Another frame in the rain (there's a song there somewhere) - Yew, Decoy

Peg 20

Fourteen of us fished this wet Fenland Rods match, though the forecasted rain hadn’t started when we began. In fact it was warm, and the surface pretty calm. And instead of starting on the feeder hunched up against the rain, as I had imagined I would, I decided to have a look on the pole.

I was, as often happens, late starting, and almost before I had put my rig in Neil Garner, on 18, was playing a big carp, which looked to me to be over 10 lb when he landed it. Minutes later he landed another! I guessed he was fishing with cat meat, and then I saw Kevin Lee, on 17, also playing a carp, which I was certain would have taken cat meat. So I put a pot of pellets and cat meat into the deep margin and started out at 11 metres.

I quickly had three bites, two of which were foulhooked and came off, and one of which I landed, about 4 lb. Then into the side on cat meat, and in the next hour I found three or four carp, best 5 lb. By now the wind had got up and although I tried again out at 11 metres I had only one more fish there.

Lots of rain, and by the end the wind had switched round almost
180 degrees, ending in our faces on the East bank. Notice the picture is
squarish rather than long - I have no idea why this is!!! You need a
degree now to operate these new-fangled mobiles.

Hemp definitely brought fish in

Then came a lull for about an hour, and I looked at Dick next door. His fish hadn’t gone off, because they were never on. He still hadn’t had a fish! More than  two hours had gone and we had had several bouts of rain – which was into us on this bank -  and I decided to start another swim at three sections. There I added hemp to the pot. This attracted some carp, and  I started getting bites on corn. But the fish were finicky. I was using a 16 hook to red 4 lb line straight-through and putting on the smallest grains I could find, and several times I had a tiny bite, lifted up, and the bait had gone – most unusual with corn. They were definitely not roach taking the bait.

I lose a big, big barbel

However I had enough fish to about 10 lb to be happier, and Dick still hadn’t had a fish, so I mentioned that I was catching on corn. Immediately he brought his gear in, put on a grain of corn, and within two minutes he was playing a fish.  Soon afterwards I hooked a fish on corn which snagged me some way out. After a couple of minutes, as I was preparing to try to get the rig back, the fish moved – into the marginal reeds, and I could see it was a big barbel. Recently we weighed a barbel at 6 lb 8 oz, and this was bigger! It had snagged the hook in a reed, and although I once managed to get it into the net tail-first I couldn’t manage to get it out, and suddenly, there it was...Gone!

Neil Garner on Peg 18 was Golden Peg and started like a train,
 with two big fish in the first 20 minutes or so. He ended 6th.

James gets third net

Now James Garner, opposite, went for a third net, and I could see that he had out in a load of hemp before he left, which caused a big calm patch in the waves. He came back and was playing a fish within minutes. After a good spell I went for a third net, only to see that Alan Golightly on 26 already had four. So I was doomed! Kevin Lee went for a third net soon afterwards, and as he typically has 50 lb in his nets I guessed he would be ahead of me.

When I returned I went out to three sections and had another good carp, and the time was 3.10 pm. I put in some feed to the deep margin and put on a cube of cat meat. It took a fair while, but I then had a barbel, which took a long time to land. I had another look, but didn’t have any more knocks, so I quickly swapped back to the three-section line. Two or three fish around 3 lb came in, and then a fish around 9 lb. This thrashed around in the landing net and broke the line about 18 inches above the hook.

Light, regular, feeding worked a treat

I managed to extract the hook with forceps, but there were less than ten minutes left. Rather than get out a brand new rig I opted to add line to the bottom of the rig, because the float was set perfectly, and attached one of the Guru ready-tied hooklengths which are better than I could tie myself. Normally I would have whipped a hook to the end and unwound line from the Connectadjust on the end of the pole, but in this case there was no surplus line there.

Callum had the biggest fish. We would have weighed it,
but it was raining. It must have been 15 lb-plus.

With about three minutes left I put in the usual half-dozen grains via the small pole pot and dropped in again. I had been putting in just a few grains at a time when I knew the fish were there, hoping to avoid bringing in a load of fish and foulhooking them, and it had worked. I didn’t foulhook one in that swim.

Anyway, with 60 seconds left, and the float now tensioned to the bait by the wind, it dipped under. Most of the bites had come that way, just as the bait moved slightly. The match ended while I was playing the resultant  fish, and a few minutes later I slipped the net under a six-pounder.

The weigh-in

I didn’t see must of this as the heavens had opened and I felt bedraggled after putting away several tops and sorting out the unused bait. I had twice swapped elastics because the fish were taking so long to land – from 13 Hollo elastic  to a stronger Middy, and also to Purple Hydro. So by the time I put all these away, dried my pole as best I could, and had loaded up my trolley the weighing party was up to Neil, who weighed 80 lb 7 oz – much less than I had imagined after that fantastic start.

The result

A quick look at the board and I saw that James had weighed 119 lb 6 oz and Kevin 114 lb 2 oz. I estimated my nets at 38 lb (possibly 40 lb), 45 lb, and the last one 20 lb, totalling around 100 lb. So I was surprised to see them weigh 47 lb, 44 lb and 26 lb, totalling 118 lb 2 oz, for third spot.

I had taken a picture of Neil, and took a picture of Callum’s best fish we estimated at well over 15 lb from peg 22. Then finally to Allan Golightly, who had won with 150 lb 2 oz, taken from a shallow margin swim to his left on 6mm pellet. So much for me expecting the best weights to come from the other end! It was a good performance, facing the rain during most of the match.

Unfortunately the phone camera wouldn’t work when I got Allan in its sights, so no pictures. When I got home I looked at a review of the camera, a cheap one which I bought only ten days ago, the review stated  that is one of its faults. I may change it again for a decent one!

The weights were fairly well spread, with the far end not dominating as had been expected.

Conclusion

Yet again it was a day when a lot of anglers struggled until the last two hours. I had managed to find a few early on, which gave me a bit of an edge. And if I had landed that barbel it would have boosted me to second. So a good day, really, although when I got home it took me 50 minutes to get everything out and lay it out to dry.

The best bit was that after the first two fish lost I lost only that one barbel, while John Smith and James Garner opposite me, apparently lost a lot of foulhooked fish. Feeding sparingly once a cast when the fish had already appeared paid dividends for me.

Next match Friday on Elm, where I fancy the far end pegs from 9 to 16, then Beastie, where any peg could produce the winner. The fish at Decoy seem to have put on a lot of weight this summer, so I expect to stick with my heavier elastics for the moment, though I have several tops with light elastic in ready for Winter.