A nice 'new', comfortable water - Crow, Pidley

 Peg 16, Saturday, July 24
I should have written this yesterday, but instead I watched the Fish O' final I had recorded. Too much talking by the presenters, not enough detail on the fishing (so far as I could make out - no subtitles were available), but a great performance by Harry Bignell, who found a shallower bar at 14 metres and ended with 80-plus kilos, That's 176 lb in real money. In five hours. Under £50,000 worth of pressure..

Overcast, not cold, and a good wave - ideal conditions on Crow Lake.

A pity I couldn't match that on the Saturday, when I was walloped by the two anglers on my right. I can't blame the peg - it looks to be a very fair strip lake, and every position (they are not platforms) is covered in astra turf. Eleven of us fished, the first time we had been on this lake.

Peter The Paste - second from Peg 12 using meat or paste.

I was told by people who knew, to feeder on the far bank, in the shallow water, which I did, for 45 minutes, during which time I ended with three fish on a banded pellet for a little over 1 lb. Meanwhile Kev on my right had had a fish or two on a pole and cat meat or paste at two-plus-one. So I felt I had to change. It was roughly five feet deep on this line, and that continued right the way out to the middle. I had a rig for a swim towards the middle but stupidly didn't ever use it. The wind was strong, left to right, but I could certainly have held it at 10 metres.

Anyway, my look down at 2+1, which I had been priming with pellets, by hand, brought immediate fish on an expander, but they were all small, while Kevin had now caught some bigger fish that looked to be 3 lb-plus. I carried on with the smaller fish, mainly under 1 lb, then changed to small cubes of luncheon meat, and managed to snare about three of 2 lb-plus. But after about four hours I had managed about 40  or 50 fish for perhaps 35 lb, all carp except for a small bream. I tried cat meat in that swim for some time, but never had a touch.

Kevin Lee - winner two swims to my right.

Interestingly, using the smaller baits my best spells came when I managed to get the bait to trip along bottom, very slowly, into the wind - there was a good undertow some of the time, though unaccountably it disappeared from time to time.

With 90 minutes left and 40 lb-plus in the first net I put some hemp and luncheon meat into the margins, which was no more than a foot deep, gradually  dropping to about three feet on the top of the drop-off. Minutes later big fish came swirling in, waving their tails at me, but as so often in very shallow water they didn't take my bait properly. It took ages before a five-pounder grabbed my cat meat, laid on about six inches. 

I managed just four more, all around the same size, and all five went into my second net and weighed 24 lb. My total was 66 lb 15 oz, dwarfed by Kevin on 117 lb 3 oz, all taken at 2+1, and Peter The Paste to his right, who totalled 110 lb 15 oz on the same line.  I ended fifth out of 11. 

My last five fish, from the margins,  weighed 24 lb.

What I should have done
I should have had a look farther out, and also put the margin bait out into slightly deeper water - two feet would have been fine. Fish seem to take the bait better in that depth of water than in 12 inches. And the difference between the top two and me was that they waited with the bigger baits, while I was getting many more bites, but from smaller fish. But I did enjoy it.

The good news is that, as I had expected, the anglers loved the lake - good banks, fair fishing, lots of bites, some good carp, no mud, and easy parking.

Joe Bedford is in his nineties, and still catching fish.

THE RESULT

The wind was blowing from the high numbers down to the lower
pegs. But I doubt if that affected the result. The best anglers took the top places!

Next match is Thursday on Damson at Decoy, where there may be fish in the margin to start with, but you can bet your boots that they will disappear in the first half of the match, and probably in the first hour. So my memo to self is: Don't waste time in the margins - go out to the deep water (it's seven feet deep on a top two) early rather than late.