The carp tease me - Kingsland, Coates, Cambs

Peg 6, Sunday 16th May
Thirteen of us fished this Fenland Rods match on the small carp lake at Kingsland. It's not permanently pegged, and we put peg 1 in the first corner you come to, running to 7 on the righthand bank, 8 and 9 on the end (we left them out), and 10 to 16 back down the North bank, with 17 on its own on the West bank. That peg had probably won more matches than any other, and our club champion Dave Garner drew it.

My swim looking across to 10 in the righthand corner. Flat calm and sun - not perfect!

My peg 6 had four nice big concrete steps down to the large platform. Some of the pegs can be decidedly dodgy if the grass is wet, to the extent that some anglers won't fish here now because of the danger of slipping. My left margin had bare bank for the first few metres to the left and a clump of reeds about five feet to my right in the right margin. But I started out at about 10 metres, as did Kevin Lee on my left. But neither of us had a bite there in the first 30 minutes. Opposite, Peter Spriggs hooked a carp from his margin, and that was enough to persuade me to try mine.

My left margin had bare bank along to the dead reds. The platforms here are really big!

Fish on corn, but not many
I started to the right and after half an hour took an 8 lb mirror on corn fished over corn and hemp. Fish were cruising, but they wouldn't look at a bait, so I persevered with corn to the right and after three hours had just five fish for about 40 lb, four on corn with one on an expander, though I had lost a couple more. Five fish doesn't sound much, but I reckoned that was better than most, as these big fish were usually splashing while being landed and I hadn't seen much splashing. With the water almost flat calm, Kevin's fish, when he landed them, send big waves through my swim, and there hadn't been many waves from anywhere.

A switch to the left margin, though this didn't look as inviting, brought another fish or two on a small cube of luncheon meat in the slightly deeper water about four feet from the bank, and when I changed to two small pieces, to fish more positively, my catch rate went up. In one really good hour I landed about six fish around 5 lb, while Kevin seemed to be struggling, and I reckoned I was ahead of him. 

Kevin Lee with a lovely light golden common around 10 lb.

To my right, guest Roland Butcher started hitting a lot of fish on his waggler, but he told me afterwards that on his rod he couldn't stop a lot of them dashing into the thick reeds and coming off. I prefer to use a pole in swims like that as you can tighten the elastic to hold the fish, without having to keep it at rightangles to the pole, whereas with a rod you risk it breaking if you have to hold everything hard.

Everybody seemed to foulhook carp
Foulhooked fish were a problem, and I lost some more. Strangely there were three instances when I gently lifted the bait, followed immediately by the float diving under in a typical bite, only to find that I hooked a fish which immediately came off leaving me with a scale. Then a fish, possibly foulhooked, took the whole of the rig which had been doing the business. A Disaster, Daarling! So I reverted to the rig I'd used in the right margin.

Dave Garner on Peg 17 was fifth with 83 lb.

With my estimate of about 100 lb in two nets I went for a third with 45 minutes left. Now the fish should really start biting! Kevin had just landed a fish or two on cat meat, so I tried it. But I couldn't get a bite, and reverted to luncheon meat in the left margin. A 2 lb carp came in, but then I had a terrible half hour fishless, while Kevin had five or six big fish, and I guessed he was catching me up.

A disappointing end
Hemp seemed to have an immediate effect and everytime I put it in with meat big fish came swirling in, but they now left very quickly, instead of staying a few minutes as they had previously. I felt that just a couple of those big fish would give me a chance of possibly winning, though I couldn't see what everyone else was catching.

In the last ten minutes two more fish came in  of 3 lb and 6 lb, the last one being my only fish on cat meat, but I knew I had possibly fallen behind Kevin just when I expected to have my best spell of the match. The substitute rig hadn't worked as well as the lost one, but I didn't think I had time to mess about getting a new rig to work just right. I should have gone back to the righthand margin, or put in dead maggots, which would probably have kept fish in the swim for longer.

This was my first net - six good carp for 44 lb mainly on corn.

Again, as had happened before, the spare nets provided are not large enough for the landing net provided to be pushed inside to release the fish. But I had read my blog before going, and that reminded me that I needed to use the spare net I keep in the van to transfer the fish into it, so it could be popped into the keepnet.

The weigh in
James Garner on Peg 2 was leading with 116 lb 6 oz when the scales came to Kevin. James fishes very few of our matches but always seems to be in the top two or three. Kevin weighed 104 lb 10 oz and I thought I might still beat that. But for only the second time ever I had OVERestimated my weight. My three nets went just 99 lb 5 oz - only about one fish short of Kevin's weight.

The result - quite patchy, perhaps because the fish seemed
to want to be spawning, but the water isn't yet warm enough.

Those weights dominated right round to Dennis Sambridge on 15, the oldest angler on the bank (I think he's about 81). He put 138 lb 8 oz on the scales for the win. Dave Garner on his own on the West bank was broken four times on his waggler rig when fish took him into the thick reeds which stretch out a long way from the platform, and was fifth, leaving me in fourth spot and the last in the money.

A good day's fishing, so I was very happy. Those fish wouldn't give in, and I felt I had played them OK. I think that just one that I lost may have been properly hooked, but can't be certain of that.

Next match Saturday on Yew at Decoy, pegs 16 to 30. Pegs 20 and 21 have traditionally had a slight edge, but our last one there was won on Peg 27 I think. As usual I am happy anywhere, fishing with mates. Life doesn't get any better than that.