Peg 22 has so often been my bogey peg on this lake. But Peter Harrison won last week on it, so I was hopeful in this Spratts match. But when I got to the swim there was a problem: the wind was really strong, whistling down from the South, giving me a side wind, meaning I wouldn't be able to pole fish very far out...and the margins were virtually just bare bank.
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| Peg 22 is a nice-looking swim between two islands. But the wind made it impossible to pole-fish to them. Needless to say, when the match ended the wind started to die down - this was taken after we finished. |
When I plumbed them up there was about 10 inches in the right margin, and about 14 inches along to the left. I'd decided to leave my feeder rods in the van, because I had been looking forward to fishing the pole. Probably the one mistake I made!
An early break
To my right Martin Parker on 19 and Mike Rawson on 18 both had some reeds or Irises to fish against. But I felt I had to start in the deepish water at about five metres, with a 2.5 foot lash, and in fact had a 1 lb F1 very quickly on a 4mm expander. Soon after that another fish that must have been an F1 caught me by surprise by dashing under the platform, hitting one of my keepnets, and breaking the hooklength.
I stayed out there for a couple of hours and landed half-a-dozen more F1s and one 5 lb mirror carp. All came to a 4mm expander - they wouldn't look at a 6mm. But soon after the start I had seen Martin playing a big fish hooked in the margins. He was laying his pole on grass and fishing right against the bank, about two feet deep. My margins looked very uininviting all day - big swells were constantly running alongside the bank, which made it almost impossible to keep a bait still in that shallow water.
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| Wendy got into the action on peg 25 using a feeder. |
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| And they were good fish! |
After a couple of hours I put some bait to my right, about a metre from the platform, where about six tiny sparse reeds were growing - the only ones there.
Amazingly carp came in to the feed, and my float, with cat meat on the bottom, was surrounded by waving fins and tails and swirls...and I had not even a liner! The wind was now still no better, and it was almost impossible to present a bait well while facing it. So I started another swim in three feet of water on a top two in front of me, which brought an occasional F1, but eventually I had to go to the left.
Some better carp at last
I plumbed up to the next platform. To get more than about 18 inches of water I had to go about four feet from the bank. Then I found a spot, at ten metres along towards the next platform, where the shelf was a little closer - three feet deep five feet from the bank. And there, in the last couple of hours, I had three F1s on corn and four nice carp on mussel, losing just two foulhooked. Sometimes I hd a proper bite but when I struck the mussel was gone, I'm sure they were big carp.
Every time I fed hemp and micros I had lots of movements on the float which were, I am sure, nearly all from fish mouthing the bait. The real dive-aways might have been liners (I didn't connect with any of them)..
The last fish was hooked 15 minutes from the end. It was 9 lb and took me almost 15 minutes to land! When I went to unhook it my rig lay there in the net with the hook snapped off at the bend. I'm sure this had been hooked in the snout, which is hard, and that when the fish was in the net it rolled over and broke the hook. Fish hooked in the snout are such a nightmare to land. I estimated I had 50 lb.
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| A lovely perch for Peter Spriggs. |
The weigh in
First to weigh was Trevor Cousins, on peg 3 opposite to me, who had also been in the nasty side wind. He weighed 47 lb 4 oz, which I thought was pretty good in those conditions. Next was John Smith on 4, who had lost several fish in the side and in snags. I've had that problem in that peg in the past, and Roy Whitwell, said he reckons the bank is undercut there by posssibly several feet. Anyway, John totalled 29 lb 12 oz.
That bank had been facing the wind, and I honestly would have preferred that - I'd rather have a wind blowing into a fishable margin than a vicious side wind with shallow, bare margins. And I thought that Peter Spriggs, on 8, might have a load. No: he weighed in 48 lb 10 oz; but next door on 9 Kevin Lee had 115 lb 10 oz - he said he had about 40 lb in the first hour and that double cat meat was best.
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| Kevin Lee, second, 115 lb 10 oz. |
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| Neil Paas, winner, 131 lb 2 oz. |
Top weight on the opposite bank, where the anglers had a backish wind, was Neil Paas, who can't stop catching fish. He won with 131 lb 2 oz on mussel, feeding very little. Martin, who was Golden Peg, was third with 58 lb 13 oz, all caught right against the reeds. I weighed in 49 lb 5 oz, then Wendy on 25, almost slipped into the frame with 54 lb 3 oz (beaten into fourth by Roy Whitwell by 10 oz). I ended sixth out of 13 in a match where a lot of weights were a bit tight.
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| Wendy was last to weigh, on peg 25, and had several cracking fish like this one. |
Ignoring the fact that I might have caught more on a feeder in the rough conditions, I felt I had made the logical moves, and fished it alright. I couldn't honestly say I'd done anything stupid, I tought UI'd done well, and I award myself an unusual 9/10. I'd used my short tops for this match, and have changed to the longer tops for the next match on Elm. In the last match the far bank fished best because the margins are better there., But I'm happy just to be fishing in reasonable conditions (the forecast is for light winds, and warm, with some cloud).
THE RESULT
3 Trevor Cousins 47 lb 4 oz
4 John Smith 29 lb 12 oz
6 Mick Ramm 6 lb 9 oz
8 Peter Spriggs 48 lb 10 oz
9 Kevin Lee 115 lb 10 oz 2nd
11 Roy Whitwell 54 lb 13 oz 4th
13 Neil Paas 131 lb 2 oz 1st
15 Bob Barrett 48 lb 5 oz
18 Mike Rawson 28 lb 6 oz
19 Martin Parker 58 lb 13 oz 3rd
22 Mac Campbell 49 lb 5 oz
24 Joe Bedford 19 lb 5 oz
25 Wendy Bedford 54 lb 3 oz
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