My nightmare on Elm Street

Elm Lake, Decoy, peg 2

It had to happen eventually – I’ve been punching above my weight for months, and this club match brought me down to earth. It was very warm, with virtually no wind, and for the first 90 minutes I struggled...and how! I started with a look with corn in the deep water top two from the bank, then went out to 11.5 metres with corn on the bottom, then tried spraying caster over that swim and fishing shallow, which brought one six-ounce roach, and then I had a look in the really shallow water to my right where I had been dropping pellets. Nothing there, either.

Meanwhile 90-year-old Ted, on my right, had managed about three roach and a couple of small bream six metres out, and Peter, to my left, had about three carp on Method feeder and corn. At this point I had a stroll along the line and it appeared almost everybody was struggling, except Trevor, who admitted to 35 lb on a feeder cast right over (we were all fishing the West bank so were allowed to cast right across). On my telling Ted this he promptly changed to a straight lead with cat meat cast three-quarters of the way across and started to bring in barbel about 2 lb. Peter on my left had a few more carp. I changed to a Method feeder with corn and in the next hour managed two F1s totalling about 5 lb. Not looking good.

A foulhooked barbel brings me hope

Peter, on my left, had this mirror of
12 lb 3 oz on Method feeder, weighed
77 lb 6 oz, and thrashed me.

Ted, on my right, who is 90, took
this catch of barbel and carp, weighed
 64 lb 1 oz, and also thrashed me.

A drop in the side with corn brought a foulhooked barbel so I put in dead maggots with a bait dropper, hoping for more, but found just two, hooked properly,  in the next hour or so, also on dead maggots.  Cat meat didn’t produce a touch. Then another F1 came on corn from the righthand swim, which was no more than 10 inches deep, and after another half-hour another F1 came from a little farther out in four feet of water. When I put bait in I could see big carp come in,  hit the bank, and put up huge swirls of mud, but no more took my corn or cat meat. It was unbelievably frustrating.

I've cracked it!

At one point I made a determined effort to fish shallow at 11.5 metres with pellet, and almost first drop-in a 3 lb F1 took my banded pellet...cracked it!!!

Err, inevitably I hadn’t cracked it because in the next 25 minutes there was nothing! The rest of the match brought about one fish from the deep-water swim every half-hour, until the final half hour, at which point Trevor went for his FOURTH net. Three more F1s came to my net from the right, a couple from the top-two swim, and the last cast saw a much bigger fish come off. I knew I had been banjoed on both sides...

The result sheet shows it was patchy, and I was ninth from 11 with 38 lb 6 oz. Top weights were from the bottom end, but I’m not sure that meant anything on the day – they just fished better. Trevor’s winning weight was 169 lb 7 oz – 45 lb on the feeder, followed by 45 lb shallow, and the rest came in the last 45 minutes, when he estimated he added 80 lb! Some going.

Peter Spriggs with one of the lovely
barbel which are found at Decoy.

Conclusions

Bob Allen, runner-up with
 118 lb 8 oz from end peg 12.

I still am not sure why I couldn’t find fish. They must have been there, but I caught only about 15 – an average of 2.5 per hour, and half of those came in the last 30 minutes. Those anglers who say that commercial fishing is ‘hook-a-duck-every-time’ should have been there and showed me how it’s done. All I can do is shrug my shoulders. Everybody has a terrible match at some time – I hope this one lasts me me for at least the rest of the season.

The result.

My next match 

Sunday see me on Trev’s Lake at Head Fen near Ely – not an out-and-out carp water, but a mixed fishery with some bream, tench and chub as well as carp. Our club has had just one match there, about three years ago, and I won it. I know I had about 50 lb, and I know roughly where I was pegged, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I caught, or what baits I used, or how I fished!! Cat meat is not allowed, so I have some casters, pellets and dead maggots as well as small cubes of luncheon meat and corn...plus a few worms for the bream. I’m certainly not confident, though.