Firstly a reminder to all Spratts anglers that the next match on Beastie is not on Monday Aug 25, which is a Bank Holiday, but on the Tuesday, Aug 26th. Got that? Then the list is correct - the next week's match is also on Tuesday.
The eleven of us arrived at Yew for this Spratts match to see a lovely ripple in the first pegs at the car park end, but flat calm water at the Northern end. The forecast was for it to get hot, but for the first hour or two the trees behind us on the Eastern bank gave perfect shade - then we started to feel the heat.
Poor Trevor Cousins was pegged at the far end, in the flat calm water; I was halfway, a couple of pegs before the ripple started, next to Roy Whitwell. And things started slowly.
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| Hot and flat calm. I found four feet of water each side of the platform. |
I spent the first half-hour trying to mug the very occasional fish I could see, but every one I could see turned away when they saw my appetising wafter slowly sinking in front of their noses. So I went on to the feeder, which had been my plan in the first place.
By now Roy had landed about three fish, which I guessed were fairly small - he told me later that they were all small F1s or carassio. Then he landed a much better fish and shortly after that my tip went round and a 7 lb carp skied away to my right. My cast was to the far bank and within seconds that fish had skied round through Bob Walker's swim to my right and it actually surfaced in front of Mike Rawson, on the next peg!
Eventually it finished in my net and after a few more fruitless casts I had a look on the pole. The shallowest spots were next to the platform where I found four feet; beyond that it dropped straight down to six feet-plus. I'd been flicking 6mm pellets out about three metres, into the slight head wind, and started there.
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| Roy Whitwell, on my left, lands his first good carp. |
By now the heat was quite intense, and I was glad I had brought plenty to drink, and had covered my arms and face with suncream. Fish were on the surface all the time now, and on the feeder the rod tip kept pulling slowly round in a classic liner; in one case it pulled round and kept going; I had to strike and a big fish in the middle wallowed furiously on the surface as it disentangled itself from the line.
Halfway through I walked up to Trevor, who had been mugging fish, which he often does, In fact the only pole kits he had taken out were for mugging - and he had a pellet waggler, which had also taken fish. He estimated he had perhaps 130 lb at that moment. He is so good at that method. But he did say that he needed calm water for it to work properly - he wouldn't have been able to see the fish in the ripple. I went back a little disheartened, because I know I should have been able to mug some at the start.
Two hours to go, there was now occasionally a little ripple, and I had put some corn into the righthand shallow margin swim, only a foot from the bank. Suddenly my float there twitched slightly. Obviously a liner, but that was my signal to concentrate on the margins, using corn to start with. Then I saw more fish under the surface, in open water, and they seemed to be heading for the sides, though they would dive down a couple of metres out. That happens a lot on Decoy, and it is almost always a sign that they are willing to come into shallow water.
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| Seconds after I took this, the foulhooked carp Bob Walker was playing came off! |
But three, which took mussel, I landed - two from the right margin and one from the left. The last one was hooked only seconds before the end. I shouted 'Fish On' as loudly as I could. That's happened a lot this season. I reckon if the match had gone on for another half-hour I could have had three or four more. The good thing about mussel is that you don't put much mussel in - perhaps one cut in half each time (though most anglers don't put any in at all) - so it's a cheap bait and doesn't do the damage that loads of luncheon meat can do to the water.
While the fish were obviously in the swim I tried paste, but didn't get even a liner. Very strange. To my left Roy had hooked eigtht fish on paste in the second half...and landed just one! And he said he didn't think they were all foulhooked.
When we finished the sweat was dripping onto my spectacles, I felt washed out, and Bob Walker next door commented: "That was horrible" And it was.
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| Bob Barrett - 81 lb 12 oz for fourth. |
The weigh in
First man to weigh was 95-year-old Joe Bedford - 86 lb 9 oz on a feeder cast to the aerator. Next door his sister-in-law Wendy took 61 lb 13 oz to the scales, also on a feeder, cast "To wherever it landed" (her words).😀😀 A great start.
Then came Bob Barrett, 81 lb 12 oz also on a feeder with brown or white pellet; and then Neil Paas, 89 lb 9 oz on the pole on mussel out up to 2+2. But then the wheels fell off.
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| Trevor used four keepnets. |
John Garner must have had a dispiriting day sitting next to Trevor - John weighed 31 lb 7 oz to Trevor's final total of 162 lb 11 oz. Trevor said that after I left he never had another fish on the pole, but about five more on the waggler. A terrific performance.
I ended sixth, and probably should have been more positive early on, and fished farther out, as Neil Paas had, for longer. But Yew has been difficult of late, and I wasn't expecting catches to be as high as they were. And I know I should have had more fish from the margins in the last hour. But I was probably worth only 4/10, though the early pegs did have that ripple all day.
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| Neil Paas with a cracking common. |
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| Trevor - another run-away win. |
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