The sun had got his hat on, on Beastie

Peg 24, Beastie
This JV match (my first of the Winter with the club) was supposed to be on Willows, but during the week loads of leaves fell, and clogged up a lot of swims, so it was moved to Beastie. Actually I like it when there are problems. I've had very few problems fishing through leaves or weed, and I've found that the reduced light level tends to bring fish on the feed. No matter - well apart from the fact that peg 24 on Beastie is a bogey peg for me. 

First good news was that a new platform has been installed on peg 24, and with the forecast being for sun and no rain a warm day was in store. Not good for fishing, though, as we had back wind on our bank, giving us calm water all day, while each end of the lake had ripple.No pegs were on the spit (9 to 17 inclusive) as the bridge is being renewed.

A nice new platform - but no Raspberry Ripple all day.
And the sky was actually blue!!!

Quiet
Not a lot happened in my swim - an hour of bomb and pellet and The Method saw not even a liner, though to my left Shaun Buddle had a couple of fish - I heard the splashing. A switch to a 4mm expander fished at 11.5 metres saw three small bream and a small F1 quite quickly, then bites fell away. By halfway through I had lost a 3 lb bream which leaped clear of the water and threw the hook, and hooked a few small roach.

Maggot on a top kit saw me at least getting bites, and I spent about half an hour catching roach and perch at the rate of one a minute to start with, until they stopped feeding. I hoped that carp might have come in, but no, though they were splashing around the lake, and swimming around with their heads out of the water, or drifting around like shars with the backs showing  And there still wasn't a cloud in the azure-blue sky.

Still  quiet!
Nothing seemed to be happening near me except that Lee Kendall on 18 was definitely catching well. I did, though go Back out to  11.5 metres, then added a section to 13 metres, and caught a 3 lb bream on  expander. With just over an hour to go I decided my only hope of catching carp was to look in the margins, altough the water semed to be dead everywhere. First drop, to my surprise, in the left margin, on an area of hard bottom I had found, saw a touch on corn, and next drop I hooked a near-10 lb carp, which just fitted into the 18-inch landing net, so I then changed the net to mky 20-inch model.

Half an hour later I had reverted to my special method, which showed me that there were definitely fish moving in the swim, though not apparently interested in my mussel. Then I did hit a fish, that was on for a few seconds before everything went slack - broken near the hook. This rig was an oldish one - 6 lb straight through, and there must have been a wind knot I had missed.

Mayhem
Ten minutes before the end a grain of corn was taken on my special method, and a fish about 12 lb created absolute mayhem. It jumped around two feet out of the water four times, and splashed violently on the surface before suddenly making for my platform at speed. If I'd had my landing net in my hand there was a brief moment when I could have scooped it out, as it seemed to be dazed for a few seconds just in front of my keepnets.

Lee Kendall with a big old humpy-backed
common carp that was weighed at
12 lb 10 oz in a light landing net - so
 it probably weighed around 15 lb.

But the fish started motoring again, and it took another five minutes before I had it in the net - about 12 lb. I've never had a carp like that before, behaving much like a trout. I'm amazed the hook didn't fall out. I guess their strange behaviour all over the lake was down to some sort of pressure change. Any way, I had no time to catch anything else, but on my right Sean Coaten was playing an eight-pounder as the match finished, so I guess they were starting to feed.

The weigh in

Pegs 26 back to 20 suffered from having no ripple, and you can see that my 27 lb 9 oz was around average for that area. If that 3 lb bream hadn't thrown the hook and the rig hadn't broken on that big carp I would probably have topped those pegs.  But If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans...

Lee Kendall won with 132 lb 3 oz, taken on maggot and worm (I presume on their own bu mainly together) and he fed four pints of maggots. His win wasn't a surprise - I guess if there had been a bookmaker there every angler would have had a fiver on Lee to win from that peg.

Marks out of ten
Probably 7/10 as it's difficult to make something happen when nothing is happening, if you know what I mean. I just wish I'd looked in the margins half an hour earlier!!!! Not sure hen my next mtch is. Probably somewhere on Wednesday.

THE RESULT