A lucky magpie for me

Magpie Lake, Pidley, peg 12

This was a club match pegged from 1 to 15 (leaving out 11 which had a dodgy bank), and I really wanted pegs 1 to 6, which have lilly pads or reeds within a pole length from the bank, and I think tend to be the most consistent of the pegs we were fishing. But pegs 2 and 4 went first, to our two guests, and then  John, our secretary, drew out peg 1! Not a good start. Peg 12, further round the bend, towards the more open water,  eventually stuck to my hand, so I resigned myself to just a day’s fishing, as I didn’t think I would even frame from there.

When the sun came out it went from being cold to blazing hot, with no
 ripple at all  along my bank.The artificial grass here is really great, covering
 a large area so if it's wet you don't get everything covered in mud!

On my right was Dave Garner, currently our club champion, who always fishes a waggler, and who so often is the man to beat. The water was calm and coloured, with horrible scum and bubbles floating about, and the light Northerly wind was quite cold, so I put on my second sweat shirt. I started out at 11 metres on expander with not a touch for 15 minutes, so came in and had a look in the right margin.

Alex, the manager, has scraped back the bank a little to each side of the pegs here, leaving a beautiful cut-back with a little bank of reeds extending out, which means you can fish against the reeds, or into the shallower basin, on almost every peg. They look really inviting. So I put in some dead maggots and followed with a bunch on a size 12 hook. Within five minutes I had a 3 lb carp, which was the first fish I had seen caught – a good start. Another followed a few minutes later, but then Dave started hitting fish, fishing overdepth with cat meat.

For the next hour I scraped around the margin for a single 2 lb carp and a couple of rudd, and then went out to five sections with luncheon meat put in with a bait dropper, where I managed a couple more, including one at 8 lb, which is big for this lake. But all the time Dave was catching a fish about every  ten or 15 minutes, from both the margin and further out, on cat meat. After two-and-a-half hours, with six carp and a couple of rudd in my net, I wandered up to Dennis Sambridge on my left. Dennis had just one decent carp and a few bits, and I then realised just how hard it might be for everybody else, as he is a very experienced matchman.

Dick weighs in, despite the fact that,
like all of us, he must have been
suffering in the heat after six hours fishing.

 

Guest for the day Colin Drage. But if he
catches too many he won't be asked again!

Such excitement

The next 90 minutes were spent getting about one fish every 15 minutes, alternating between maggots in the margin and luncheon meat out on a size 16. I'm not convinced the hook size makes any difference from the point of view of more metal showing, but it does make a difference to the presentation, which is why I tend to have different-sized hooks on each rig.

The one piece of excitement was Wendy coming round the lake to try to cast over her top two, which was being given a waterski lesson by a speeding carp. The only time the top two came near enough to me to allow me to snag it with a pole, I was playing a five-pounder, and by the time I’d landed it the fish was making a circuit of the island 30 yards away. Eventually the top two stood straight up in the  air and did its Titanic impression, never to be seen again.

Excitement over, I saw that Dave kept landing fish on his rod, and I guessed, with a couple of hours to go, that he had about 80 lb to my 40 lb. By now the sun was so hot I’d taken both sweat shirts off and was absolutely baking, as there was no wind. I tried fishing shallow at 11 metres, lost two fish, and couldn't get any more dfor the next half-hour. I was stumped. But I had to make something happen.

So I did what I had done in the previous club match at Head Fen. I had already had a look near the cutout to the left with corn, but had not had a bite. So I put a couple of handfuls of corn into the slightly deeper water – where the margin drops from three feet to almost four, just a top two out a little to my left. To my surprise I had a 2 lb carp first put-in, and more followed. I found, yet again, that I had to put some bait in – if only six grains – to get a bite.

Now the fish came steadily, alternating with the occasional look to the shallower righthand margin and the open water swim, but mainly from the corn swim, and a couple went almost 5 lb, though I had to constantly put in just a little bait, and then lift or drag the bait to induce a take. I saw that the three anglers on my left were all feedering, so I guessed they had been struggling. However, a good final two hours, including playing a fish on the whistle, saw me finish with an estimated 25 lb to 30 lb in each of my three nets.

 

Mel accompanies Dick with the board - he's
the only one who can write legibly!

The weigh-in

Dave always fishes rod and line.
And he always frames!

John on peg 1 had weighed 65 lb 3 oz for fifth, with guest Colin Drage on two totalling 82 lb 12 oz for third spot, and Tony Nisbet on 3 getting 66 lb 1 oz for fourth. So as I thought, this stretch fished well. There are lilly beds here, which always seem to hold fish, though both John and Tony said they lost several in the lillies. The scales went round the lake, with Wendy the best of the next few swims, but Dave Garner pipped them all with 84 lb 10 oz – far less than I thought he had. I saw him net a couple of fish which looked approaching 5 lb, and assumed several others were like that, but he said that in fact most were just 2-3 lb.

When my first net went over 30 lb I guessed that I had at least 90 lb, and in fact totalled 109 lb 8 oz for the win! Nobody was more surprised than me. And the three anglers on my left all said they could not catch much on the pole, and took almost all their fish well out on feeders. So I was chuffed that I had managed to catch everything on the pole. As I said, I had left my rods in the car, as the only feature to cast to was the point of the reedy island, and I didn’t want to confuse myself right at the start. But I could soon have fetched them if I had been sure I was being thrashed by someone feedering, or fishing a pellet waggler in the open water.

 

Callum took all his fish on feeder.

The result - the positions shown on the sheet
are for club members. Colin (peg 2) was third.

So all round I was pleased I had kept plugging away and had eventually tried the swim I fancied least, in the deeper water. It’s a weakness of mine that so often in Summer I tend to favour the shallowest water in the margin, which often doesn’t pay off.