Peg 5
This was an Over-60s match, and took place on the Wednesday
following three days of extreme heat. Luckily the temperature had dropped ten
degrees, and with the water so warm I, and many others, expected the carp to be
feeding well on cat meat and paste. In fact the match got off to a slow start,
with everybody struggling for a bite.
I hadn’t fished here for some time, but guessed that the
margins on 5, and on 6, were quite deep. In fact both had margins around
four-and-a-half feet, though there was a very small spot next to the concrete
platform on my right which was only about two feet.
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| My swim. The reeds are about 13 metres away, but I didn't aim on fishing there as conditions - a nice temperature and cloudy - were absolutely spot on for catching fish closer in. The ripple wasn't there for long, though. |
I started on a top-two-plus-one with expander or corn on the
hook but couldn’t catch a fish. I’d been putting dead maggots in the deep
margin to my right, and first drop with a bunch of deads brought a carp which
hooked itself on the drop. But no more.
Will Hadley finds the fish eventually
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| Weighing in. James German, the farmer, who also digs lakes, is on the right with the score sheet. I've no idea who the other bloke is! |
Next to me, on my left on Peg 6 Will Hadley also started quietly but within a couple of hours started to catch fish slowly but steadily.
Meanwhile I could find only the occasional fish in either swim, and with an
hour-and-a-half to go I had a measly seven or eight fish, while I guessed Will
had 25. He told me afterwards that he couldn’t get a bite on cat meat or corm,
but that hard pellet did the business. He also bemoaned the fact that his
margins were so deep, and said he didn’t get a single bite there but, took his fish on two-plus-one.
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| Will Hadley, fourth with 131 lb 8 oz, gave me a thrashing. But he is a regular here. |
I knew that there were fish around, though, as I kept
foulhooking them. I reckoned I had lost 20! But if I put a rig in without any
bait on the liners stopped completely. That proved to me that the fish were
inspecting the bait but not taking it properly. I should have tried hard
pellet, but never thought about it. The fish were mainly around 3 lb and fought
like tigers.
At one time I went out at 13 metres to the reeds in front,
and hooked a good fish...only to lose it That really chinkered me and I never
tried it again. The fish were coming, and I had no reason to think that they
would behave any differently at 13 metres to those at five metres or in the
deep margin.
Desperate
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| A happy Allan Golightly - runner-up with 141 lb 6 oz on peg 36. The fish here are in super condition and fight like tigers. |
Desperate, I decided I must have a look in the shallow area
near my keepnet, and I found a fish there within a couple of minutes. For the
rest of the match I concentrated on this area – using one rig at two feet and
another at three feet about a foot away – and suddenly found fish.
A great last 90 minutes
Will estimated that I must have put nearly 60 lb into the
net in that last 90 minutes, and interestingly several times I lifted the bait
an inch, got a dive-under bite...and found my self attached to a foulhooked
fish, all of which came off. A couple were hooked on the outside of the lip,
but in the last 30 minutes the fish were all hooked well down the mouth – so they
were taking the bait much better. The
fish came to cat meat, but took corn better. And I landed the best one, around
7 lb, after the whistle. So they were really coming on.
I ended with 73 lb 14 oz, which was well down the list, with
Will ending fourth with 46 carp weighing 131 lb 8 oz. I should have done better,
by looking at the shallower swim earlier, even though it seemed too close to my
keepnets to be likely to hold that number of fish. The winner Chris Saunders on
21, a cat meat specialist, found, as I did, that the fish took corn better.
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| The result - best area was in the bay and on the island, from 21 round to 36. |
Allan is on a roll!
Allan Golightly, who won his first Fenland Rods match on
Sunday, did himself proud again, coming second in this match with 141 lb 6 oz on peg
36. I have to say he took great advantage of what is considered one of the better
swims, on a difficult day. So very well done, Allan.
We have a club rover on Magpie on Sunday, and I
now have an idea of which swims I will go for if I can. (But I'm not going to tell anybody). The pegs we've been given are 1 to 20, then 28 to 34 on the island. So unfortunately peg 36 will not be in!
CORRECTION
Allan's Fenland Rods match win at Buttonhole on Sunday was in fact his second win this season, the first being on Lou's at Decoy in July.
So he's not just on a roll - he's on a Giant Big Mac Double Cheesburger roll!
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