In the heat on Jay

Peg 18, Jay, Wed, July 8
I made a Tuesday-evening decision to book into the Over 60s at Pidley. Everybody was on Jay,  and I picked out 18. Never fished that peg before, but I knew where it was - basically facing North West, which meant that the island would be shading me from any ripple, but not from the sun. That started on my ledt and finished up bang in front of me, which was the hottest part of the day.

Sure enough, there was no ripple, but I could occasionally see a little moving along the two stretches to my let and right. I couldn't see anyone to the right, but there was an angler on 21, round the corner to my left, so I had bags of room. I dobbed across with a small cube of luncheon meat at 11.5 metres plus a half-butt, but had no offers. 

Lovely huge platforms at Pidley. The ripples here were aused by ducks!

So I put in a pot of meat and hemp and at that moment fish started moving in the shallow water across, and I soon had a bite on luncheon meat fished on the bottom in the shallow water. That was a 7 lb carp; next drop and I had one of 3 lb; next drop I hooked a fish which came off. And after that I never had another bite across. Over 2 hours had passed.

Splashing from afar
Then there was splashing and I looked round to see the angler on 21 landing fish. He appeared to be fishing the deep water just off his platform. I hd put in some bait on the edge of the reed bed to my right, so had a look there. After a liner or two I managed two or three F1s about 2 lb, which fought like tigers but ended in my net, and him on 21 was hammering fish now. 

Soon I saw he had moved to fish right in the margina, though he seemed to be nearly four feet deep, and my margins weren't that deep. Still, I had a look there, and started to get bites on corn. From then to the end of the match I stayed in the margins, both left and right, mainly using my special method, and every ten minutes I'd pick up a nice carp of 5 lb-plus, with the best round 9 lb. I lad a good look at 21 and guessed he was using paste. That caught me just one fish - the corn, or a small piece of cat meat were better. I also had just one on mussel.

I quite enjoyed the last hour or two, though the fish mever went mad. But by the end the sun was blazing hot, with virtually no wind. The forecast was for 33C but that's in the shade, of course. I guess it was approching 50 in the sun. However, I didn't feel ill. I'd plastered my face and hands with sun cream kept my cap on, and regularly drank from my cold bottle of orange juice, ending with five carp in each of my three nets. 

The weigh in
Alex came along after a fair while, and a look at the sheet showed me that my 89 lb 12 oz would be well down. In the end the peg to my right, 14, and the two to my left, 21 and 22, all beat me with  well over 100 lb. Steve Tilsley won off 22 with 161 lb 2 oz and I finished 11th out of the 30 anglers, which I was quite happy with as it's a year or two since I fished on Jay, and most of the others fish it regularly in the Wednesday Open.

Afterwards, like several more of the anglers, I sat in the back of the van to cool off and decided that my 89 lb wasn't too bad at all - a good day's fishing. Which is the best we can hope for. And I gave myself 8/10. Mission accomplished. The full result was, as usual, put onto Facebook by Chris Saunders, who puts up the full result of all the matches he fishes the same evening. A lot of work for him. So thanks, Chris.