Another bonanza on Elm, Decoy

Since my previous visit, to Cedar, the wind had dropped but it had turned to the East, and was quite cold. My plan, therefore, had been to sit opposite Peg 3 on Cedar, in a back wind, but when I got there two mates, Rob Allen and John Garner, were fishing on Elm, the next strip, also with back wind. They had just started fishing, about six pegs down, but John very kindly said he would push my trolley back if I had trouble, so I sat at the peg next to him, Peg 16.

I started at 13 metres at 10.40 am, and after about ten minutes hooked a 4 lb barbel on a 6mm expander. John then landed a barbel from about four metres out, so I put in a handful of maggots in the deep margin, also expecting barbel, and put out some more expanders at 13 metres.

Rob Allen with a cracking common on
a pole. We estimated it at around 7lb.

The barbel are there!
In a match I often rest a swim as soon as I have taken the first fish from it, and did that this time, putting out a bunch of five big red magots on a strong round-bend 14 into the near swim. Within seconds I was playing a near-5 lb barbel. Then it was back out to 13 metres and a 3 lb carp came in. Back to the maggot swim, and another big barbel.

Meanwhile Rob was off the mark with a lovely 7 lb common, which I photographed. I then had a purple patch with the barbel, taking fish after fish, mainly over 4 lb, for a good 45 minutes. The longer swim was now not producing much - just the occasional F1, one more barbel, and a 7 lb carp, and I had been enjoying myself  so much on the near swim much I came back to the barbel, and plumbed around right next to my platform to look for another possible hot spot.

Sure enough, there was a small hole, about 18 inches across, just in front of the right leg of the platform, and almost every drop in there I was hitting a fish. I was using my special little method, which is deadly, but wasn't putting a lot of bait in - just the odd small handful. Most fish were barbel, with two F1s.

Fun and games with a foulhooked ten-pounder
With an hour to go I decided to look for carp, so fed expanders on a top two right out in front of me. I got my carp first cast - a ten-pound mirror foulhooked in the pectoral fin, which stretched the 13 Hollo elastic on that rig so much in the ten minutes I played it that I immediately changed it for a Middy 22-24 blue. Next carp was 5 lb, and that came in in about one-tenth of the time!

This was not my biggest barbel of the day.

I fancied the barbel were moving to the deeper water now, as bites had slowed. So a quick look again out to the top-two swim and a 5 lb carp came in, then it was back inside for the last ten minutes, in the deeper water. This produced more barbel. the biggest I estimated at well over 5 lb - heavy in the belly. At 3 o'clock we all packed up.

The result
The result was an estimated 150 lb - at least 20 barbel over 4 lb, 15 smaller ones, and 30 lb-plus of carp. John had clicked 49 lb, and Rob 33 lb. My swim was perhaps better, but I put it down mainly to my special method, which never fails me if the fish are there, provided conditions allow its use.

I managed to load the trolley OK - I find packing up is worse than pushing it back, funnily enough. And I pushed it back to the van with no problem, so John's help wasn't needed. In all I had used no more than a big handful of expanders and a pint of maggots. I call that a result!