Sunday, July 8, 2018
Buttonhole, Wisbech, peg
5
There were 10 of us in this Fenland Rods match, with a great
welcome from the new(ish) owner Chris Smith who offered us all a complementary
mug of tea. He explained that the barbel, which I know used to be numerous, and
grow to 5 lb, had disappeared. That threw my plans (OK, a bit of an
exaggeration) into chaos, as I have
always managed to haul myself up the field here in the last couple of hours by
finding barbel in the close margins.
But it’s a cracking fishery anyway, so I still looked
forwards to a good day’s fishing for the carp. Chris explained that he had
stocked 150 small barbel, and asked us to immediately return any we caught. In
fact I did catch one, about 6 oz, which went straight back. And the good news
didn’t stop there – halfway through the match Chris and his wife came round in
the sweltering heat offering us cool glasses of orange. On the house, of
course. Service over and above the call of duty!
My peg was 14.5 metres across, and I know that when I used to fish here a few years ago, there used to be a reed bed just to the left. Chris explained that it has not been there since he took over a year ago. I took out a shallow rig
to fish right across, though with no real expectation, as there were virtually
no shallow areas there. In the event I didn’t fish there. I started alternating
between the deep margins (my swim had no shallow areas even in the margins) and a swim five
sections out which I fed with pellets and fished with expander or corn. Neither brought a touch of any kind for
45 minutes, at which point I decided to try shallow over the five-section
swim.
Fish were clearly moving under the surface, but in the next
45 minutes I managed just two carp here – both foulhooked on a banded 8mm
pellet. One was hooked in the side, about 3 lb; the other was hooked under the
chin and adfter a fight which lasted a good ten minutes on my grey Hydro I slid
a fish about 12 lb into the landing net.
Some time after this, with only two or three nice roach from
the margins on corn (several dropped off, and one about 1 lb never made the
net) , I checked with Dave on my right who had four good carp from the margins,
and Kevin on my left who had three fishing about four sections out on meat. I
should have immediately done the same, but the heat must have got to me as I
went back and tried my two swims again, which produced a 1 lb tench and a 2 lb
carp from the margins, on corn, in the next hour.
The aerators were switched on, which produced a real tow
through the swim, so I changed to a 2 gm float, and I had to overshot it, and
then move all the shot down to within six inches of the hook, in order to hold
the bait steady. I got several half-hearted bites, probably from roach, and briefly
hooked a couple of better fish which came off.
I then made another mistake. The sun was so hot I went back
to the car for a long-sleeved shirt and long pair of trousers in place of my
shorts, and Les Bedford told me he had several fish, and Wendy had some, on the
feeder. I said I’d probably try it...but didn’t. I should have done. I am sure
it would have brought more fish than the pole in the next couple of hours. I
kept trying the margins, as fish were swimming qround there, but they wouldn’t
go down and take my bait.
 |
| Les deserved a medal for sticking it out in the relentless heat. If he could have weighed in his oxygen cylinder he would have beaten me into third spot! |
With about 90 minutes to go, and with Kevin now landing fish
very steadily, I started a new swim four sections out, and put in a little meat
and some groundbait balls containing corn. Decoy, where I fish most of my
matches, does not allow groundbait except in a feeder, and I often forget to
even consider it. In the event I think it may have helped me on this occasion.
The aerators had now been switched off and the water was
pretty still; and the fish came on. Using a 1 gm float, I had about four or five fish to 6 lb in the next hour, and three more
lost, probably foulhooked, and with less than 30 minutes left bubbles started
to appear in the swim. That last 30 minutes brought one fish lost, but three
landed, with the best one around 15 lb, which I landed 30 seconds before the
end of the match.
The interesting thing
is that I kept the 1gm of bulk shot about 6 inches from the hook, as I had
tried when the tow was on, and EVERY bite was a lift bite. They looked like
liners, but I hit every one, and all these fish were hooked in the mouth. So
the fish were coming down, picking up the bait, and swimming straight up. Yet a
bait fished off bottom didn’t get a bite.
With only three carp in the net in the first four hours I
felt I had been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card. But why hadn’t those fish
been willing to feed earlier, while Kevin was hammering them only 15 yards away?
 |
| Kevin took all his fish from four sections, and never had a fish in the margins. |
THE WEIGH-IN
I knew Kevin had a lot of fish as he borrowed one of my
spare nets. But first to weigh in was Les, who put a magnificent 58 lb 2 oz on the scales. OK, it was good enough for
just fourth place, but when you consider he is constantly attached to an oxygen
cylinder and was sitting in the relentless sun all day, I reckon that was
brilliant. He took all his fish on a feeder.
Kevin won with 154 lb 3 oz – I don’t know how he does it. I
managed 63 lb 8 oz, thanks partly to those two big fish. The second big one
appeared to be around 15 lb when weighed with just one other fish. That weight gave
me third place.
Surprisingly Dave, to my right on peg 7, took just 51 lb 6
oz and told me that in the last three hours he had had just one bite. Opposite,
on the other side of the Island, Tony Nisbet on peg 16 (I think) took 137 lb 3
oz at four sections, mainly on corn but with some on meat, for second.
 |
| The result - the first six were on the right bank and the rest on the opposite side of the island. |
A difficult day in the sun, but it’s a lovely water and a
very welcoming owner, and I look forward to returning when we get some proper
English Summer weather – cloudy with a cold wind and rain. That heat sucks all
the energy out of me.
My next match is on Horseshoe at Decoy on Wednesday. Lots of
F1s here, and my default plan is to start on The Method while pinging pellets
out to around 13 metres, which I can fish either shallow or deep. Then two margin
rigs will be ready, one for meat and the other for corn.
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