Why, oh why can't I pick a peg with back wind? Chris Saunders blames his bad pegs on getting someone else to draw for him; I normally draw my own. Perhaps I should change hands? Whatever the reason I'm resigned to having to pull my hood over my head, hunch over my box, and grit my teeth as I watch my quivertip or float. I thought that after winning my first match of the year my luck had, perhaps, changed. Well, it sort of did for the second match of the year. Here's what happened...
Feb 5, peg 21 on Crow, Pidley
My first visit to the Wednesday Old people's Open for yonks, on Magpie and Crow, and I draw peg 21. Happy with that as it's towards the deeper end.The wind was forecast to be SSE, which is roughly in our faces, and for the first hour or so it was only light. But the sky was grey and horrible almost all day.
I started on a pole at 13 metres, because I knew almost everyone else would be starting on feeders or bombs, and if there were fish willing to feed within pole distance Iwanted to be the one catching them.
Err, it didn't work out like that. No bites for an hour anywhere within 13 metres, although not much else seemed to be caught. The angler on my left had one F1 or small carp on a bomb, and I changed to a maggot feeder cast right to the far bank. Immediately I had some liners so I dropped short. Nothing. So back out to the far bank; followed by another look on the pole line with maggot, but by now the wind had increased and it became quite cold.
Then I saw Roy Whitwell, several pegs to my right, net a fish on his usual feeder. I watched him recast to a little over halfway and immediately did that myself with my maggot feeder.
Suddenly the tip wrenched round and I was playing an F1...very carefully, as my hook was a light, Drennan red, size 18 to 3 lb line. I was taking a chance, but within an hour I had three more on that gear. Then the fifth fish broke me - my own fault as I had forgotten to adjust the clutch on the reel to 'very light', and although I had the fish on for several seconds a sudden jerk broke the hooklength. A jerk on one and and a jerk on the other!
On went a stronger size 18 LWG Guru hook to 4 lb and a small carp and three more F!s came before the match ended. My bait for every fish was a red maggot hooked in the blunt and followed by a flouro pinkie hopoked in the pointy end, so they lay nicely together, not splayed out.
I tried the pole again but gave up after ten minutes as the wind had increased considerably and moved North, and there was a big ripple on straight down the lake, which made it diffult to preent a rig properly even at eight metres, though strangely the wind suddenly became less cold.
The angler on my right had some fish right in the side in the last hour, and one of them looked to be 3 lb-plus. I wasted 20 minutes there without a sign, and in fact the last hour was fishless.
My eight fish weighed 16 lb 11 oz, giving me third place out of the 12 on Crow, and a section envelope. Magpie saw better weights with top weight of 38 lb 12 oz from peg 7, where they had a nice back wind for most of the match!
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| Crow 1-13 |
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| Crow 14-25 |
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| Magpie 1-22 |
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| Magpie 23-26 |
Horseshoe 13 - oh dear!
This won't take long. Horseshoe 13 at Decoy is a flier. It's on a corner with an aerator opposite and a nice deep left-hand margin, where lillies grow in Summer.
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| Peg 13 - a lovely swim. This was before the wind got up. |
Roy Whincup had about four fish in the first two hours on peg 7, behind me, casting a feeder to the far bank; then Peter Harrison on peg 4 had his first bite, on maggot on a pole at 14 metres. Next to him Andy Mitchell was also catching fish. Roy changed to casting his feeder down the track and started catching F1s and carp.
Next to me Kevin Bell had an occasional roach and then a carp on a pole at about six metres, and added an odd fish or two after that, with no pattern; though he did catch a carp on a feeder and lost another when it snagged him.
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| Kevin Bell's first carp. That smug smile didn't make me feel any better! |
Me? I managed one roach about a quarter of an ounce from deep water to my right, and lost two more tiny fish when they dropped off. I had no liners on a feeder, and no other bites on a pole, even though I tried all the lines to the left margin from right against the reeds out to 13 metres over where the lilly bed would be. Nothing! Zilch!
The wind didn't help - right across the corner into me from the left, and it was very cold after an hour or two. The top three came from those pegs 4, 5 and 7, who had back wind. Five-and-a-half hours of my life I will never get back (though I did have some nice bites on a piece of stem ginger cake I brought with me).
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| Roy Whincup included some carassios (the silver fish in the foreground) in his second-placed 55 lb 13 oz. |
The other half of the club fished on Lou's Lake, where they had better all-round weights (and more shelter from the wind!)
Next match is Decoy on Sunday, where Elm awaits. All I want is a back wind! (And a peg from 8 round to about 16).
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| Horseshoe |
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| Lou's |
