My plans changed

Sorry - can't fish the match on Thursday now. I expect to fish a Decoy Open probably on Sunday.

A satisfactory match on Oak

Oak Lake, Decoy, peg 24

This was a regular Sunday Open, fished by some very good anglers (12 of us in total), and I was dubious about doing well, unless I managed to pick peg 10 or opposite on 21 or 22. In the event 24 stuck to my fingers, which, although only 20 yards from the hot area, hasn’t been regarded as anything other than average. But with the slightly warmer weather the anglers were hoping the fish might have started moving from the areas where they have been coralled all winter. That hope was dashed for me when Adam Playford, on my right on 22, next to the bird hide, had a big fish on within a minute of the match starting!

Foulhookers and double-figure fish

I hooked a fish at 13 metres on pellet after about 20 minutes, but it came off immediately – probably foulhooked. So I potted in a small amount of pellet and hemp and had a look down the side, in the deep water, where I had been throwing maggots. Within two minutes I hooked a big fish which was obviously foulhooked, and which came off ten minutes after being hooked. It went to ground near the side, but rather than being snagged, I think it just stopped swimming – it felt like a sack of potatoes. Probably a very big double.

In the next two hours I managed to hook a three-pounder on corn and lose another huge fish after a long fight, also obviously foulhooked by the way it swam. So halfway though the match it was Carp -3; Me – 1. I had 3 lb in my net, and Adam and the angler opposite, Steve Harwood, seemed to be on their way towards 100 lb!

Maggot works!

Desperate, I started using maggot, and managed to catch  four more – three around in the side, in the deep water, where it was a foot deeper than at 13 metres, and one out at 13 metres – all on maggot. I learned later that most of the better weights were taken on maggot, but with the air a little warmer than recently I had banked on pellet working. You can’t win ‘em all... Two of my fish were around 10 lb with one at 6 lb and another around 8 lb.

Adam’s swim dried towards the end, but Steve carried on catching fish regularly and his winning catch of 128 lb consisted of just 18 fish. This is the peg I was on two weeks ago when I weighed over 100 lb.

Me with a 10 lb-plus friend.

Runner-up Adam Playford, 81 lb.

How the top men fish

Across from me a little to the left Chris Barley on peg 6 was working hard, continually moving swims from 13 metres, to about 7 metres and then down the side, and catching odd fish all day for an impressive third place.

One tends to think that top anglers like Chris can tell as soon as they get to the water’s edge how they will catch, and where. In fact they usually fish very little differently to the way most of us fish – learning as the day goes on and trying stuff until they find something that works. I once sat behind Nigel Baxter to watch him fish a whole match at Decoy, and afterwards I decided he fishes very little differently to the way I do...except that he obviously does it just a little better. It brings home to me that fishing is not an exact art – it’s almost always trial and error.

I managed sixth, which I was pleased with.

Happy...

The results are shown and I was happy that, in the end, my five fish weighed 37 lb for sixth spot in a strong field of 12, which also included Barry Mason. Three of mine were foulhooked, but then most anglers had this problem. The water was ice cold, however the fish were moving, swirling near the surface, but obviously not in feeding mode – Rob Goodson fished shallow for a long time for just two.

My next match is on Cedar this Thursday, when the best weights may come from around peg 6 or opposite around 19. When the water has warmed up the fish should move. The carp here are not as big an average as in Oak and Yew, but there appear to be more barbel, so dead maggots down the side may play a part.

Not a happy bunny

Six-islands Lake, Decoy, peg 20

This was a club match, with 11 fishing, and I would have preferred pegs 4 round to 14, which were forecast to have a ripple in a Westerly wind. But I wasn’t unhappy with 20, as it’s the peg where I won a Decoy Winter League this Winter, and when I got to my peg I remembered exactly where I had had my fish. At the start my swim was almost flat calm, and the sun was shining – not ideal in Winter. But I was still optimistic.

Calm water and sunshine at the start - the wind picked up gradually.

Unfortunately I couldn’t repeat any sort of success. I started at 11.5 metres on pellet over micros to the end of the island, but hooked just one fish in the first hour which came unstuck after one second.  I stuck it our here for nothing for another hour, also trying corn, and eventually coming in to the inside of the island, and getting a few roach on maggot. I then tried maggot in my first swim, for some roach and then a 2 lb F1 – but no more came.

The rest of the match was spent working my way round four swims, mainly with maggot, bites were spasmodic, and apart from a couple of perch every fish was a roach, best about 6 oz. The other two swims were down the track and into deepish water on a top-two plus one. Mick, to my right on 18, started catching fish very close in, and I could see he was almost four feet deep. However my bank had fallen in, giving a horrible bumpy margin and I had to go farther out to find the deeper water, but there was no feature to fish near, like a quick drop-off or reeds, so I had to just watch Mick pick up about seven carp in the last couple of hours.

The result - not brilliant but the water is still very cold.

Wind became a nuisance

The wind had started changing around – one minute from the right and next from the left; and one huge gust blew me into the island, snagged my rig, and I had to pull for a break and concentrate on closer swims for the next hour, just catching a few roach. Then the sky became overcast and it became much colder. Half-an-hour from the end I tried pellet again, at 11.5 metres, and foulhooked another 2 lb F1.

Bob, second with 42 lb 3 oz

Trevor - with 64 lb 8 oz on corn.

I weighed exactly 10 lb, next to last. Rob Allen, on my left, managed just four knocks on a feeder for three fish weighing 8 lb 7 oz. The windy section had fished a bit better, and Trevor, our organiser, won on peg 13 with 64 lb 8 oz on corn - and he was over the 50 lb limit in one net! Bob was on peg 9 – a peg I would love, as there are so many options (good margin to the right, shallow in the corner, the end bank within 13 metres, and an aerator 25 yards away in front) but have only drawn about twice in 20 years! Interestingly Peter, on 11, had nothing after three hours and tried cat meat in desperation, taking carp and the odd barbel for 34 lb 7 oz. I hadn’t had the nerve to try it! But I still believe that there weren’t as many fish willing to feed in our stretch of the lake at the car park end.

Mick thrashed me next door
 (we went to junior school together).

Peter's catch, taken on catmeat, which
included some barbel.

Next match may be an Open this weekend,but I haven’t decided which day is most convenient.

A day to forget

Magpie Lake, Pidley, peg 1

This was an Over 60s Open,with 21 entered,  and I was happy with peg 1 as it’s got a bit of form, and I won the very first Over 60s match I ever fished there from it. I’ve fished it one more time in a club match and I know I framed. But an overnight frost and  the very cold wind today spoiled it – a Southerly blowing into my end peg from the left front, making decent presentation almost impossible at 13 metres, on the edge of the underwater lily roots.

My swim - peg 1. The cold wind was blowing into the end bank to my right.

It wasn’t a lot better at 10 metres, where I remembered there being a gentle slope up to the end bank to my right. I got nothing on a feeder towards the bridge over to the island, and ended with  six roach and a single rudd on maggot on a top three, angled downwind  near the bank, and one scale, which fought like a madman for 30 seconds before finally coming fluttering back in the wind. I weighed a miserable 2 lb 5 oz.

To my left Dennis Sambridge also took six roach, but added a carp 90 minutes before the end, to weigh 6 lb 11 oz. Pegs 1 to about 11 all suffered with the wind, and the top weights all came from anglers who had a bit of a back wind. Top was Will Hadley on 19 (the old peg 20), with nine carp and a few roach for  a total of 29 lb 15 oz. This peg has a sort of feature in the shape of an overhanging bush, which doesn’t look much, but it has done quite well this Winter.

The result - best weights came from pegs with a backish wind.

Give a good angler a peg with a slight edge and he’ll always be in with a chance. Well done, Will. Nine carp on a day like that is good going. I think he would have had a back/side wind. Ken Gammon on Peg 36 (the old 38) came second – he had a back wind.

MY EXPERIMENT

After losing a two Quickstops in the first four fish on Tuesday, when the quickstops caught in the landing net and the nylon broke,  I said I’d experiment with Maxima. And it appears to have worked!

 

Eyed hook (left) and spade end with Quickstops
attacked on loops of Maxima 6 lb nylon.

The photographs show a Quickstop tied with 6 lb Maxima to an eyed hook and a spade end. Then the hooklength, in normal nylon, is added by whipping as usual. It took me a few goes to get it right. Basically the Quickstop is tied in a small loop, but on several inches of nylon. Then a whipping is done as normal, but taking the quickstop round the shank, and down through the loop. All you have to do is to get the length correct by allowing for the line shortening as it goes round the shank.  Then what would normally be the hooklength end is cut off at the whipping. I intend to add a dab of superglue as a precaution.

The knots are horrible-looking, and bulky, but I imagine the fish will take them for weed.

First 100 lb of the year

Oak Lake, Decoy, Peg 10

This was the first Spratts club match, fished by 10 of us, and I was very happy with peg 10, opposite the bird hide.  It’s an area that has held fish all Winter, but we’d had a mild day or two and I wondered if it would encourage the fish to spread out. The carp  in Oak and Yew tend to be bigger than in Elm and Cedar, but there seem to be not so many barbel.

There was a stiffish North-Westerly breeze over our backs from the left (we were all sitting on the West bank), but it wasn't cold - and later it became quite mild. As usual I was late starting, having acidentally mixed expanders in with my feed pellets, which necessitated putting the lot into water and skimming off the expanders. Stupid Boy!

Fish on the feeder

I started by checking the 1 gm pole rig out at 13 metres, and when I was satisfied everything was OK I checked an inside rig as well, over maggot. Nothing came in those short spells so I went onto a pellet feeder with a hair-rigged 8mm Robin Red just over my 13-metres pole swim., rather than throwing across as most of the other anglers seemed to be doing.  To my surprise after about 25 minutes I hooked a carp on the feeder,  which turned out to be a hard-fighting six-pounder. I think I must have put it into the wrong net (as I found out when I came to weigh in) – by wrong I mean the one I had intended to be the second net.

Next cast came another fish of over 8 lb...and it took me 20 minutes to land it. It wasn’t foulhooked, either. Three more came in the next 90 minutes, best 10 lb,  during which time I lost two Quickstops which came off.  They tend to catch in the net and pull off when the fish wriggles around.

Fish on the pole

After a lull I had a look on the pole at 13 metres, fishing a 6mm expander pellet over micros, hemp and a few 4mm feed pellets. This produced four fish, all in exactly the same spot, in the next 90 minutes, all approaching 10 lb. I also lost a couple, probably foulhooked. A quick look on the feeder during this time brought just one more fish.

Then the wind dropped and I could see fish humping in the surface, so quickly tried fishing shallow, which brough me one touch but no fish. Unfortunately I had to stop this because the constant feeding brought in two mallard, which refused to move and kept threatening to snag the line. In Summer I think that fish are actually attracted by duck feeding, but with the water so cold I felt I was flogging a dead horse, with the fish keeping away from the disturbance.

A change to feeding sweetcorn at 13 metres and going back to the full-depth rig with a grain on the hook brought the smallest fish of the day of about 5 lb and with 90 minutes to go and an estimated 42 lb in each net I went for a third net.

The last 90 minutes brought only two more fish to the net on corn, and two more  lost, the last one after I’d played it for 20 minutes without ever getting it near the surface. I have to assume it was foulhooked, as the hook pulled out, but it didn’t fight as if it was foulhooked. So I ended with about six fish in each of the first two nets and two in the last one. I kept trying the close-in swim which I had fed by throwing maggots in, but never had a bite there.

The weigh-in

Top weight from peg 1 down to me was 39 lb 6 oz from Martin, former Vets National Champion,  on peg 2, with Bob Allen, on my immediate right having 34 lb 5 oz which I think were all taken on a feeder, with a good spell towards the end of the match. To be honest I had been concentrating on my own swim and hardly saw anybody else catching.

The result - the Northern end fished best.

Peter with his last two carp,
which weighed 21 lb.

I had estimated 42 lb in each of the first two nets, so imagine my surprise when the first net weighed 36 lb! The second was 48 lb – then the penny dropped. I must have put the first 6 lb  fish into the lefthand net, instead of the righthand one. The final two went 17 lb, and my total was 103 lb 3 oz. Bob to my left was third with 51 lb 1 oz (over in one net) and Peter on 14 took 70 lb 9 oz, all on paste. So the best catches were in the bottom end of the strip lake, and not at the carpark end into which the wind was blowing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Nice to win, even though it’s a noted peg, because having a peg everyone expects you to do well from puts a bit of pressure on you. One match tomorrow, then I will spend the weekend tidying my tackle and re-tying some quickstops. I intend to try to tie the Quickstop to the hook with some tough Maxima nylon before adding the hooklength. That shouldn’t be too difficult, though normally I tie on the Quickstop and then tie a Knotless Knot to an eyed hook. I will see if it can work with a spade end.

I've also ordered some section inserts from WE Tackle, to protect the ends of the sections - something I should have done when I first bought the pole, of course.

A success of sorts...

Lous‘s Lake, Decoy, Peg 6

Three weeks off the bank for me , thanks to  a week in Tenerife followed, on the day we returned, by the snows and then a hospital appointment. So I was rarin’ to go fishing. I expect to be going back to Addenbrookes soon for an op of some kind, so if the blogs dry up suddenly without warning  you’ll know the reason.

This was the regular Saturday Open, but only four of us turned up – the reason possibly being Mothering  Sunday weekend (with compulsory shopping on the Saturday) and the nearby Rookery Farm Fishery at Pidley’s  penultimate Saturday qualifier for their two-day Winter Festival final in two weeks. But we had a pleasant surprise when owner Diane said the day’ fishing would be on her...a nice gesture. Thanks, Diane. This meant that the four entries of £25 would all go in prizes.

The road to Decoy was awash  with water, which was laying on the fields, so organiser Dannie suggested we move to Lous, as the bank beside the strips was likely to be really muddy. We agreed, and we also agreed on a walk-off – in which I was lucky enough to draw Number 1. Now Peg 6 has been the flier on here, but it normally means a long feeder cast to the reeds in the corner – and feedering is not my strong point. There was a stiff south-westerly breeze from the right, and the day was overcast, but very mild for the time of year.

Peg 6 on Lou's - one of the few noted flier at Decoy. But it's a long chuck to the corner. And it doesn't always produce.

I had to pick 6, didn’t I? If not, local Dannie, who had draw out Number 2, would have picked it! Anyway, I decided to sit it out as long as I felt comfortable, on the feeder with a hair-rigged 8mm Robin Red pellet. However for the first few minutes I had a look at an 8-metre line on the pole, and picked up a 1 lb bream first cast on a 4mm expander, followed by a roach and two more small roach which dropped off. Then I turned round and saw Dannie, on 10, behind me, landing a fish on a small cage feeder, probably with maggot.

My hand was forced

I felt my hand was forced, so put out my pellet feeder with a Robin Red pellet to the far corner – a long chuck! Two casts there and, after 20 minutes, I went to a nearer spot on the far bank, where I had been catapulting some loose pellets. After another 20 minutes I had a bite which turned out to be the most beautiful 4 lb common you ever did see! Scale-perfect and fin-perfect, and a lovely deep bronze, it looked almost like a long wild carp. And it was on steroids, probably because the cold water was full of oxygen. My arm really hurt as I netted it.

Twenty-five minutes later  another carp, of about 3 lb, came from the corner, and soon I cleverly managed to become snagged over there on an underwater obstruction, and lost the hook. So as Dannie had gone onto the pole, and was presumably struggling on the feeder,  I thought I’d try the eight-meter pole line again – and started getting bites immediately on expander over micros and hemp, with a few hard 4mm in the mix as well. Two or three bream were followed by a couple of carp, and then I hit one which took me all over the swim on my grey hydro elastic, before coming off. Almost certainly foulhooked.

Fish in the margins!

I’d been throwing some maggots out to my right, into the teeth of the wind, so they landed no more than two metres from the bank. I put a little more feed out to my eight-metre swim and more in hope than expectation I dropped a rig with two maggots into the side swim. A bream obliged immediately , then some smaller ones about 4 oz and I was wondering whether I should go back to the longer swim when a carp took the bait.

I don’t know whether this was foulhooked, but I do know it was well over 5 lb as I briefly saw it...then the hook pulled out. Another carp, of 3 lb, came from there and I fed again and went out in front of me again.

Calamity!

Another carp of 2 lb came to pellet, then I hit something else big, which took a long time to land on the grey hydro, but it was worth it – almost 10 lb in the net! Then came a smaller fish, then on the next one the hook pulled off the line. How can that happen? Two good fish and it decides to come unwhipped... Then two more foulhooked, and I turned to the side swim.

This was worse – five carp in five casts all pulled out; all probably foulhooked by the way they swam. I came off bottom at 6 inches, 12 inches and 18 inches and never had a bite. As soon as I dragged bottom in the stiff wind I got bites, but also the foulhookers. So I had a quick look again with a pop-up on the feeder while I surveyed the situation – but had no fish, just a liner.

The answer

I carefully adjusted to fish dead depth in the 8-metre swim and went back on the pole. An inch was golden. And once I had it right I lost no more. But now there were only 40 minutes left and I estimated I had 30 lb. However I took a couple of bream and two more smallish carp, and with 10 minutes left an eight-pounder came in, on a 6mm expander, which was now working better than the smaller ones.

PS On the Maggot-drowners forum which I am a member of, some insist that it's impossible to fish dead-depth because the bottom is never like a billiard table. That's why I look for a very gradual slope, so I can drift into the spot where the bait just touches bottom. It's not rocket science! But you do need a very sensitive set-up, and I am lucky that even with spectacles I have good eyesight and can see the tiniest quiver of the float, which warns me to look out for a proper bite in the next few seconds.

Talk about last-gasp

 My watch now showed 3.30pm, the finishing time, but a glance behind showed Dannie was still fishing. So I dropped in again and within seconds hooked another carp, and almost immediately thought I heard a shout.  A few seconds later I turned round and the other three were packing up. I’d seen Dannie land the occasional fish I assumed were carp, so also assumed he had won...but I played that fish carefully. It eventually came to the net at about 6 lb, and went into my second net.

 

The result - a very narrow win for me.

The weigh-in

Michael, on peg 2, had fished at Decoy before, but never been in an Open here. He weighed in 13 lb 9 oz. I was thankful I had put my last fish in a second net, as they weighed 51 lb. Had it gone into the first net I would have been cut back to 50 lb. Then came Dannie, who said it would be close – and it was, as his fish weighed 50 lb 4 oz.  And Stuart on peg 13 had 20 lb. So although there were only four  I can say I won – and the £60 in my back pocket was the proof.

Reflections

Dannie and I spoke afterwards and we both said that when we started catching fish close in the assumed the carp were moving in the milder weather.  He took mainly roach close in, but had all his carp, except the first one on feeder, from open water not too far out. I’m now very much looking forward to a match on Tuesday on Oak, just hoping the banks will have dried out a bit. With a bit of luck the fish, which have tended to be out at 13.5 metres or more, will be willing to come close-in to the bottom of the shelf just a couple of metres, or less, from the bank.

Dannie - who regularly finishes in the
frame at Decoy. 

Me with friend!

For the record (and to remind myself) I am currently fishing mainly size 16 hooks to a 0.12mm hook length. But I don’t use loops, as so often then can look untidy and alter the angle of the line, as well as being easy to see underwater. So I tie a 12-inch length of nylon to the main line using a grinner knot, which allows the line to hand perfectly straight. In addition, because  of the fact that with this knot no piece of nylon is pulling across another I believe it’s the strongest knot available. To this I whip the hook. It’s much neater than using loops, which I can never get apart quickly anyway!

Although I will probably start the next match on grey hydro and the size 9 elastic in my close-in top, I am happier with stronger elastic so will be ready to put any successful rig onto Preston size 13 Hollo if the fish take too long to land. As a general rule I prefer the stronger elastics as I think it stops these carp getting up a big head of steam when first hooked.