Difficult, but I'm happy to frame - Willows, Decoy

Peg 14
Eleven of us were in this Fenland Rods match, and with Pegs 1 to 15 allotted, all the pegs went in. The two favourite pegs were probably 1 and 15, though with 170 lb from Peg 13 last week none of us would have been unhappy with that.

Peg 14 was drawn for me, and actually I didn't fancy it, because I've fished that twice before and never done any good. There's not much room between this peg and 15, to the right, which is on a point, and which has an inviting bunch of reeds in the margin to its right. Peg 14 doesn't offer much of a feature except reeds about nine metres to the left, and I found that it shallowed up here. In addition the wind was coming in from the front left, which made it difficult to fish to the left.

Still, no complaints - I'll fish anywhere for anything! And at least I had three of the four undrawn pegs to my left (Peg 1 was also undrawn, but the first three or four 2, 3 and 4 tend to be consistent). I started out at two-plus-two with pellet and within ten minutes had a chubby 1 lb common on a 4mm expander, fishing slightly to my right, with the wind.

Peg 14. Peg 13 is round to my left, with approximately Peg 6 under the tree
in the background. The earlier pegs fished better than those round the bend.

Peter Spriggs on 15 also had a fish or two, but they were better than mine, and I realised I was going to struggle to beat him. In the first hour I had two or three more small carp, and tried another swim, also on top-two-plus-two to the left, into the wind. To my surprise I soon picked up three or four more. But with Peter now hitting bigger fish in his right margin I had to make a decision whether to try my margin.

Foulhooked in the tail...
I simply had to have a go, and went down to the left with corn, and then cat meat, over pellets and corn, without any bites. So it was back to putting fish into the net until I had about 20, all around 1 lb. Then I foulhooked a fish about 8 lb in the tail, which played me for about 15 minutes...but it eventually landed up in my net.

Peter's last fish - all 10 lb of it.

That seemed to mess the outside swims up, though I managed a 2 lb bream on corn, which thought it was a trout, so I had another look to the left margin, only to hit a big fish which came off after two seconds. The next two hours I spent mainly in the left margin, as I now knew that fish were willing to come in there, using my special method with corn or cat meat - mainly the meat. This brought some 1 lb F1s, a common about 4lb, and then a 4 lb barbel, folllowed by a couple of smaller ones. But three other barbel took me under the platform and bust me or the hook pulled out. They may have been foulhooked.

When things slowed up I dumped in some dead maggots, which brought a carp and two small barbel, but it was difficult to know which way the maggots were drifting, as sometimes my float seemed to be moving against the wind and other times it flew back towards me. Adding some hemp gave me a bit of confidence.

I couldn't see the others anglers to my left, round to about Peg 6, catching much, so thought I might still be able to do OK if I had a good finish. Occasional drop-ins in the right margin on a top two brought nothing - the pegs are so close that a top three would have been my maximum permitted length. And the bottom was awkward - deeper nearer to my platform, and shallower to the right, with the deeper water about a metre out also bumpy.

I start to fish properly!

The winner, to my right - Peter Spriggs, 98 lb 1 oz.

In the last hour the wind got up so I couldn't fish to the left, and had to go to the deep water just out from the right margin. Peter was now hitting fish steadily, on paste or cat meat, though he told me afterwards he lost ten. I now started to feed and fish this swim properly, and indeed started to hit fish - a couple of barbel, two small carp, and a 3 lb F1. Then a fish almost wrenched to pole from my hand and hurtled under the platform before I could react - the line broke at the hook and I looked at my watch to see five minutes left. No time to retie a hook on, so I picked up a more conventional rig, adjusted the depth, and put on cat meat again.

I didn't catch anything else, but had two or three indications, and I realised I should have done that earlier - fishing a static bait in the heavy wind rather than try to induce bites by moving the bait. To cap it all, Peter's last fish was his biggest of the day - we weighed it at just over 10 lb. But an enjoyable day's fishing, and it didn't rain, though Peter said he was freezing by the end of the match.

The weigh in
I took my time packing away, and wasn't able to watch any of the weigh ins before me. My two nets went 64 lb 8 oz, which was second up to me, with just Peter to come. He had obviously beaten me, and totalled 98 lb 1 oz. I thought he had a lot more - strange how everyone else seems to be doing better than they have.

The two end pegs were first and second - but
there were two very good anglers on them!

So I ended third, with Tony Nisbet on Peg 2 second. I lost six fish, almost certainly five of which were barbel. and it I were to fish that match again I would use the 12 lb rigs, which would give me chance of getting the fish out from the platform before the line broke. Just two of them might have lifted me a place.

The bulk of the field in the main bay really struggled, even though the wind direction was a little kinder to them - Rob Allen had his first bite at one minute to 3, and ended with 31 lb 4 oz in the last hour. That's good going after five hours of twiddling your thumbs (or whatever he twiddles while waiting for a bite).

Next match Tuesday on Elm, at Decoy, and the forecast is for wind but not much rain, so I will take my feeder rods.  I'm looking forward to it, as I'm on a good run. I can't, fish at Pidley on Wednesday.