Elm Lake, Decoy, peg 13
(Sunday, June 24, 2018)
A very hot day, with no wind and carp cruising around
aimlessly just below the surface. Peg 13 is in the far corner of this strip, and
although I would have prefered pegs 9 and 16, or next to them, I was not
unhappy. However, I have never done any good from the North-eastern corner of
any of the four strip lakes, and this
day was no exception! I hasten to add that there’s nothing wrong with the corner
pegs, and many matches have been won from them, but I just cannot seem to get
to grips with them.
 |
| Baking hot and flat calm in this corner swim. |
I started by putting pellets out at six sections, and within
a minute fish had started to move below the surface, so I changed to a shallow
rig. But almost half-an-hour later I hd not had a touch and the fish seemed to
have disappeared. A quick look at full depth brought nothing, so it was round to my right, in front of the pipes which
protrude, onto a shelf about four feet deep, which I fed with dead maggot,
hoping for barbel. This looked a really fishy spot.
Immediately I foulhooked something which came off, then next drop-in a 3 lb barbel came. Twenty
minutes later an F1 also took the maggots and I fed a swim to my left, in the
deeper water, with pellets and corn and a little cat meat, because John, to my left, had had three good carp to his right.
My only catch there were two 1 lb bream, and after 90 minutes, when member John
Garner walked round, I had 7 lb while I estimated John had around 25 lb.
Already I need a
miracle to win
John has had a major operation, and has not yet resumed
fishing, but likes to pay us visits. So I asked him how Kevin, opposite, had
fared, as I had seen him start to catch good fish after a slow start. He had an
estimated 47 lb, so I knew I was not in the running to win, barring a miracle!
The rest of the match was frustrating, as John hooked fish
after fish, losing some, but was obviously way ahead of me, as I found mainly
barbel, which weighed half the weight of his carp and took twice as long to
land. But I did still manage to add the odd carp from both swims, using cat
meat or dead maggots. Corn failed to produce anything. But I lost half-a-dozen fish, which was probably
considerably less than most other anglers who pole fished, who nearly all admitted to losing more.
Barbel hooked (and
lost) on paste
Towards the end I put on paste in an effort to catch a carp...and what I am sure was a
barbel immediately took it. It must have been a really big one because in three
seconds it had dived under the bank beside me, which is heavily undercut, and pulled
off. My tight purple Hydro was no match for that one, despite the fact that I
had managed to hold all the others. Opposite,
Kevin had continued to add big carp and barbel steadily all afternoon.
 |
| The result. Pegs 1-12 are on the West bank. |
The weigh-in
This was a pairs match and my partner Mel, on the oppposite
bank, weighed 68 lb 1 oz – a weight I
thought could not match. But the three
who I thought would get good catches on that bank all put over 100 lb on the
scales, so I knew our team of two was out of it. Surprisingly my fish weighed 69
lb 10 oz, so those 2 lb barbel must have weighed 3 lb. John, who I was sure had well over 100 lb,
totalled 85 lb 5 oz, and told me his biggest fish came late to his left, towards
the next platform which was vacant. I finished
fifth out of the 8 on my bank and eighth overall. Kevin won with 139 lb
6 oz, and his pairing (with Tony Nisbet) won the team event.
A disappointing result for me, but I am still not sure what
I did wrong. John’s carp were coming to cat meat from only a few feet from
where I was fishing. However, even bland-looking commercials have underwater
features that we cannot see, and if we could we still might not understand why
fish prefer some areas to others. I am sure I did some things wrong, but I can’t
fathom out what.
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