A strange match – Six-Island, Decoy

Peg 24, Six-Island

Peg 24 stuck to my fingers – Golden Peg in this 13-entry club match! And I quite fancied peg 24, as it’s rated a banker for a decent catch, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a poor one from it.

The wind was Westerly, from my right, forecast to turn to the North, behind me. It was cool, and some anglers said they were really cold at times. I started with pellet about halfway to the small island in front of me but had nothing for half an hour, so had a quick look in the margins. Nothing from the right on corn, and three small roach on a bunch of three red maggots over a bed of maggots; so I left those swims alone for a while.

My swim, sheltered by the banking behind, had little ripple all day.

Meanwhile Dave Garner on 23 to my right, fishing his usual waggler and cat meat, had already had a double-figure golden mirror, but the two anglers I could see to my left, John Smith on 25 and Kevin Lee on 2 seemed to be both struggling for a bite. Things were not looking good.

Dave Garner on Peg 23 plays a carp on the waggler. He finished fourth.

Eventually, after about 90 minutes, I managed two carp for about 7 lb from the line down the track, and then tried across to the island. It was obviously snaggy, as sometimes the float cocked and sometimes it didn’t. Getting as close as I could to the island my rig caught in the overhanging willow, and It was completely trashed.

Bill Foster with a carp, which
we weighed at 11 lb 14 oz, from Peg 18.

So on went another 0.5 gm Drennan Tuff Eye float and after a few minutes I changed to a smaller float and tried again, shallow. An F1 took a pellet as it sank, and then a 5 lb mirror obliged, taking the pellet probably within inches of the surface. But then nothing for ages. Dave Garner had had several more fish on cat meat, so I put a bit out on the seven-metre line which resulted in a small tench, and then a 3 lb F1 foulhooked.

A better last 30 minutes

John, to my left, had now had a couple, and seemed to be fishing almost five feet deep, but I couldn’t find that depth, so tried cat meat a few feet farther out from my left margin swim, and a barbel and a carp came in. With half an hour to go I put in corn and cat meat just beyond where I caught those fish, and a 5 lb carp was followed by a near-ten-pounder. Then seconds before the match ended I landed another big carp around 10 lb on cat meat.

I thought I had done well, as the two on my left had really struggled, and I assumed that Dave Garner would be an easy winner, as he had around 60 lb. So imagine my surprise, when I walked up to see him weigh,  when I saw that there were several 60 lb-plus weights already on the sheet. The pegs round the corner from 4 to 12 had fished much better than I could have guessed, and Dave was fourth. The wind direction probably influenced the pegs that fished reasonably well.

Dave Garner with part of his catch.

The result - a difficult day in cool conditions.

I weighed 42 lb 6 oz for eighth, with Mat winning with 69 lb 6 oz, taken mainly on pellet feeder. Bob Allen on peg six had about 8 lb in his net with 75 minutes remaining, and finished with 62 lb 3 oz. He said the last hour was the best he had ever experienced, and estimated he had 50 lb in that time.

I was happy that I fished a reasonable match, with John and Kevin on my left both struggling for 17 lb 2 oz and 24 lb 7 oz respectively. The previous day storm Hannah had put cold rain into the lakes and the air pressure had dropped dramatically, which probably accounted for the difficult fishing. Next day – Elm, with the forecast rather better – warmer with less wind.