A Winter warmer for me - Magpie Lake, Pidley

Peg 16, Wednesday, Dec 29
Well, I now know that this blog has at least one reader - Father Christmas! I recently wrote about having seen heated underwear worn by some of the top anglers...and Lo and Behold, Christmas brought me a heated vest. I've tried it out (I reckon you could roast potatoes on it) but didn't need it for the latest Over 60s match on Magpie at Pidley because although we had rain for a couple of hours, the wind was warm.

First set-back
Peg 16 has the longest walk, and within a few yards of getting on the bank I realised the motor on my trolley was not working. Again it was the battery connection, which meant I had to unload the whole trolley before adjusting the connection. Never had a problem with the old one, but like almost everything else nowadays the modern battery has been designed with cheapness in mind. At least Alan Golightly and I got it working.

My home for the day - the big Flat-Back umbrella was able to keep all the rain
off me. The angler in the back ground is Will Hadley, on the island Peg 34.
 Rob Heath, on Peg 14 to my left, fished right across to the dead reeds
 at about 16 metres.  I positioned my gear to the extreme right
of the the swim, but found the floating island too far out to fish to.

Peg 16 has one feature - a floating island slightly to the right, which is about 16 metres from the bank, but I had accidentally left my 14.5 and 16-metre sections at home, so decided to concentrate on a good presentation in open water rather than struggle to reach the island. At least the walk round wasn't muddy, thanks to the artificial turf laid all round the lake, from Manchester United's old training ground.

First cast - a fish hooked, and...
First drop in at 13 metres with an 8mm expander pellet saw a bite and a fish briefly hooked. Presumably foulhooked. Next cast the same thing happened, and I changed to bread fished from shallow down almost to the bottom, but never had a knock. On peg 34, in front of me, on the main island, I could see Will Hadley fishing bread at 16 metres, and I don't think he had a fish in the first hour.

I had started in an 8mm expander on a size 16 hook in the hope that with all the warm weather the fish might have been ready to have a proper feed, but like almost everyone else I had maggot as a back-up.

Eventually a switch back to expander saw a 3 lb carp come in, and next cast a four-pounder foulhooked, which after a long fight ended in my net. But I immediately switched to maggot, as clearly the fish weren't ready to feed properly. This produced two F1s about 2 lb each in the next hour, though I had a lot of liners, some of which I struck at because they looked like proper bites.

Jay Richardson with 24 lb 3 oz. Had he landed a big
double-figure carp which came off the size 18 hook
he could have framed. Jay took his fish mainly
 on corn fished down the track on Peg 21.

More liners
I'd been flicking maggots into a swim to my left, but two tries here didn't see even a liner. So with two hours to go I switched to this lighter rig with a size 18 hook on a light hooklength, in the 13-metre swim. Catapulting half-a-dozen maggots out every minute or two produced about four more F1s to a single maggot, and lots more liners. On the island Will started to land a few fish which looked to be up to 5 lb, and beyond him on Peg 32 Malcolm Roberts, who had had a fish or two on a pole started hitting fish on a waggler cast to the island in front of him, and he had a good last hour.

I had a pop-up om a bomb ready to cast to the island but never tried it. I probably should have done so while having a cup of delicious mushroom soup from my flask. Three more fish came adrift during that two hours, and I must assume all were foulhooked - Will had the same problem.

The weigh in
There were four DNWs altogether, and two of those were the two anglers to my right, so I was happy to be able to weigh in 16 lb 6 oz, which was at least a respectable weight. For the third Over 60s match in a row Rob Heath was on my immediate left, and he was able to fish across to vegetation, though it looked as if it might have been 16 metres, so it must have been hard work. He weighed 37 lb 13 oz for fifth out of the 26 anglers. But I forgot to take his photograph...

The first results sheet.

The second, out-of-focus, results sheet Pegs 28 to 36 are on the main island.

Well done, Vic

Winner was Vic German on 36, who fished long to his left and right with bread, altering the depth to find the fish. His weight was a magnificent 133 lb 14 oz, with Malcolm Roberts on second with 61 lb 13 oz. I was seventeenth, which I was happy with from that peg. Ideally you need a feature to fish to at the moment. That the fishing is difficult was shown by Chris Saunders, who has been winning a lot recently, weighing in just 3 lb 5 oz from Peg 8.

My next natch is Sunday on Damson at Decoy - though Gus Gausden will probably move it if there's a large entry, as the pegs from about 18 to 24 necessitate taking your gear down several steps to fish (and back up afterwards), which I wouldn't even attempt, and I doubt I'm the only one. Then Wednesday sees the Over 60s on Crow and Raven, at Rookery Farm Fishery, Pidley, where you can drive to every peg.

What will the new year bring? If I can still compete, that's all I ask.

Winding down for Christmas on Horseshoe, Decoy

 Peg 4, Horseshoe, Sunday, Dec 19
Twenty-four of us fished this JV match, on Beastie and Decoy, and first cast with a maggot feeder saw me hit a good fish. What a start...then when it was halfway in the line went slack. Just like that! I still can't work out why the line should have broken - it was the same gear I'd landed 80 lb on just ten days previously. 

A quick trip back to the van for another feeder exactly the same saw me re-rig, but the next 90 minutes brought not even a liner. (I had other feeders with me, but I keep some in the van just to keep the weight of my box down). So it was out to 11 metres to the lillies where I had put in some dead reds, and immediately I had bites from small perch. Stupidly I left that swim in disgust after three fish in three put-ins; in fact I should probably have kept fishing there.

Peg 4 on a dank, dismal December morning.

Next I went to a swim about 15 feet from the bank, past a little drop-off, where two or three roach took the bait and promptly dropped off. One or two stuck on the hook, and halfway through the match a 3 lb F1 came in. But that was the end of my excitement for the day.

Roy Whincup shows his best carp, caught while fishing for roach.

Rob shows us how
Four swims to my left Rob Goodson was catching the occasional carp casting right across to the far bank, and I reckoned he was on a pop-up. He told me later that he did, in fact, fish one pop-up on a bomb about a foot off bottom, and later changed to a feeder (presumably a small banjo or something similar) with a pop-up just an inch up. I had a rod and reel all set up in my holdall especially for fishing pop ups. with line stops so I can quickly adjust the depth. But I didn't bother to get up and get it out.

Overall winner Rob Goodson, who I've known for years - a
brilliant angler and a great bloke. His carp weighed 51 lb 6 oz.
The light was very poor at this point - my excuse for the fuzziness.

To my right on peg 2 Roy Whincup ended up fishing for roach on a pole about six metres out, and hit a good carp, a smaller one or two, and a bream, plus several roach. He weighed 19 lb 1 oz - a brilliant result from that swim. But it was Rob Goodson who won the lake with 51 lb 6 oz. I totalled a measly 3 lb 13 oz for almost last. It appears that the fish have decided I should wind down for Christmas! Perhaps the break will get my brain into gear again!

On Beastie the weights were a little better allround, with Lee Kendall top on peg 5 with 43 lb 6 oz including an 18 lb 4 oz beauty on a size 18 hook with light hooklength. Back in the cafe we all won a prize - my box of biscuits, I confess, was particularly undeserved after the way I had fished.

Lee Kendall with that 18 lb 4 oz beauty from Beastie, landed on an 18 hook.

I've stripped off the line from that offending reel and put on some 6 lb Maxima ready for the coming bonanza(!).

Horseshoe result.

Beastie result.

An oven curbs my fishing plans 

A new battery for my trolley has got it going again, but the configuration is slightly different which means I will have to  raise the wood I stand my box on by about half an inch. Why is nothing simple now?

 Next match will be sometime after Christmas - I was intending to fish at Pidley on Wednesday, but my attempts at renewing the bulb in our oven resulted in my having to take off the door (which was easy). That was followed by admitting defeat at unscrewing the bulb cover, and then attempting to put the door back on, which proved impossible. In doing so I somehow triggered a mechanism which snapped one of the hinges shut. 

So on Wednesday I will, as a penance, be waiting at home all day for a Bosch mechanic to come and show me how to close a door! What an ingnominious end to 2021...except that if everything goes according to plan I will be back at Pidlley on Wednesday, December 29th, for another humiliation. Why do I put myself through it?

Have a good Christmas everyone.

The big Christmas match - Raven, Pidley

Peg 25, Raven, Wednesday, Dec 15
Thirty-two of us booked into the Rookery Farm Fishery Christmas match om Magpie and Raven, all full of Christmas cheer, and hoping that the fish felt the same way. Of course it was all an illusion (at least in my swim), though I suppose it was fate that meant that as the birth of Jesus was about to be celebrated I ended with five small fishes, and no loaves (but plenty of leaves)!

The weather was kind with hardly any wind and I was able to fish the far bank at 13 metres on my peg on Raven with punch bread, dobbed above the bottom. To my left Rob Heath had two or three fish early, then the sun came out past him and I couldn't see what he was doing. However occasional splashing told me he was catching something on and off all day.

My swim - the reeds to the right were probably 16 metres away, and I didn't reach them.

After two hours I had managed one carp of about 2 lb on dobbed bread on a size 16 hook, and I wandered up to the angler on my right, who said he had four, with one on maggot. On peg 1 behind me Ken Gammon had one in the deep water and Rob Allen, to his right hadn't had a bite.

I had already tried in the deeper water at about four feet, with maggot, and then in six feet of water (with bait put in via a bait dropper), also with maggot, without having had even a liner. So I tried there again with the same result, and eventually reverted to punch bread fished shallow at about 18 inches right across. That brought just four more, best 4 lb (which was foulhooked). 

New elastic for me
I was using some NuFish Zipp Hybrid elastic 12-14 for the first time, and was very impressed. At one point I hooked a tree on the far bank, and had to pull all the way back to grab hold of the elastic. I assumed that something would break, but in fact I got the lot back, and even after stretching that far the elastic retracted and behaved perfectly normally.

Raven winner Rob Heath, with his 85 lb 8 oz catch from Peg 23.

I had several liners, and had been counting them from the start, since I had little better to do(!) By the end I had counted THIRTY SEVEN liners. I struck at several of them and always came back with my punch bread still on the hook, so I know they were not proper bites. I did wonder, though, whether they were fish slashing at the bait with their tails. When I shallowed up to 12 inches I didn't even get liners! Very frustrating.

The weigh in
Rob Heath, to my left on 23, won the lake with a magnificent 85 lb 8 oz, with some on dobbed bread and others on maggot in four feet of water. I weighed 14 lb 2 oz for eighth on the lake, which I couldn't feel bad about because with one more 2 lb fish I would have been fifth! So I sat beside the winner, but I was told that 25 is often not as good as 23, and last week when I won on Crow the angler beside me was Rob Heath...

The prizegiving

Afterwards, with masks on when we walked in, we gathered for, tea, coffee, mince pies and sausage rolls and a prize for everyone. Thankfully you are allowed to remove your masks to eat! 

Lots of lovely prizes for all of us (the chairs were not included).

It turned out that Will Hadley had been drawn on Magpie 2, where he had won last week, and he won again! Last week he won with maggot fished on the bottom; this week he found about three fish at 13 metres on dobbed bread, then a couple more at 14.5 metres, and finally he caught at 16 metres with a long lash swung out towards the far bank, finishing with 99 lb 8 oz. Hard work!

Surprisingly, Magpie had seen more fish caught than on Raven.

Raven result pegs 1 to 24

The presentation ran like clockwork, with each donated prize given a draw ticket, and as each angler was called up he was given a draw ticket. All you had to do was to find your prize. Absent friends were remembered, and I particularly missed Dennis Sambridge, who confirmed to the anglers here a month or two ago that he has terminal pancreatic cancer.

Rest of the Raven result (yes, I sat next to the winner!)

Magpie result 1-22.

Rest of the Magpie result.

I have been able to confirm that the reason my motorised trolley won't motor is that the battery is dead. A new one has been ordered, though it will not be essential for my next match on Beastie, at Decoy, on Sunday. Recently the best weights have been coming from the early 20s, which I have never managed to do any good on! Wish me luck...

Not my finest hour on Four-Islands, Decoy

 Peg 6, Four-Islands, Decoy
After spending a fair time equipping three feeder rods with different systems, in case I drew the famous Peg 6 on Lou's Lake in this JV match, I went and drew Peg 6 on Four-Islands, which would obviously be mainly pole. Five of us fished in this section with ten on Lou's.

It's been many years since I fished on Four-Islands, and Peg 6 (which has been the best peg recently) presented me with two nice islands at about 11 metres, one a little to the left and the other a little to the right, with open water between them. The water was almost as clear as tap water, and the wind, though described as 'mild' by all the weather forecasters, was on my back, but cold enough to make me put on my thick, padded Imax jacket after an hour.

I am an iriot!
At this point there would normally be a picture of my swim, surrounded with what often looks like a building site, but since I forget to take my phone you will have to use your imagination. 

The match was simple - I started on 2mm expanders against the righthand island, switched to maggots in the open water for two roach which promptly fell off, and then moved to the lefthand island, where I hit a better fish on maggot which came off after about two seconds. A look into the margin where I had been flicking maggots proved fruitless.

Eventually two roach came to hand, followed by a 2 lb F1 from the righthand island, but it took another hour before three more came quickly to maggot. Meanwhile Chris Saunders, round to my left, had definitely had some roach and a better fish or two fishing long against some reeds. 

Bite; strike; twigs!
At one point Chris saw me land a fish and then go straight back and within seconds my elastic was showing again as I struck. Chris shouted out: "Mac's catching" but in fact although I had had a bite there was a bunch of twigs on the hook, and no fish. How do they do that?

A couple more F1s and two carp about 3 lb came in the next 90 minutes, all on three maggots after I had dumped in some dead reds. Then a better fish came broke my hooklength, which surprised me as, after a tangle, I had only just put that hook on - a Guru ready-tied, which I find brilliant, and much better than I can tie myself. Two more fish came off, almost certainly foulhooked.

Into the last hour, and I took just one slightly better carp. Chris then started hitting fish and I couldn't get a bite. In that last hour I am sure he overtook me.

The weigh in
Chris won the lake with 37 lb 10 oz, all taken on maggot; I weighed 23 lb 13 oz; and Barry Webb on 3 took 31 lb 11 oz for second. So I was third on the lake. Barry told me he had had some fish from the  margins, and I kicked myself for not having a look there in the last hour. The fact that the water was so clear had put me off, but I should have tried. Also, I  tried the open water swim only once after the first hour. If the media football pundits had been rating my performance I would probably have squeezed a 4!

Lou's was won on 7 by Lee Kendall, casting a feeder to within a yard of the far bank for 46 lb 7 oz, with Jim Regan second on 5 with 28 lb 10 oz.

My next matches
My next match is at Pidley on Wednesday, when a draw won Raven would be nice, as the battery on my trolley had given out, and if I get a peg on Magpie I will have to push it. I will have bread with me, as it's allowed at Pidley, and is the default starting method for a lot of the anglers if they can reach lillies or the far bank..

Then Sunday sees a JV event on Beastie at Decoy, where pegs in the early m20s have been producing - 21 won on Sunday with over 100 lb, followed by 13 and then 6. I will have the feeder rods with me, as they will come in handy on most of the swims on Beastie. I will also have pop-ups.

A bit of a feeder-fest for me on Crow, Rookery Farm, Pidley

Peg 8, Crow, Pidley
This was my first Pidley Over 60s match for months (I go there when my midweek club matches have finished) and it was held on Magpie and Crow lakes, with 24 entered. Magpie has some shelter, but Crow felt the full force of the howling wind, and after reading and hearing about recent matches there I decided to fish a maggot feeder, although I did make a short pole up.

There's a rolling draw for these matches, which gave me at least half an hour before the start to sit in the back of Steve Tilsley's van and reminisce about the years of match fishing in Days Of Yore. That's one of the delights of matches - nostalgia, but also picking he brains of others. And Steve told me what I had suspected - the favoured pegs on Crow have been from about 11 onwards.

A big, cold wind greeted us on Crow. I made up a pole, but never used it.
Laying it on the bank was the only way of preventing it blowing away!

At the start of the match the wind was even blowing my side tray cover open - from the closed position! I'd already clipped my line up, after having made just one exploratory cast, which landed about a foot from the far bank; Oh that I could always do that! The wind put a huge bow in the line, but I clipped up without tightening.

Fishing a bow
Years of bream fishing on the Fens have given me confidence to fish a bomb or feeder without tightening up immediately after the cast. I can't remember the last time I plunged the rod tip down under the water and reeled in to tighten the line, because I think it often moves the bait and the feeder or bomb, and bream certainly watch the bait fall before going down and taking it in their mouths. In fact I used to have reels with Black Spider and White Spider braid on, so I could allow the wind to form a bow, and I'd watch the bow tighten when I got a bite. It was a common technique in the Fens - slacklining.

So now, when there's a wind, as there certainly was on this occasion, I put the rod on the rest and slowly tighten, inch by inch, confident it will not move the feeder, but confident I will see a bite. The swingtip does it better than a quiver tip, but I don't use a swingtip any more.

A good start on the maggot feeder

Steve Tilsley was to my right. We had a good
old chinwag before the start of the match.

My first two casts across didn't give me a bite, but the third, about eight feet from the far bank, with two maggots, saw a slow wrap-round and a 2 lb common come to the net. I carried on there and started getting a fish about every ten minutes. Two took the bait almost before I had the rod on the rest.

 I was using only a four-inch hooklength, so didn't move the feeder unless I had gone five minutes without a bite, when I twitched it as short a distance as I could, and this produced several fish, which must have been within inches of the bait. All my fish were all between 1 lb and 5 lb, but mainly 2 lb.

One time the two maggots had twizzled the hooklength, so I changed to three and this seemed better. And after that I changed absolutely nothing - I caught steadily for the full five hours, with the bites being often just a slight twitch forward. It's possible that the hooklength helped - it was 4 lb red line, given away with Angling Times some years ago and whenever I use it I seem to catch fish. You'd think that red would show up, wouldn't you? But it seems to work for me when I remember to use it(!)

Alan Owen, a regular in the Over 60s events,
was on Peg 10 to my left and found that big fish
fairly early on. he weighed 36 lb 12 oz.

The feeder emptied quickly
The maggot feeder was the large Preston ICS model, which is a bit fiddly to fill, and I have found that the maggots seem to come out very quickly - if I miscast and immediately retrieved they were almost always completely gone. That's another reason I don't want the feeder to move if I am using only a four-inch hooklength. It would be different if it was 12 inches or more.

Steve Tilsley, to my right, had a poor start but found fish around 12 o'clock on his maggot feeder, and Alan Owen to my left on 10, had fish all day, but on and off. I had managed to find the right length of cast - still on the shallow margins on the far side - and had about 30 fish (I didn't count them) which weighed 83 lb 2 oz, top on the lake. I was happy to  hear the shout to end the match, as the cold had started to penetrate, despite my six layers of clothing.

What about Magpie?
Steve and I agreed at the start that weights would be much lower in Magpie, even though it has more shelter. My mate Mike Rawson had ring me to say he was on Magpie 26, which is tucked away in a corner, with lots of lillies, and was not one of the favoured pegs. But at the end he drove up and said he had had 17 lb 2 oz, which was not bad, but that there was a 112 lb on Peg 2. That was a surprise to me. 

Steve grabbed my phone and took my picture. Thank, mate.

The captor of that 112 lb turned out to be regular Will Hadley, who had fished bread for half an hour without a bite, but had then changed to maggot on the deck at 13 metres. He said that the lillies to his left were not on the surface; but he was surprised when fish ran right through the area without once snagging him. Perhaps that lily bed has vanished.

Mike lost three big fish in his lilly pads, came fifth on the lake, and needed only 1 lb 1 oz more to have come third.

The early pegs on Crow.

The other end of Crow.

The first sheet from Magpie.

Second sheet from Magpie.

Continental payout
There's a Continental payout when more than one lake is used, so Will came first overall and I came second. Then the best second weight on either lake came third - which was Mark Waring on Crow 14, who weighed in 79 lb 2 oz, followed by the second on Magpie, Colin Walker on 34 with 25 lb 2 oz. Then the third on either lake were designated section winners by default. One of those was 91-year-old John Pratt!!

Two good weights did come from past me on Crow, on Pegs 14 and 22. And I was very happy at the end as I'd had a good day's fishing, which was more important to me than framing. And it's given me confidence to fish the feeder more often, because normally the pole is my first choice.

My next match is Sunday with JV on Lou's and Four-Island at Decoy. Four-Island is not popular with a lot of the anglers because the reeds have encroached into a lot of the swims. I haven't fished it for years, so I have no particular thoughts on it. On Lou's the dream draw is Peg 6, which offers a long chuck with a feeder to the far-bank reeds, which has produced some huge weights. But the pole also wins on this peg.  If the wind is South-West as forecast Pegs 1 to 6 will offer something of a back wind.

Then next Wednesday I am back on Pidley, with Magpie and Raven provisionally selected for the Over 60s Christmas match.

A possibly-undeserved envelope on Willows, Decoy

 Peg 25, Sunday, Dec 5
For years Peg 25 on Willows was the biggest flier on the complex, winning more matches than any other swim. But over the years it has lost some of its dominance, and I have a theory that as the fish have got bigger they no longer feel the need to hang round the two islands which adjoin this attractive swim. In the Winter, of course, fish can hole up anywhere, and often in different areas to where they hang out in the Summer. Even so, I was happy to draw it in this ten-entry JV match.

The wind was cool, from the North, and I started putting a maggot feeder over to the main island 30 years away, where there's a noted hole cut into the bank. Liners came immediately, but it took about an hour before I hooked a fish, which turned out to be foulhooked. However, it was about 5 lb and ended up in my keepnet.

The famous Willows 25. The hole to cast to is right above my side tray. The channel on the right is where I saw several big fish pass through.

I had also seen some very big fish cruise round to my right, in the narrow channel surrounding the small island, but when I flicked a maggot towards them they just ignored it. I had put a rig out, and was intrigued to see that as they cruised by they gently drifted to one side to avoid my line. I decided that they wouldn't take a bait...but I kept trying anyway, as they came past for a third time. 

My second fish, also foulhooked
When the pod of about eight had gone past I lifted out my rig...only to find a fish attached. That, too, was foulhooked, but it, too, ended up in my keepnet - about 7 lb. 

Back on the feeder, another drop-back 'bite' saw yet another fish foulhooked, and it was on four about five minutes, during which time I would gain a yard of line only to lose it again. Obviously a very big fish, as I saw it once, when it splashed on the surtface about 35 yards away. Then it came off. In the meantime Ernie Lowbridge, on my left on 24, had not had a bite on pole or waggler or feeder.

Then I had a proper bite, and in came another fish of about 6 lb, hooked in the mouth, and I was so surprised I asked Ernie if it counted! A change to a straight bomb and pop-up brought a bite which turned out to be a 1 lb F1 hooked in the dorsal fin. Then the wind moved round towards the East, and became colder.

Soon after, Ernie caught a fish of about 2 lb on a pole at about six metres, hooked in the mouth, and a little later had another bite which he missed. Today that was the equivalent of bagging (!) But my pole lines resolutely refused to give me a single bite.

Fish arrive again, but...
 With 45 minutes left I emptied some dead maggots into the narrow channel, and 30 minutes later saw clouds of mud coming up there. In went a bunch of live maggots, laying on about 12 inches, in the hope that the big fish would not be scared off by a vertical line down to the bait. But the float never moved. I changed to a bunch of deads (which I should have used in the first place, to match the maggots in the swim), but by then I think the fish had moved on.

Round to my left Carl White had caught two or three on a feeder, and Barry Webb on 19 had started to find fish on a pole, despite the fact that the accumulation of leaves in his swim must have made things very difficult. Then, when the match had only just finished, I saw Smug wheeling his gear up from Peg 29 to weigh in, and by the time I had half packed up the scales were round to me, so no catch pictures.

THE RESULT

The result sheet was faint and rain-spattered, so here are the weights as recorded:

3 Grandad            3 lb 6 oz
5 Steve Tilsley        25 lb 12 oz section
7 Jim Reagan        42 lb 1b oz    1st
15 Roy Whincup    28 lb 6 oz    2nd
19 Barry Webb        23 lb 14 oz

22 Carl White        13 lb 14 oz
24 Ernie Lowbridge    DNW
25 Mac Campbell     21 lb 14 oz    section
29 Smug Whiting        DNW
33 C Baldwin        13 lb 6 oz

Peg 5 produced 25 lb 12 oz to Steve Tilsley, with Jim Reagan winning on Peg 7 with 42 lb 10 oz. He took most of his fish on a pole at about eight metres on maggot, catching a 2 lb bream, a carp about 6 lb, and all the rest being big F1s of 3 lb-plus.

I ended with 21 lb 14 oz, which was fifth in the match, but it won my five-peg section. So, as has happened quite frequently in the last few months, the pegs at the 'back' of Willows, from 27  to 25, did not fish as well as the early pegs. To my left Ernie didn't bother to weigh his single fish. 

I had landed four fish, with three foulhooked, but my comment is the same as I would give if it had happened to someone else - You still have to land 'em.

Here's the result of the Jon Whincup Winter League match 
held on Beastie on the same day:

My next match is Wednesday on Pidley, with the Over 60s match on crow and Magpie. I'm not expecting many fish to be caught, as the wind at the moment (on Tuesday) is bitter. Then Sunday is the JV event on Lou's and Four-Islands, at Decoy.