A match I did my best to throw away - Elm, Decoy

Elm Lake, Decoy, peg 17

Fifteen of us fished this Fenland Rods match and with the very strong wind from the South-West I fancied the pegs towards the Northern end – say 8 to the corner 12, and from 13 back to 17. So I was happy with 17, roughly opposite peg 9, which last Winter produced some really big winning weights in the local Winter Leagues.

Elm is deep, and I had well over four feet next to the bank on my left and around six feet in the deepest water about ten feet from the bank; to my right there was shallow water where the bank has fallen in, but most of it was bumpy. Before the match started I had a wander round to the far bank, where the wind was slightly over their back, and was surprised at the difference – it looked as though it was easy to fish up to 14 metres if necessary, whereas on my bank eight metres was maximum in the wind, which never relented all day and was probably up to Force Six - a day when you had to lay your spare top kits on the grass as they would have blown off a roost.

 

Peg 17, towards the windy end of the lake, looking towards pegs
 11 and 12. The deep water is only a top-two out from the bank..

My first mistake

I kept to some sort of plan – casting a Method feeder with hair-rigged corn along the bank on the deep water while I loose-fed some pellets and corn. This brought no response so it was out a third of the way across with the feeder. First cast brought a thumping take which was obviously from a big fish, which steamed away while I tried desperately to follow it...only to realise that the anti-reverse was on and the clutch tightened down. A second later ‘Bang’, the hooklength broke. Error Number One.

Meanwhile John Smith, opposite, had a big carp in the net very early on and two more, which looked about 5 lb each, soon afterwards. And James, in the corner, was catching – he told me afterwards he had four or five carp up to around 8 lb to 10 lb in the first hour! I couldn’t see what anyone on my bank was catching because of bushes.

John made a cracking start. This fish was 14 lb 4 oz.

The next half-hour brought me two small F1s to the Method and a 2 lb barbel from the deep water on pole and meat; but the next hour brought absolutely nothing anywhere, though at one point I managed to hook a 1 lb F1 in the dorsal fin on The Method (how can you do that?) and after going round and round my landing net about six times it came off. So annoying. Two hours gone and I had about 5 lb. Neither margin had produced anything, and I quickly dismissed them for the moment.

Desperate

It seemed I would have to pole fish farther out, so cast a Method feeder about eight metres out, where I had another F1. Out with the pole to eight metres, and although I felt I managed to present a pellet reasonably well in the wind, I never had a touch. Desperate to make something happen I put in dead maggots with a bait dropper, on the deep-water line fishable on a top two, and immediately had a 3 lb barbel on a bunch of five dead reds.

For the next hour I carried on here, taking another five or six barbel to 4 lb, plus one F1, feeding after every fish,  but no ‘proper’ carp. The barbel were taking a very long time to land – I fancy the wind was putting so much oxygen into the water that they ended up turbo-charged, like mini Ferraris. My arm was aching by this time.

Then I remembered

Then I remembered I had two pints of nine-day-old casters, bought the Friday of the previous week from Tackle and Bates at Rookery Farm, Pidley, and not used. I poured them into a maggot tin of water, floated off the few floaters...and they were perfect!!! No burns, because they were wrapped in brown paper.

I put in two bait-droppers of casters and hemp. I know barbel love this combination, but I hoped the casters might attract the carp...and it worked! For the next hour I had barbel, and carp to 10 lb, on dead reds, some on a bunch of casters, and then on a small lump of cat meat, feeding casters and corn (for the carp) after every fish.

James was first to get a net.

The last 90 minutes of the match saw me take several carp from 5 lb to 12 lb, with the occasional barbel, and I went for another net with 75 minutes to go. Tony Nisbet and James Garner had already been for a third net, and soon after I returned Kevin Lee,  who I rated as possibly favourite on peg 14, also walked past me to get his third. The wind caused me to change my Preston Hollo 13 elastic for a stronger solid, and I got on better with this landing the bigger carp.

Another mistake

 Interestingly I had to wait a couple of minutes after dropping in my rig to get the bite. I didn’t get a single bite when the bait was still - it had to drift in to a small ridge, or I had to lift it, to get a fish. One 2 lb bream gave a superb lift bite which I struck at more in hope than expectation, imagining it might be a liner, but the bream was hooked in the mouth. Four or five of the other fish were hooked in the side of the mouth, so I am assuming that they were still only half-heartedly feeding. 

At the end I estimated there was 34 lb in my last net...but with seven minutes to go I had  hooked another big fish which came off after a couple of minutes. The hook had pulled off the line, and left a little pig’s tail of nylon on the end. I had already landed several big fish on this rig, so it must have frayed at some time.  I whipped on another, but it wasn’t right, so I had to cut this off and whipped it on again. That cost me a couple of minutes.

 

Tony - still wearing his artist's smock!

Afterwards I told several people I had lost a second carp before dropping back for the last time, but later realised I had simply re-whipped it. Anyway, with a size 12 whipped back on and a minute to go I fed, dropped back with meat, hooked a big fish...and it happened again!!! The hook came off. No idea what I had done wrong. There was no whirly line at the end so I can only assume the line cut at the spade.

No time to have another go, and I felt that I had probably cost myself at least a place, as the fish had been lining up at the end. Apart from those two I remember losing only one other fish on the pole. I’d not spent much time looking across the lake, but had seen all of them taking fish towards the end. After that bad start I decided I would be happy to finish in the top half, because it was possible those to my left had also been for nets, but I could not see them.

The weigh-in – my worst mistake of all

I started to pack uo, staked my nets out with a couple of banksticks, and went across to see what pistures I might take. John was about to wigh in, so I snapped that.  Interestingly Dick, who weighed in 97 lb, told me he caught his first fish at 1 o’clock, three hours after starting; so I then realised I wasn’t the only one to find it difficult at the start.

John weighed in over 100lb, as did Tony, James and Kevin, and I estimated  I had 39 lb in one net (giving me the option of putting more fish in if they came fast at the end), with 40 lb in the second, and 34 lb in the last – totalling 113 lb, which would not be enough to trouble Kevin on 14, who had 128 lb 10 oz.

Kev's best carp - 14 lb 10 oz.

My weigh-in – mistake Number Three

We got back to my peg and I was horrified to see only two keepnets. One, plus the bankstick it was resting on, was missing. This happened to Dick last year, and the feeling is one of absolute dismay. That was 34 lb gone. The bankstick was fairly firm when I left it, but the wind must have blown into the net so it acted like a sail and loosened everything.

What a beauty, and the fish is nice...

I quickly took my special landing net handle with hook attached out of the holdall – thankfully I hadn’t taken any tackle back to the car because had I wanted a few pictures, so the holdall was still lying on the bank. A quick dip into the margin found the net, I  lifted it a little, and thought I could see the bottom ring appear. So I dropped it, came back towards me, scooped from the other end and, amazingly, found it had hooked into the top ring. A very quick lift followed...and there were still fish there.

With some trepidation the net was emptied into the weight bag, and the scales went round to 38 lb. I do believe I had not lost a single fish!!!  The ‘39 lb net’ went 45 lb 2 oz and the  ‘40 lb net’  went 47 lb 5 oz – total 130 lb 7 oz, for the narrow win, because the anglers to my left couldn’t make 100 lb. Rarely was a win so undeserved.

 

The carp were all in great condition. Neil
showed us two commons, before he had to
dash back to his meeting of the Mafia!

A great match despite the wind.

So because I take so long to pack up – I had six rigs to put away, plus the feeder rod, and an assortment of baits to sort out, plus taking the accessories off my box, including the back – I had been able to whip out my hook and save the day. I won’t be repeating that, but I will sort something out to hold my nets securely in future.

Treatment

No more mid-week matches for at least a month as I have to attend Addenbrooke’s for daily radiation of the prostate cancer. But I hope I will be OK at weekends...assuming the following treatment for the lung cancer allows it.

I'm on Cedar the weekend after next, where peg 26 would be nice, or at least one near the car park end – 1 to 3 or 24 to 26, though I know I will have a good day, as in 65 years of fishing I’ve never yet had a ‘bad’ day. Days when I have not caught anything, yes, but how can fishing not be good?

The fishing on Cedar is similar to that on Elm. But I am toying with the idea of using an eyed hook tied with a Palomar knot rather than a spade end, and I will be checking my fixed-spool reel clutch before I start. I won’t get away with making those mistakes again.