I am an "Also Ran" on Willows, Decoy

Willows, Decoy, peg 35

I’ve fished peg 35 just once before, probably about 15 years ago. I can’t remember what I caught...so it obviously wasn’t that memorable! But it has produced some good catches in matches over the years, though I fancy it fishes best in Winter. It wasn’t Wintry today – hardly a breath of wind, so the surface was flat calm. And to my surprise, when I plumbed up ,the deepest part, about a third of the way over, was three-and-a-half feet deep, shallowing up to three feet as I went across.

Clouds of mud were being stirred up all day...but that was deceiving, as I found the fishing very difficult. Fourteen of us fished, with 25 always the best-rated swim, and 15 and 24 nor far behind...though I personally like 28 and 30 (because I’ve won from them).

Flatt as a pancake, and muddy. Peg 35 on Willows.

I had Trevor next to me, who vowed to fish shallow all day...and he did, starting on a waggler, catching a few fish, then casting it into the far-side reeds and losing it, then changing to a jigger. From then on he worked hard...and beat me. ‘Nuff said. I hit a fish in the left margin on corn, on the first drop-in, which came off; next was a bream which felt the same except that this one stuck. Then a big brown goldfish, then nothing. So out to six metres, where I had potted corn and hemp, but nothing there. So i put in some dead maggots next to the platform on my right, and hit two barbel immediately.

Terry Tribe is back to his
normal sparkling form after
being given a new knee.

Pattern? What pattern?

The pattern of the rest of the day...err, didn’t follow any pattern. I alternated the three swims, taking the odd fish from each. The highlights were a succession of small perch on the dead maggot, followed by a 10 lb mirror which somehow I managed to land on my size 18 Preston 478 hook – luckily it didn’t tear off, just plodded around. I also managed to lose two big carp, one of which I saw, and a 3 lb barbel foulhooked in the fin – it came towards the net several times but because it was foulhooked I couldn’t steer it properly. Anyway it eventually came off.

It wasn’t until the final hour that I managed to catch consistently, when some carp to 3 lb and the odd F1 and bream came from the long swim on corn at the rate of about one every five minutes. The bites were some of the tiniest I have ever experienced, and several fish were hooked on the outside of the mouth, telling me that the fish were just playing with the bait. It was noticeable that the smaller grains produced the best bites.

John (2nd) with a big mirror.

John, on 30, went for a third net (or it might have been his fourth) while I was still on my first. So I knew I was never going to win. I was given a weight of 88 lb 6 oz, in fifth spot though it wasn’t until I was sitting with John later having a mug of tea that I realised it should have been 78 lb 6 oz.

"You taking my picture?" Winner Peter
gives me the evil eye!

The barbel are in super condition
and getting bigger. Concentration
is required when handling them.
Peter Barnes concentrates!

Winner was Peter Harrison on 15 with 186 lb 2 oz, all but one taken on the pellet feeder over the far side with a banded 8mm pellet. He is an absolute whizz on that feeder. Peg 15 has always been a rated swim on Willows, but you’ve still got to catch ‘em! John was second on 159 lb 11 oz with Peter The Paste third, after having hooked and landed a catapult which he didn’t try to weigh – our eagle-eyed scalesmen would have spotted that if he had. Not much gets past them!

Bob had the nerve to put this beauty in his net...

So Trevor, on my left, beat me by 10 lb, and I made one big error. I had my feeder rod ready, but didn’t use it as the day was so still and the water so shallow I felt it would spook any fish nearby. I was probably wrong! But a nice, interesting day’s fishing, when every single fish had to be worked for.

A good result for me – Six-Island, Decoy

Six-Island, peg 24

There were 16 of us in this Fenland Rods Saturday match  – should have been 17 but Mick thought the match was on Sunday! And a cool North-Westerly was blowing, which meant I fancied drawing anywhere from 10 to 14, facing North, which I expected to have a bit of ripple. In the event my corner peg 24 was one of the few (perhaps the only one) to have no ripple all day because it’s sheltered from the wind which was over my right shoulder. Even when the wind turned a little more to the West the high bank on my right still sheltered the swim. However, it always produces fish, and I was not unhappy.

Two interesting comments: after the draw Bob Allan said he was mighty pleased with his peg 14, which he really fancied, facing some wind, and said that my peg 24 wasn’t ideal because of the wind direction. Then, as we were waiting for the opening whistle Kev Lee walked round and when I said I didn’t really fancy the peg at the moment, because of the calm surface and the shade produced by the tree on my left, said: “Perhaps the margins will fish when they’ve had a bit of sun on them.”

Both those observations were sensible, giving the lie to those snobby ‘Natural Water’ anglers who reckon that commercials are always easy and require no watercraft to fish. It’s good to be able to point out that anglers on commercials have to put as much thought into their fishing as anglers on any river.

 

My swim in the corner. The island is at about 14 metres. Note that
positioning the third net (the green one) in front of the others still
allows me to fish down by the platform if necessary.
My right margin swim was next to the tuft of reeds.

Slow start

My plan was to fish a Method feeder at the start if things looked like being slow. But after putting a few grains of corn onto my right margin swim, next to a bunch of reeds, and a pot of pellets, hemp and corn out to about 8 metres, I decided to try shallow away to my right where fish were swirling around the aerator. If I’d hooked one it would probably have taken me round the post and broken me, but at least it would tell me if they were willing to take a bait. So I fished a bunch of reds a foot deep, then two feet deep, for about ten minutes with nothing to show. That plan went on the back burner.

Back to Plan A and I swung the Method feeder out underarm to the island about 14 metres in front of me. Just a liner on the first cast, so I pulled it in after ten minutes and re-baited the 8-metre swim. I also had a quick look in the right margin, to check that the rig fished OK. Not even a liner there, so it was back on the Method.

In the next hour I landed three fish of 2 lb, 3 lb and 4 lb, while Wendy over to my left on peg 2 had six or seven. I looked like being thrashed. Another quick look down the side still brought no response, so I went out to the 8-metre swim, which I had baited after every cast, and thankfully this brought about five fish in the next hour, best around 5 lb, with a couple lost foulhooked. But every fish gave the tiniest of bites, which didn’t surprise me as the overnight temperature had dropped to single figures. Bait was corn for four of them, and a 4mm Sonubait sinking expander for one. I like these as you don’t have to pump them.

Understand that although the wind was cool, it wasn’t bitingly cold, which was why I had fancied a peg where it blew into my face. Anyway, the only way I could get a bit was to fish about half an inch overdepth with a tiny amount of float showing, and let the rig drift with the wind. Occasionally it went under, either with a fish, or a liner, or dragging bottom.

Now in his late Eighties, Joe still enjoys
matches as much as he ever did. But
asking him to kneel down for a picture
would be cruel - he can get down...it's
getting back up that's difficult!
PS. I really did not fancy his swim.

With almost half the match gone I could see Joe, on 22, struggling, while Wendy’s fish seemed to have deserted her, and I hadn’t seem her husband Les, on peg 1, catch anything. So I though I might be doing all right. He told me afterwards he didn’t get a bite until 1.30 pm, three-and-a-half hours after we started.

The sun perks things up

With the sun having moved round in front of me, and the temperature having risen,  I had a really good look down the margin, in about two-and-a-half feet of water, but it took me a good 20 minutes before I actually caught anything – a 5 lb carp. For the next hour I concentrated here, using corn over pellets and hemp, and added three or four more fish, the best 8 lb. A handfull of dead maggots brought carp in, and they snuffled around the shallow edges (as they do), but try as I might I managed only one from this really shallow area of the swim, and that was foulhooked! The fish wanted to feed only in the deeper margin swim. The only fish to take dead maggot there was a tiny perch.

WHY YOU NEED RIPPLE

With the sun up and no ripple I had four feet of line between my pole tip and float, so I could lay my pole parallel along the edge of the bank when fishing the margin swim, where the deep water was about four feet from the bank. Whenever I needed to lift the float to induce a bite I had, of course, to lift the pole out over the rig...and several times when I did that the shallow water next to the bank erupted as fish (which I couldn’t see) swirled and shot out.

It wasn’t the shadow that frightened them, as the sun wasn’t high enough to put the shadow directly under the pole - it was obviously the movement of the pole. That’s why, particularly when the sun is out, you need that ripple.

Some kind soul adjusted Alan Golightly 's hat
and sunglasses just before I took the picture!

Eventually I simply had to try cat meat, and while a small piece brought taps which could have been liners or roach, a bigger piece had an immediate effect. I was now on my second net, with the first three fish here weighing about 19 lb. At that point I saw Dick Warriner and James Garner walking up to drive round for another net. A little later Dave Garner followed, and then Bob Allan. With an estimated 34 lb in my second net I landed the best fish, a mirror of about 12 lb, and went for a net myself. There was just an hour to go, and I was clearly way behind.

Neil Garner. His last three fish, here
weighed over 20 lb. Really solid carp.

Good last hour

Half-an-hour earlier I had started on the left margin, and had taken two or three fish there on corn before going back to the right margin with meat. Now I came back with the net which I placed out in front of the other two, rather than putting it to one side, so as not to spook the margin fish. I’ve done this several times this season, giving me the option of catching down by the platform, though today I didn’t need to do that. However, there were fish there as I saw the clouds of mud.

I now carried on alternating the swims – corn to the left, meat to the right - and had a really good run with fish from 6 lb to almost 8 lb. A minute or two before we were due to pack up I was playing a 6 lb fish, looked up, and saw the three anglers nearest me packing up. Wondering whether I had missed the end of the match I peered down to Mat on peg 18, and it seemed as if he was still fishing, so carried on, though it’s always unsettling when that happens.

Anyway, seconds later I heard a definite shout, shouted “Fish On” myself, and took my time landing this hard-fighting common. It seems to me that commons tends to fight harder than mirrors – I don’t know whether anyone else has that feeling.

Dave Garner - the clear winner. Dave
always fishes only rod and line.

The weigh-in

After the first few pegs had been weighed James was a clear leader with 126 lb 15 oz. I considered that a very good performance as he had back wind most of the day. But James has a terrific record in this club – a pity he doesn’t fish many matches.

Opposite on 11 I was astonished to see his father Dave Garner, our current champion, with five nets. I’d been so absorbed in my own swim I hadn’t seen him walk past to get two of them. Fishing in the same spot all day, to his left in the margin, Dave said he was cold in the wind, but had fish from the off. He weighed 190 lb 5 oz, all on waggler (he doesn’t own a pole) and deservedly ended as a clear winner. The last time we fished on this lake Ken Wade from Peterborough told me that peg 11 was the one he would have liked to draw as some big weights have been taken from the margins.

Round on 18, which has a good record, Mat Lutkin also had a lot of shelter, and did well to weigh in 109 lb 15 oz, mainly from down the track in the deep water of this narrow swim.

Mat Lutkin,. third on peg 18.

Next man, on peg 21 was Neil Garner (same family as the others), who also has a brilliant track record. But his 66 lb 5 oz for 11^th place confirmed to me that you really needed wind and ripple today. If Neil couldn’t catch them they weren’t going to be caught! Next peg was Joe, now in his late Eighties  – great to see him in his first club match since his wife died in the Winter. But he struggled, as I had guessed he would on that peg. I’ve drawn it a few times over the years and nearly always done badly.

Dick - I took his picture because
he always helps with the weighing in.
And he's good looking...

I was last to weigh, and thought I might challenge Mat, with 38 lb estimated for my first net, 42 lb in the second, and perhaps 25 lb in the last (I didn’t click this as I didn’t think I couold possibly exceed 50 lb in that last 50 minutes). So I admitted to 100 lb to 110 lb, not wanting to under-estimate by a lot. When fish get big it’s difficult to decide whether they are 9 lb or 12 lb.

The result. 

My first net went 44 lb 5 oz, second (with the best fish put in last) went 51 lb 15 oz (cut back to 50 lb) which was a real surprise; and the final net, started at 3.10 pm, weighed 39 lb 15 oz (!). So the fish weighed more than I had judged. And they gave me second spot. Pleased with that.

Me with my two best double-figure fish.

Another satisfying match – Damson, Decoy

Damson, peg 12

Damson is unusual – full of small carp to 1 lb with a sprinkling of larger ones to 3 lb and the odd double-figure specimen. Sit down at your peg and by the time the match starts you can see small fish under the surface waiting to be fed. Throw in some bait and they are like piranha! But after half an hour they drop down and fishing gets back to normal.

 

The fish here run mainly to 2 lb.

Eleven of us fished in this Spratts club match, and I fancied the first four pegs as they seem to hold the biggest carp. But Number 9 was my home for the day. And indeed the first half hour, using caster or maggot, I caught a  lot of fish. Then it settled down and while I had two deeper rigs ready to use I never touched them as there were fish in the margins all day.

Fish to 3 lb kept sniffling along the bank and inevitable I tried for these, and hooked and landed some. In fact I should probably have concentrated shallow on a top two – Trevor won using this tactic all day, with banded pellet. But I enjoyed myself using cat meat and taking one fish of 3 lb-plus and then some more from 1 lb to 2 lb in about two feet of water; then I turned to paste and this seemed to pick out the better 2 lb fish.

Trevor went for a third net after just two hours, at which point I thought had about 50 lb, so I knew I was doomed! There aren’t enough big fish here to make up a deficit like that quickly. So I just enjoyed myself, and decided I really must use my special home-made paste more often. For that reason alone it was a good day’s fishing.

Weights were difficult to judge

With fish so small it’s difficult to judge what weight you have in a net, and I suspected I might have had only about 35 lb in my first two nets when I went for a third. I then had a really good run for 20 minutes taking fish after fish all 1 lb-plus. I could see Terry Tribe to my right taking fish at about 2 feet deep, so I guessed he was fishing in the margins, about four feet from the bank like me – the water drops off very quickly here and goes down to five feet about three metres out.

 I went for a fourth net with 30 minutes left but the fish tailed off and I had about 7 lb in it when the match ended. A switch to corn brought just roach.

Martin took carp to 10 lb from peg 3. A
former Vets  National Champion, Martin
has only one eye.

The weigh-in

Mick Ramm had Golden peg on 2 (we didn’t peg 1) and weighed in 93 lb. I thought I might beat that; but then Martin Parker weighed 137 lb 13 oz, which included a couple of fish approaching 10 lb,  and I suspected I was now out of the frame as I know that Peter Spriggs, Trevor and Terry were all likely to have me beat as well, as they are better anglers. Sure enough Peter weighed in with 172 lb, all on his preferred paste. The fish seemed to me to be weighing quite light and I mentally re-adjusted my expectations to no more than 100 lb in total.

Surprise, Surprise!

So imagine my surprise when my first net out seemed quite heavy, and I was goggle-eyed when it went just over 50 lb! The second one did the same...though the third was down to 40 lb. Then  the last net brought my total to 148 lb 8 oz.

Peter Spriggs with 172 lb 4 oz on paste.

I had seen Terry land a 5 lb carp right on the whistle, so when he weighed 153 lb 13 oz I did a quick calculation – my extra ounces would have brought me to almost 150 lb, and if he’d lost that fish I would have beaten him. A comforting thought, even though he’s not 100 per cent fit, recovering from a new knee installed only a few weeks ago. Still, he was Div 4 National Champion on the Nene, so he has a good pedigree.

Then to Trevor on 12, who had blitzed it fishing shallow with pellet all day and totalled 222 lb 2 oz -  and he was over in at least one net. He did tell me he had to re-band his pellet a lot and would have been better off with a lasso, which I have never used. I finished fourth, and was very pleased to frame.

Before this match I was unsure what my options were as I remembered once sitting in one of the early pegs and taking fish deep on about four sections. Now, in Summer, I would concentrate on fishing shallow. I know of at least one weight of 280 lb taken here doing that.

The Winner!!!!!!!!!

Terry's last-gasp five-pounder
gave him third place.

The bites

The result. A good day had by all.

Much of the time I found it best to wait until the fish almost hooked themselves. Especially when fishing on the bottom for the better fish, there tended to be a few taps, then a little dip of the float, which stayed underwater for several seconds. Striking at this point rarely produced a fish – I had to wait until the line started to move out, and frequently the pole started to bend. When that happened every fish was hooked.

It was almost as if the fish were inspecting the bait before deciding to take it.  When fishing shallow, once again, it was best to wait until the fish hooked themselves, as lots of the taps and dips were fish hitting the line.

A good day at the office, eventually – Magpie, Pidley

Magpie Lake, Pidley, peg 32 

There were 13 of us in this club match – which should have been a warning to me. Things started to go wrong even before the draw.

The last time we fished here our secretary/chairman, John, fished us all on the same bank from about pegs 1 to 18, ignoring the pegs allocated to us on the island. Assuming he would do the same, I put together my trolley, dumped my stuff on it, and trundled off to the bank (around peg 6), taking three journeys (rods, bait, nets etc went separately.)

 

My swim after the match (when my camera had a little charge).
You can see the bank piling running along the front.

Not a good start

I really fancied pegs 1 to 5, which have great margins, and some sort of feature, lillies or reeds, on the long pole line. So imagine my feelings when I drew 32 on the island (John had decided to fish basically alternate pegs), which is a fair walk from where I had put my gear. I decided the other entrance would be a lot closer, walked everything back to the car, unpacked the trolly, loaded it all in, drove round, unpacked everything, re-loaded the trolly and made three journeys the shorter walk to my peg. My fault – nothing wrong with the pegging.  I should have checked, of course.

THEN I realised I had lost one of my Octbox attachments – I’d put it on the roof of the car before leaving home when I needed to put something inside the bait tray. I’d forgotten, and that’s now  lost forever. Then I realised I had also left my specially-prepared cat meat behind – washed and cut to size. Not a good start.

ALSO I didn’t particularly  fancy the swim. Pegs 32 and 33 are the only ones of the lake which don’t have natural margin cover – the margins have been piled to stop bank erosion. But there was always the option of fishing shallow, which has seen at least two weights over 500 lb in recent days, and I’d got some casters for that.

UNFORTUNATELY the light wind was in my face, and there was no feature like lillies to fish close to, though I did start the match by flicking casters out to about five metres.

A good start

Then things got better. Three early carp at full depth at  five metres on pellet weighed about 6 lb between them, and I was pleased I managed to get them in quickly by keeping the pole low so the fish came to the surface where I managed to net then first time!

 I had found a small dip – just two or three inches – in the lake bed next to the piling to my left, which I fed with tiny cubes of luncheon meat. A switch to this, to see whether there were fish there early found that there were – and this became my main swim for the first half of the match. Carp to 3 lb came quite quickly on luncheon meat, and after three hours I had about 80 lb.

I also tried shallow, and in fact did catch two or three  carp on caster, and then banded hard pellet, but Ken Wade from Peterborough was on the opposite bank, fishing casters shallow, and by now had started to catch fish quickly. There was no way I could keep in touch with him fishing shallow, so I decided to concentrate close in.

Dead maggots to the right, with five on the hook, brought fish to almost 5 lb, and I alternated from left to right with the occasional look at five metres with pellet to rest the margins. I had several short pauses in the margins when the fish gave just liners or played with the bait. Afterwards I guessed that the absence of reeds meant that when there was disturbance from hooking a fish instead of backing into  weed, the fish had nowhere to hide, so backed off down into the deeper water or farther along the piling.

Several times I flicked the rig out another couple of yards along the side, and this almost invariably hooked another fish – all were from 2 lb to 4 lb. But next drop-in, nothing! That was when I swapped swims. I continued like that until about 90 minutes from the end of the match, when I put in a fourth net and concentrated on cat meat. By now the wind got up and came from the left, which made it more difficult to fish the left-hand swim. But I had a good last half-hour.

Playing  fish – my weakness

I did have trouble landing the fish after the first three – I have found that while it’s fairly easy when fishing long - and particularly when fishing shallow - to bring the fish in slowly and carefully, and net them quickly, margin–hooked fish aren’t so obliging. I know it’s the biggest weakness I have. The plus side was that I lost only about four fish all day, caused mainly by my trying to bully them. But I wish I could land all my fish more quickly, because it costs me weight in almost every match I fish.

Dennis - lost his rod first cast!

The weigh-in

At the end of the match I  found my phone had died, so I have no early picture of the weigh-in, but I carry a portable solar charger in the car and was able to get a little life into the phone eventually. You don’t have to click the weights here, and I estimated about 40 lb in each of my four nets.

As I had expected, the first three weighs, on pegs 1, 3 and 5  were all good – all over 200 lb, way ahead of what I had hoped they might be. So I was well out of the running already! Apart from Ken Wade, who seemed to have been playing fish non-stop after the first hour, I hadn’t seen anyone really catching, so those weights were a bit of a revelation (you can’t see those swims easily from my peg).  I now hoped my 160 lb estimate was going to be reasonable – at least not last.

In fact that last net weighed in at 60 lb, and I managed to toatal 203 lb 7 oz, well over what I had estimated, which amazingly beat Ken by 1 lb and took me into third spot.

 

SOME GREAT RESULTS, AND SOME DOWNERS

First the bad news (for some). Dennis Sambridge, to my right on 34, lost his feeder rod first cast... cast out, turned round, whoooosh! He put out his spare rod, and promptly managed to lose his first three fish when his shop-bought  hooklengths all broke.

Tony, peg 28, with a good-un.

With an hour to go John Smith on 3 (the winner), had his top three pulled out of his hand (Stupid Boy!) and it sailed across the lake almost within reach of Mike, then turned back and ended lying in lillies in John’s swim, but out of reach.

THEN, forgetting he had three spare Number Threes with him, he mogged off back to his car and took out a spare pole to continue the match.

BUT Ken Wade saw what had happened and took his feeder rod up to John’s swim to try to retrieve the top three. He spent ten minutes , but was unsuccessful. Tony managed to retrieve the tops using his long pole after the match had finished.

Mike with his best match catch, 146 lb 8 oz.

The result - a good club match.

UNFORTUNATELY Ken’s generous action lost him third spot – in that ten minutes he would undoubtedly have caught enough fish to have overtaken me – he ended just 1 lb 1 oz behind me! I owe him a drink.

THE GOOD NEWS was that John’s winning weight of 232 lb 10 oz was his best match weight.  Bob Allan caught his best-ever match weight of 196 lb 13 oz; and Mike Rawson, on peg 30, who has made a fantastic leap forward since having a coaching session with Mark Pollard, caught his first ‘ton’ last week,and  bettered that in this match with his best-ever weight of 146 lb 8 oz.

So all-round a lot of happy anglers. Even me.

I find barbel alley – Decoy, Elm

 Elm Lake, Decoy, peg 8

Twelve of us in this club match, so we used the 12 swims along the Western bank  and, given a choice, I reckoned the higher I picked the number the better. In the event I picked out peg 8, and was happy with that. And while I was tackling up John Garner told me he had fished this swim two days earlier and bagged up, starting at 7 metres and coming into a small shallow area to the left late on.

I found not only the  shallow area just to the left of the platform, but that the bank was well undercut there – a good sign if the fish were willing to feed in 18 inches of water. But I started out at about  7 metres – no point in listening to other anglers if you don’t take into account what they tell you.

 

Hot, calm, cloudy and humid. My shallow swim was about two feet
 to the left of the platform right against the bank.

The day was very calm, with showers forecast, and incredibly humid – very uncomfortable while we were moving about. But at least we started in the dry, and within 15 minutes I had three carp for about 6 lb in the net on an expander. Then everything died. After an hour I felt I had to look in the shallow margin – and threw in some pellet; but I also put dead maggots down at the bottom of the shelf, which was no more than three feet from the bank.

A couple of F1s came from the shallows on pellet, but I eventually had to try the maggot swim. Here I found the occasional barbel, and as the day wore on I found that feeding with a bait dropper here brought barbel in quickly. Alternating between the shallows and this deep swim I had about 42 lb in three hours and started on the second net. The odd look at the seven-metre swim brought just tiny liners, though at one point I tried shallow for 30 minutes, without result.

Big fish close in

Swinging a piece of cat meat under the undercut immediately brought a bite from a big fish which dashed out towards the middle, leaped a foot clear of the water, and threw the hook. It was a common of at least 10 lb. I tried again and this time a near-10 lb common stuck and was placed in the second net. No more there, so I moved out to the maggot swim and took about ten barbel one after the other, by which time the heavens had opened for about 20 minutes. I had my umbrella up, but Peter Harrison, to my right, stuck it out in his waterproofs.

Peter had started well on a pellet feeder cast right across, using corn or banded pellet, then had a lean spell, but now started catching again, and I wondered whether I should have used a feeder earlier, to test the water as it were.

 

Peter Spriggs had some cracking carp.

Barbel after barbel – hard work!

I was putting fish into the net at this point, and Peter Spriggs, to my  left, was catching fish at the same rate...but his were 5 lb to 10 lb carp, compared to my 2 lb to 4 lb barbel...and he was landing them in half the time, and a couple weeded me in the side and came off.  I knew he would be on paste, and considered changing bait, but decided that putting fish into the net was sensible. Even though I knew he was beating me. I dropped into the shallows occasionally, but the fish seemed to be moving in and out, and it wasn’t often that their moving in coincided with my fishing there – however I did manage three or four carp to 4 lb there.

At one point I ‘wasted’ a good ten minutes landing a 10 lb mirror hooked in the tail, during which time Peter landed three properly hooked! Then it started to rain heavily again, but I was glad I had the umbrella up, even though it interfered slightly with my landing the fish,  as I wear spectacles and rain on them is a real handicap.

John Garner's fish from the corner peg 12.
As we started weighing in the sun came out!

With 30 minutes to go and 42 lb in the second net I went for a third...though Peter had already been for a fourth net, and Bob Allan, to my left, had gone for a third much earlier. As I walked to the car I was dismayed to see several of the other with three nets out. My hearing is so bad I hadn’t heard any of the car engines as they drove to get their nets. But, Hey-Ho, no use crying over spilt milk. The walk to the car was slow  – in wellies with waterproofs through a very hot, humid atmosphere, with no wind.

A bonus (in fact two!)

So, back on the peg with a little over 20 minutes to go, my first fish was a mirror of about 14 lb, taken on cat meat  in the right hand margin which I had baited with corn just before I left. More bait went in there, and a  drop in the shallow swim to the left immediately brought a common of 10 lb, also to cat meat. I had time, after landing these, for one more drop in, to the right, which brought a 2 lb F1. Then it was match over...

My last three fish, best around 14 lb.

The weigh-in

Ted (90) was on Golden Peg 1, with three nets, and weighed 100 lb 1 oz. I doubt I shall be able to catch 100 lb when I’m that age! Then came Terry Tribe, who has just had a new knee, which still slows him up a little – and he had a previous appointment and didn’t start fishing until 12.15 pm, but still managed 80 lb.

Then John Smith had 99 lb 6 oz – he won his National section many years ago on the Welland while his wife, Judy, was giving birth to their son. He points out that his 7 lb-plus winning weight was a few ounces more than Judy produced!!!

My travelling companion to all Vets Nationals, Martin Parker, weighed 121 lb 15 oz, and I thought it very unlikely I would beat that. Peter Harrison on my immediate right weighed 99 lb 11 oz in two nets and was 10 lb over in one. Then to me...oh dear – 57 lb in the first net, cut back to 50 lb. I guessed I had thrown away the chance of beating Martin. The second net was 48 lb, and the last three fish weighed, as I had guessed, 26 lb.  I was the leader to date. Just. With 124 lb.

The result - eight over 99 lb.

Peter next to me won handsomely with 176 lb 1 oz taken at the bottom of the shelf, with John Garner in the corner peg 12 weighing 106 lb 1 oz, mainly from the end bank at about 10 metres. So I ended second, which I was pleased with. But I suspect the swim was good enough for a better angler to have won from there.

Three matches in three days - Decoy

Oak, peg 8

This was one of the mini-series of invitation matches organised by Mel Kitson, who brings some of his local Telford anglers over to Decoy several times a year to join us locals. The two lakes used were Oak and Yew.

The weather was hot, with a Westerly breeze putting a ripple on the water, with most of it on the Eastern bank – 16 to 30 – to start with. Fish were topping all over, and most of the anglers seemed to be trying shallow early on, but most gave that up within half an hour. Then they came into the shallows, because that’s so often where the really big weights are taken.

You need two feet of water or less, and this is mainly where the bank has crumbled, giving you a bare bank and shallow water in the margin, though this may extend only a couple of feet out. My swim, however, was mainly reed-lined, though there was a section of bare bank about 8 metres to my left which was a bit awkward to fish as you needed to fish over the reeds.

To cut a long, painful, story short I took two fairly quick fish in those shallows, and one in the deep water in fron of me – probably about 10 lb total after two hours, at which point Danny Carlton, opposite to my left on 21, went for a third net (50 lb max). An hour or so later he went for a fourth net – and I then had just four fish and was targetting 30 lb!

Winner on my lake was Jack Gill.

Yew's result.

His fish must have then gone off, as he never went for any more nets. To my right Nigel Clarke had 30 lb after three hours (he told me this afterwards) but then found fish on corn and meat in the deep water a top two out from the bank, and weighed 199 lb. I soldiered on taking the very odd carp and F1 from the deep water – and the angler on my left was struggling as well. In the final hour I managed to add about five more from the shallows – literally fishing 18 inches deep – while he suddenly found nine or ten fish from his shallow swim, giving him a good last hour and 87 lb.

When the match finished I had just manged to foulhook a fish of nearly 10 lb in the fin, and landed it ten minutes after the whistle, which was annoying as I was on scale duty, and had to leave most of my stuff on the bank. This meant that after the weigh-in I was easily last off the bank – hot and bothered and last on the lake with 67 lb apart from one DNW opposite me who also had just two nets.

Conclusions

I know these anglers are all better than me, so to frame I need a very good swim. My peg today didn’t fall into that category, so I come away having had a decent day’s sport, with no real regrets. Nigel Clarke (peg 6) is a cracking angler – how he found fish in the deep water and managed to average 50 lb an hour for the last three hours is amazing to me But even then he didn’t win – as you will see, the corner peg 30 won with 280 lb! These blokes are good!!!

Six-Island, peg 14

This was a Fenland Rods club Handicap match. My pegs, in order of preference, would have been 9 (which fished badly), 18 (I cocked this one up last time I fished there), 17, 16, 24, 25, and 1. However I wasn’t unhappy with my peg 14, as this is where I once had my then-best weight of 174 lb. The margins on this bank (10 to 15) tend to be shallower than those opposite (4 to 9) which can, on occasion, be an advantage and obviously gives another option.

Les fishes with oxygen attached - and
weighed 53 lb 5 ozs. What a man!

I have been having a lot of confidence in dead maggot, so after putting out pellets to 8 metres (any longer is awkward on this bank as there’s a high bank behind) I put in a pot of dead under the bush to my right, where the water was no more than two feet deep. I then picked up my pellet rig, but saw out of the corner of my eye a boil under the bush. So I swapped rigs, dropped in a bunch of seven dead reds on the hook, and promptly hooked, and landed,  a 5 lb carp!

Wendy fishes next to husband Les, weighed
 60 lb 15 oz, and is always smiling.

This was followed immediately by a 1 lb barbel and a 2 lb tench. So I concentrated on this swim, though sport inevitably slowed. The odd carp came from the pellet swim, together with the occasional, lost, foulhooker. I couldn’t keep the fish going in the margin, though I know they were there every time I put in maggots. I then tried the lefthand margin, which was about 15 inches deep but gradually got better, though again fish were coming in and boiling when I put in feed, but not always biting.

Two fish after feeding was the maximum I managed – mainly carp from 3 lb to 5 lb. I lost one big fish after playing it for some time. Then, with two hours to go, I went for another net, estimating 40 lb-plus in each of the two I had. Sport was still intermittent, and a switch to corn to the left didn’t seem to make much difference, but the odd fish kept coming. Cat meat was similar – the fish didn’t take it any better than the corn.

Winner Kev Lee, 164 lb 6 oz. peg 7.

My fatal mistake was going for a fourth net with 17 minutes left. It takes about ten minutes from this peg to walk to the car, drive round, collect a net, and get back to the peg. The fish were feeding well at this point, and I managed three more in that final net, in the seven minutes left, yet again playing one when the match ended.

The fish were hollow!

Ken Wade, our local angling correspondent
for years, was a guest and took third place
 with 119 lb from unfancied peg 10.

At the weigh-in I walked round converting the weights to the handicap weights (from scratch to plus 180%), so didn’t have time for many pictures. First surprise was that Kevin Lee (who won) had less than 40 lb in some of his nets. Kevin – like me – is noted for going over the 50 lb limit quite often. So he’d overestimated the weights of his fish – as had nearly every other angler...

 I can remember having less than 40 lb in a net only once before – but this time I had 32 lb and 35 lb to go with a 40 lb dead and the last 10 lb net. I didn’t need that fourth net and have no doubt that, with the fish feeding as they were, I would have added enough fish to overtake Ken Wade who had 119 lb, and finish third.

Still, fourth spot with 117 lb was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

Conclusion

I know I should have had more – I think a heavier rig might have worked, to lessen the movement of the bait caused by fish swirling in the swim. I should also have tried paste, as it’s heavier than cat meat.

Cedar, peg 21

Cedar is the one strip lake that often fishes a little better towards the car park end, while the others tend to fish better three-quarters of the way down – so pegs 1, 2, 3 or opposite on 24, 25, and 26 (in the corner) would be nice. Again I hoped for a shallow spot somewhere in my swim... but on peg 21 there were reeds all the way along. However I did ten minutes gardening with the hand shears I carry and this enabled me to peer over the reeds, grass and thistle, to a spot in the reeds to my right which offered a shallow area 18 inches cross. There was also a tiny spot about a foot square just to my left beyond a tuft of grass, which I had to trim by laying on the bank and reaching precariously over.

Most of my fish came from the gap between the tuft of grass and the reeds.

I fed to my left  (the easier swim as it was fishable on a top two) right against the reeds, but started at the bottom of this shelf, immediately hitting a carp, then an F1, then a barbel. To my right Trevor (who has the best record in Spratts) started shallow and within ten minutes was hitting fish regularly.

Fish came intermittently, mainly carp to 4 lb, and I tried  the shallow water to my left. This produced the odd fish, but got better as the day went on. Eventually I swapped to corn, as it’s more positive than a bunch of deads, which tends to attract roach as it falls. I tried the shallow swim to my right and immediately caught a 1 lb barbel. Next drop-in saw a fish which was quite unstoppable and took me into the reeds beyond the swim and snagged me – almost certainly a foulhooked barbel. They grow big in here - my best today was easily 4 lb, while Peter Barnes had one around 6 lb. Later I managed a 2 lb F1 here, but nothing else, probably because even the shallow water sloped away quickly, and it’s difficult to know exactly where to fish.

The obvious solution in these difficult sloping, bumpy swims is to suspend a bait off bottom, and let it drift slowly into the slope, but even this didn’t work in this swim. So it was back to the near margin on the left, and gradually I managed to catch more fish in 18 inches of water with the float touching the reeds. There was little more than eight inches of the swim flat, then it sloped away heavily. By now the heat was intense – 29 degrees was forecast for 3 pm and it felt like it.

Ninety-year-old Ted had over 100 lb.

I wear a long-sleeved shirt, long trousers,  a wide-brimmed hat, and apply liberal quantities of sun cream to my face and in particular the back of my hand. I have had two cancers and have two more (slight only) and don’t particularly wish to add skin cander as a fifth. But it does mean that I get hot, and I wasn’t sad when the match ended.

With 40 lb in the first net and 38 lb in the second I had gone for a third net, certain I was behind Trevor, who caught on feeder when his shallow swim died, and then hammered fish in the side in the last 90 minutes. I stayed in the margin or the near deep water, which I fed with a bait dropper so as to not attract roach with slowly-falling bait, and had an estimated 36 lb in the third net when the match ended.

Peter Barnes' best barbel must have
weighed around 6 lb.

John Smith weighed 147 lb opposite me, though he was about 10 lb over in his nets. Trevor weighed 145 lb 7 oz, and was also over. I assumed I was well behind, especially after having overestimated my weights the previous day. So imagine my surprise when the last 36 lb net was 52 lb (!), my first 40 lb net was 53 lb(!) and I needed 45 lb 8 oz to beat Trevor. The third net weighed 47 lb 3 oz – and I was 3 oz ahead of John, and leading!

Now a nasty surprise

Bob Nudd was taking a couple for tuition on the next lake, and packing up, so I went for a quick word, not having seen Bob for over a year. We had some good trips together when I was on the magazines – and in fact Bob and I did the first-ever feature on packeted groundbait at a time when the only alternative was white breadcrumb, or brown breadcrumb or crushed dog biscuits. It was Van den Eynde Supercup, and I raved about it.  How times change.

The result - nine weights of 100 lb.

There were three more to weigh after me, and when I got back I found two had beaten me! The end two pegs produced 166 lb (on Peter’s paste) and 169 lb (caught in the shallow water. I like peg 30 and have won more than one match from it –a good angler on a good peg and it was all over. Very well done Peter Chilton.

Conclusion

I should probably have concentrated more on the deeper swim, to rest the tiny shallow area. But I was reluctant to do this as so many fish there were barbel, which are a devil to land.

I also had a severe problem about an hour from the end. My finger nails tend to crack and split – probably the effects of a fairly-high dose of Thyroxin which I’ve been taking for ten years since having my thyroid removed. I was trying to hold a fish to unhook it; the fish wriggled; and I felt a searing pain in my left forefinger. A split in the nail, which I hadn’t seen, had caught in the landing net and the nail tore part of the way across, over the ‘quick.’ It bled a bit, but I carry plasters with me, so covered it with plaster and held it in place with insulation tape.

It meant that I had trouble tying a hook when I lost one, and unfortunately it will probably be a couple of monnths before the nail grows back to a sufficient length to allow me to trim it.

Good news(sort of)

The torn finger nail means I have had to experiment with two hook-tiers I managed to find in my box. I have no idea why they were there, as I’ve never used one because I find it quicker to tie by hand on the bank. But after trying a Dremman and a Matchman for half-an-hour this morning, I have settled on the Matchman.

I rarely use hooklengths in the Summer, preferring to fish straight-through, and was surprised how easy it now seems using the Matchman hook-tier. In fact I’ve renewed the hooks on several rigs already, and it was probably as quick as tying them by hand. I’m slowly being dragged into the Twentieth Century!!😊😊😊