Some big weights (over 100 lb) had come from Beastie Lake, at Decoy, on Thursday and Friday, which was surprising to me, as the weather had been bright, with that perishing East wind. But a lot of the fish, I was told, were bream, which partly explained it.
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| Cool, with that dratted North-Easterly over my right shoulder. |
To my left in this JV match was Dan Pettigrew who, like me, started on a feeder cast to the island. It took some time before he had a carp about 4 lb, while I was still fishless. Then he changed to long pole, as I did. Fish then started to show under the surface, and Dan took one on a waggler and two on a pole, though that took an hour or two. During that time I caught a 5 lb carp, a 2 lb bream, a 1 lb F1, and a roach - all on corn.
The middle of the match was a bit of a nightmare for me, because I managed only two more bream, from the right margin, while Dan caught several fish that all looked like big carp to me...and he was gettting them in in double-quick time.
After the match I realised that several of Dan's fish were, in fact, bream that had spashed a lot! I was snagged twice, away from the margins (probably old branches), and lost my hook both times; thank goodness I have my long hook with me - that gives me a chance of getting most of my rig back.
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| Dan mugged some carp early on in the match. |
Just liners
I foulhooked just one gudgeon from that deepish left margin. My right margin had a bush stump leaning out, and just off the end of that the water was about four feet deep. I kept getting liners on corn there, so had a look in the deeper water, where one of those late bream had come. There I had more liners. But no fish.
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| Dan caught slowly but steadily in the afternoon... |
With 30 minutes left I potted out a little hemp and micros to the long pole line and had five minutes there agin. Nothing. Twenty minutes to go and because Dan was catching fish in about three feet of water, right next to his left margin bank, I decided to try the only spot where I had three feet and a flattish bottom. This was on a top two about a metre to the right of my righthand keepnet. It was in a cut-out, sheltered from the wind, so it was flat calm, in clear water - very uninviting.
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...and some of them were definitely big carp. |
Surprise, surprise!
More in hope than expectation I dropped in a rig with corn, and seconds later had a bite! Which I missed. Next drop and a 10 lb carp was stetching the green 16/18 Matrix elastic. It turned out to have been hooked under the chin, so I assumed it was just luck. But it had taken me much longer than normal to land because of that. Just a few minutes left, and I decided to experiment with a mussel. On it went; down went the float; out surged another big carp.
I landed that one - about 8 lb - with only a minute left, and I was left wondering why I hadn't at least tried in that spot earlier. I reckon I'd had 18 lb of carp in 18 minutes, and could possibly have had a big catch if I'd started just an hour earlier. At least I've learned the lesson that even though the water is ice cold and the wind from the East and also cold, there's a chance that big fish will start feeding in the afternoon if I can find the best depth.
I was on scales with Dan, who weighed 68 lb 1 oz - much less than I had thought. I had 32 lb 14 oz and to my right Roy Whincup who, like me, had had a late run of fish, weighed in 53 lb 1 oz. The rest of our weight board saw weights vary down to 17 lb, with the back of the spit not fishing well at all. The top two weights came from the 20s. I finished 11th out of 16.
Although I should have done better, I felt I hadn't made any real big mistakes - just hadn't gone positive early enough. And I was pleased that for a short time I felt I was back in Summer mode in that last 20 minutes. I'm rarin' to go now, and will be checking all my long and short tops - I take them all with me and choose them according, to begin with, to the depth.
Hey, Mac, that's a bit mean!!
