plus four lost, including one which weeded me in the lillies; I don’t think any were foulhooked, because I played them for some time.

With an hour left I concentrated on the side swim with a bunch of dead maggots and had two fish immediately, though one was hooked in the tail. In the last half-hour I lost six, and once again I don’t think they were foulhooked. All day I was getting the tiniest of bites on pellet long and on  maggot near the side, and suspect the fish were just mouthing the bait. The bites didn’t look like liners, and the expander was usually still in place when I struck and missed. But the ones I hit looked just like the ones I missed!

Will had a great last hour, landing about ten from his long line swim, and weighed 39 carp for a winning 103 lb 2 oz. My dozen fish went 41 lb 4 oz for 11^th out of the 18, and I have been mulling over what went wrong on a noted swim. The only other angler I could see was Alan on 29, who landed just two fish, so I actually thought I may have done alright. And those last six lost would have pushed me right up the  table towards a framing position, because my fish were averaging around 3 lb 8 oz apiece.

The result - quite tight for the middle placings.

The inquest

Will has told me, very generously, that often pegs 1 and 2 fish differently, as if the fish tend to bunch up in front of one of the swims, so if 2 fishes 1 doesn’t, and vice versa. I said I wondered about the bait, as Will fished banded 4mm pellet all day, and my 4mm expanders were much bigger than a 4mm hard pellet and I couldn;t get a bite on 6mm expander. He said he has definitely been doing better with banded, and that on more than one occasion recently he caught on banded and couldn’t get a bite on expander. I will be bearing this in mind.

But apparently Chris Saunders caught on cat meat so it couldn’t be just that.  I couldn’t believe, while fishing, that the fish would look at a big lump of meat, and I should definitely have tried it – I had lots with me.

So I get a known swim and blow out.  Probably won’t be the last time!

O(* ! * )O

Tomorrow I’m at Kingsland Large Carp Lake, where I am taking my old margin pole and my put-in Browning Sting because the fish there are big and there are lots of reeds in places – not a water where you want to hit a 20-pounder and have it weed you! If I break either the margin (30 years old) or Sting (I have two) it won’t be the end of the world!