My lucky Horsehoe...

Horseshoe Lake, Decoy, peg 13

This swim has form. I remember Bryan Lakey finishing second in a big Pairs match on Decoy several  years ago from this peg – I was his partner and came about fourth on Lous, but there were other lakes in my half of the draw and we finished just out of the frame. It’s produced good weights many timees since then. Amazingly, I had never managed, despite fishing 20-peg Horseshoe dozens of times, to draw this swim, which is often tackled with a feeder to the far corner.

The forecast for today was a bitingly-cold extremely strong wind, taking temperatures down to 1 centigrade, plus torrential rain, and four or five members decided not to risk it, with the result that we had just nine, pegged from 12 to 20. In the event the wind wasn’t very cold, it wasn’t as strong as forecast, and there was no rain at all...

 

My swim. In Summer there's usually an aerator opposite.

Up go our umbrellas

Peg 12, to my right, had wind roughly from his right, while my peg, a little round the corner, had it over my left shoulder. But we both put up our umbrellas, expecting rain, and it actually helped keep spare pole sections from blowing around – I wedged mine between my bait bag and the umbrella pole.

The wind was a nuisance all day, and almost everyone started on a feeder. I spent 20 minutes on a pellet feeder and pop-up, while throwing corn and maggots out to about 8.5 metres, and I had a couple of liners which I suspected were fish coming to the loose feed, so I soon swapped to pole at 8.5 metres.

This quickly produced two roach and two small bream to maggot, and a change to corn brought a quick bite and a briefly-hooked fish which I suspected was a carp foulhooked. So in went a bait-dropper of corn and pellet to get some bait down, and I put some corn into a margin swim about six feet out to my left. To my right it was four feet deep, while Peter, on 12, was fishing no more than six feet away, right in the side, at seven feet, so there was obviously a big drop down there. I didn't even look in that swim, as it was so close to Peter.

...as did Bob Barrett.

 

Peter Barnes had fish to around 11 lb...

Back out onto the 8.5-metres mark (five sections) and I hooked two F1s, around 2 lb each, before starting to put in about six grains of corn each drop-in. This produced a slow run of F1s, until I had about six or seven. Then, to rest that swim, I had a look inside, with cat meat. I had a quick F1 of 3 lb, then next cast a 9 lb common. From then on I concentrated on the margin swim with cat meat, with just the odd look on the far line to rest the swim.

Big fish

The rest of the day saw two more big fish both around 9 lb or 10 lb on cat meat, plus one on corn, all from the inside swim on a top two, plus a run of F1s to 3 lb-plus. But the key was moving the bait. There was a strong tow against the wind at times, and it was essential to let the bait trip very slowly along the bottom, lifting it if necessary I got no more than a couple of fish with the bait stationary. I have a special method for moving the bait, using floats up to 2 gram, or more if necessary, and today they did the business, although it’s very hard work. I had another couple of looks on my long swim during the day, taking F1s on corn, but always came back inside hoping another  big fish would result.

Last 20 minutes

Other anglers seem to be able to bag up in the last hour, whereas my fish so often seem to dry up. So after a lean spell, with 20 minutes left, I put in bait next to the bank, in about three feet of water, and fished it with my heavy rig for five minutes. I was just about to give it up when a big F1 took the meat. Not willing to risk such a long wait again I went back to my other 1 gm rig, six feet out, and managed to snaffle another F1 there, before the shout went up to end the match.

Trevor, when he, and everybody
else thought he had won.

 

Mick Ramm - we went to
 Junior School together!

The weigh-in

Fishing had been patchy. I kew that Martin, to my left, was struggling when I saw him come off a feeder to try shallow and then start fishing another line a bit closer in. Peter Barnes, to my right, had a couple of big fish, but I knew he had had long fishless spells. So down to peg 20, first to weigh, and Peter Spriggs, who always catches lots of fish, managed just 12 lb 3 oz. This swim is at the end of one arm of the horseshoe, and I remember winning off it very late one season, when the water was cold. So it’s likely that in this changeable weather, with the water warming, the fish had just moved out.

Peter nearly always fishes his special paste (recipe closely guarded) so perhaps today was a day when the fish weren’t turned on by a staticf bait. Certainly I didn’t catch more than a couple when the bait was still, but I tend to move it every ten or 20 seconds anyway.

From there the catches were patchy. There are underwater lily beds all the way along this bank, and without being able to see where they are it’s frustrating fishing. But when we came to Trevor, who has won more Spratts matches than anyone else, the nearby anglers all agreed he would be the winner, and indeed totalled 95 lb 15 oz in his two nets. He told me afterwards he could get bites only by lifting and dropping the corn, fishing at 7 metres.

How’s that for luck?

I admitted to 40 lb-plus in each of my two nets, but the odds of my beating Trevor’s  weight were, I said, nil. In fact my first net to weigh (my second net of the day) went 49 lb 12 oz! How’s that for luck? If I’d changed over nets one fish earlier that would have been knocked back to 50 lb. And I remember that I put my second net in, caught a fish, and decided to put it back into my first net!

I was even more surprised when the other net (which I had estimated at 40 lb plus that 2 lb fish)) went 47 lb 12 oz. If I’d put one more fish in that it would probably have gone over! So I had 97 lb 8 oz, and did Trevor – who was on an £82 Golden Peg – out of first place as well as protecting the Golden Peg for another time.

The result - tight at the top but patchy.
I am not complaining, though!

I will change elastic

 I will have a look at my black Hydro elastic – one fish stretched it so far it surfaced almost on the far bank, and went briefly into Peter’s swim to my right, which in fact made immediately me decide to put the same rig on my blue Middy 18 elastic. It should never have stretched that far – it must be  too old now.  I have just one spool left of my favourite Middy white 22-24, and I think I will substitute this now that the warmer weather is here.

Choosing  an “all-round elastic” is not easy where swims are close on a commercial and double-figure fish can be hooked. It’s not fair on the angler next door if big fish consistently encroach on his swim, as inevitably happens if an angler is using one of the light elastics advocated by top anglers in the magazines. I don’t know how they get away with it. I know they use pullers (as I do) but a double-figure fish hooked at, say, ten metres, will pull out 20 yards of a light elastic before they can possibly ship the pole back to their top two, especially if it’s foulhooked.