This was our last match ever on Northview, as Adrian is not
having any more matches from next season. I was on our peg 13, two from the lodges
on the far bank, opposite the corner of the island. The wind was quite strong,
and blowing straight into our bank. Sixteen of us fished.
I was having to use my Browning Sting pole again, as my main
pole was being patched up. It’s lovely and light, but has no pullers. I started
9 metres out, using corn, and had two or three liners before losing a fish. I
put in hemp and pellets with a bait dropper in an attempt to get fish down on
the bottom, and had a quick look in the deep-water margin about six feet from
the bank) to my left, where I had put in a small ball of groundbait containing
maggots.
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| A lovely-looking swim, with a good ripple into my bank. |
Immediately I had a 1 lb bream, which leapt out of the water
when hooked, and the next two drop-ins I hooked two more, both of which jumped
out and threw the hook. Then no bites at all, so back out to 9 metres.
I could not catch against the bank
Here I managed to snare a 2 lb carp and some roach on corn
and pellet, but nothing much was happening; so into the right margin. I had
about one metre of bare bank before the reeds started. I am convinced that
when fish are spawning, or about to, the bare banks hold non-spawning fish, as
there is no weed on which to hang the spawn. But I got absolutely nothing right
against the bank, even at half depth.
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| Dick Warrener, on mt right, seemed to me to be catching fish all day. |
Over the next hour a change to cat meat about six feet out
in the right margin took some carp to about 4 lb, but things were very slow. I
kept on putting occasional fish into the net, and every time I was about to
pick up the 9-metre rig another fish came in. I had a nice spell fishing corn
at about half depth, but then that stopped working. After three hours I
estimated I had about 50 lb, and had started on my second net (the club rule is
50 lb max). I kept trying right against the bank but still could not catch a
fish there.
Foulhooked fish
I did lose several fish – mainly when they snatched at cat
meat on the drop. I don’t think most were foulhooked, I think they just didn’t
take the bait in properly. Some were foulhooked, as I had a scale a couple of
times, and hooked another in the tail. But it was very frustrating. John Smith
told me afterwards he reckoned he had lost 100 lb of fish.
Meanwhile Dick Warrener on my right seemed to be playing
fish every time I looked up, fishing a deep hole – about four feet deep –
in his right margin. I believe several fish took him straight into the reeds
only a couple of feet away. Also to my right I saw James Garner catching.
He was pegged in a reedy swim and was catching well out...that should have
been a lesson to me, but I didn’t catch on.
Kevin needs anther net!
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| Mel Lutkin weighed in 93 lb 15. He is a very consistent angler. |
At that point Kevin Lee, on peg 9 to my left, came up and tapped me on
the shoulder, asking if I had a spare net as he had filled his three! I had
brought several with me, so he took one. The next two hours were terrible, with
about one fish every 12 or 15 minutes on cat meat or corn, and with an
estimated 70 lb in my net Kevin came up for a fifth net!
Things looked dire for me, but then I found a few fish just
about 12 inches farther out than I had been fishing, just over a small
drop-off. The last hour was my best of the match, and with 45 minutes left I
got up and fixed a third net into position. The good catch rate carried on and
I estimated I had 20 lb in it when the match finished, with 40 lb in each of
the other two nets, so my guess was 100 lb maximum.
The weigh-in
As I had expected, the swims opposite, on the roadside, which
have no reeds in the margins, had produced big weights. Leading was Tony Nisbet,
who fished largely corn, and weighed 188 lb 10 oz; John Smith had 161 lb 15 oz,
and James, in his reed-lined swim, had put 179 lb 2 oz on the scales.
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| We use a carp mat to place the net on. |
I could see Dave Garner
preparing to weight his three nets as I walked round to watch, and of
course I knew Kevin Lee had five nets! I was in for a real thrashing.
Dave G had 142 lb 1 oz, and John Garner weighed in 157 lb 5
oz. Then to Kevin Lee, whose five nets went 206 lb 9 oz. To be honest I was despondent, as I knew I
should have done better. Dennis on my left – a very good angler – managed 95 lb
2 oz, and I wondered if I could beat that – certainly Dick had beaten me on the
other side.
A bad mistake
So to my nets, and when James lifted my first net out of the
water he looked at me for a couple of seconds as he heaved it out. The others
anglers shouted “Error” before the net even went onto the scales.
The digital scales shot up to 59 lb and wavered somewhere
above that before the net was taken off and the fish returned. So I’d lost 9
lb-plus! Then I watched in amazement as the second net went on the scales and
the needle shot to 58 lb and wavered above that. I had now conceded 17 lb-plus to the rest of
the anglers. The third net which I estimated at 20 lb, went to 27 lb 5
oz...total 127 lb 5 oz. But It should have been nearer 145 lb.
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| John Garner - fifth with 157 lb 5 oz. |
I had guessed that Dick,
on my right, probably had three nets of 50 lb each, but I was wrong again. He totalled
124 lb 11 oz, a little over 2 lb behind me! I finished seventh – not brilliant
but I was second on our bank, behind the winner, so I felt I was not disgraced after all.
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| A cracking day for this club match. |
Wrong tactics
Afterwards I realised
that I should have gone out to the deeper water. I had found, towards the end,
that fish fed better in that extra few inches of water. Watching James fishing
well out should have told me what to do – have a plumb up where I was catching
fish and go out to see how the bottom lay.
There were a lot of
fish all over the lake, so it wouldn’t have been a problem getting them to feed
– the problem was just finding exactly where they were lying. Why I hadn’t
spent that couple of minutes having a look I can’t explain.
The winner
Kevin caught almost
all his fish fishing mainly meat or paste about eight inches deep in 14 inches
of water nine inches from the bank – a nice run of bare bank to his right. He
said that if he put his rig in two feet from the bank he didn’t get a bite!
I had actually made
up three rigs especially for fishing corn or pellet shallow, and also fished
meat shallow under a bit float; but although I took the occasional fish like
that fishing six feet out, I couldn’t get a bite against the bank. I have to
assume that the fish weren’t hanging about there.
Next match should be tomorrow (Tuesday) at Frasers, near Ely.
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