Permanent peg 12,
The ‘hot’ pegs here tend to be 16 and 1 to 5, with 10 also fancied, and I was hoping for anywhere from 16 round to 5. But I was on the other side of
this oval-shaped lake.
Heavy rain greeted us, but it changed to a light drizzle for much of the day.
One foulhooked carp on a shallow rig fished at 12 metres to the island
was all I had in the first 20 minutes, but small fish were knocking the
expander all the time, and the wind got up so I came to the inside, where I
fully expected to catch.
But I was horrified, when I threw in some cubes of luncheon
meat on the left, to see hordes of small fish attacking them as they sank.
Indeed some small rudd impaled themselves in the first few minutes, and I
seriously considered swapping to maggot and concentrating on them, but realised
I was unlikely to actually win doing that.
So I tried corn to the right, with the same problem, and it
was more difficult because the wind and rain were from the right. However
eventually a 2 lb carp took a grain of corn, and then I lost one. After three hours I had hooked 11, mainly from the right, and landed just five. They may
have been foulhooked, as other anglers had the same problem. But even those hooked properly fought like
tigers.
The fish felt so hot
The fish were hotter than I can ever remember in 65 years of
fishing – the water was also exceptionally warm. You would think that the fish
would feed well, but they seemed to be playing with the bait...or it might have
been the rudd knocking it and then suddenly a carp coming in and taking the
bait. Expander proved useless as fish took it from the hook as soon as it hit
the water.
Halfway through I put on a 1 gm rig to try to get the bait down
quickly, and to a small extent this did work, and in fact I had a fish first
drop on a bigger cube of luncheon meat.
I finish fifth
The rest of the day was similar – paste took two or three
fish from the left, and then a big cube of luncheon meat took two or three
more. At one point I put on a big cube - they were almost an inch square and within 15 seconds had hooked a 3 oz rudd! But I kept hooking and landing - and losing - occasional carp, and finished with about 15 for 45 lb 7 oz, for fifth
spot, and estimated I had lost as many as I landed. To my left on 14 Dick
Warrener struggled to 20 lb, but on peg 16 Callum Judge took two or three early
on a feeder fished across, and ended second with 51 lb.
 |
| The result - Mike on our peg 1 was on 1, then we fished roughly alternate pegs. Our 6 was 9 round to Callum on permanent peg 16. |
The winner, on permanent peg 10, was Tony Nisbet,
who is a cracking angler and fished expander for 97 lb 8 oz – how he managed to get
it through the hordes of roach I do not know. This style of fishing suits him
down to the ground. Peg 10 is also a fancied peg, and I won on it the first time I fished a Tuesday Open here. In the end I
finished fifth only 5 lb behind Callum in second, so just landing two of those
lost fish would have really boosted me. A disappointing day on a lovely
fishery.
Car trouble means I have had to miss the midweek match with
Spratts, and I hope it will be repaired by Saturday for the Fenland Rods match
on Decoy.
I see Decoy has been announced as the venue for the next
Veterans’ National, which is something to look forward to.
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