This Year

2009 has been a reasonable year for me. On the team front we have had some success. In the Division 1 National my team, Last Cast, finished fourth. This was a great performance, coming home ahead of Daiwa, Barnsley and plenty of other good teams.  The Shakespeare Superteam blitzed it with a truly remarkable points return. Well done to them.

It is difficult to explain the sheer effort that goes into getting a team on the National starting grid. There is paperwork to complete, you typically need 12 anglers in a squad (to cover for illness) and each one must be enrolled individually with the Angling Trust. There are 5 betting pools to enter, you have to sort accommodation, practices (as if), bait (there was a squatt shortage this year) and so on. You need to gather information on the venue(s) and then distribute this to your anglers. Then the week before the match you have to stand-down two anglers (10 man teams). You must ensure every angler gets to the draw on time, brings their rod licence, and then gets to the right peg for the start of the match. Add in the inevitable costs incurred, and by the morning of the match you are just relieved to get fishing. So team management is not for the faint hearted. Ultimately though, a great result makes the effort worthwhile.

Last Cast Philosophy

The philosophy at Last Cast is to select good anglers, and let them sort it for themselves. Obviously there is some discussion and sharing of ideas before hand, but on the day it is down to each angler to approach his swim as he sees fit. In building the team I intentionally do not force anglers to practice. To an extent Last Cast is a collection of free spirits – anglers like Keiron, Andy and Derek like to do their own thing, only joining the Last Cast fold in the run up to a big event. That’s fine by me – the way I see it they are out practicing virtually every day anyhow – just not on the venue itself!

Other results this year

My year started well with a win in the Stafford Moor Total Fishing Silvers Festival. Then in the Spring I spent some time at Partridge Lakes in Warrington where I won the odd section but never framed. In May I came 5th (out of only 18) in the tiny Whiteacres Garbolino Festival – this was a really friendly event and definitely recommended for anyone who wants a slightly easier introduction to festivals. In September I was back there for the Maver Festival but bombed out, the only solace being a section win on Bolingey with 93lb from peg 7 (a flyer).  In between I had a couple of two-dayers at The Glebe, winning Pool 1 on one day with 124lb, plus a few visits to other venues with limited success. All told, I’ve enjoyed my fishing this year – got it right some days and wrong on (many) others.  My lesson from the year? Keep it simple.

Winsford Winter League

The other big event in our team calendar is the Winsford Winter League on the River Weaver. We are the current champions, and as far as I can recall have never finished outside the top three. We had a few problems this year though. In Round 2 (of 6) Darren Mulheir on the Marina section was estimated by the lads either side to have caught approx 17lb of roach. When the scales arrived he pulled out his net to reveal a big gash in the side, and only a few fish left in the bottom. A pike had attacked his net, unseen, during the match. His 6lb was last but one in the section. This has now happened to us twice in three years – metal keepnets next year I think.

Then on the eve of the latest match (round 6) one of our anglers was taken ill. Our spare man Steve May had already booked in and paid somewhere else, and at short notice we could not get a replacement, as the date clashed with both the Blake Hall and Heronbrook Winter Leagues. So going into the last match (last Sunday) we were lying third in the league, but only had 4 men for a 5 man team event. How did we get on?

The Final Round

Keen readers (ok, my mum if I’m lucky) will recall that I fish the Aerosol section. Typically, it is wider and slower than other sections. It is not stuffed with fish but does tend to be reasonably fair. Critically, the Aerosol is the place to be when the river is up and coloured, because the width ensures a more even, steady pace whereas narrower sections of the river (eg Marina, top of Red Lion) have boils and eddies making presentation and fish location more difficult.

I was drawn on peg 567, not one of the two end pegs but pretty similar to all the others in between. The river was coffee-coloured with some pace, but was not particularly high. It screamed skimmers, so I broke with my usual plan and decided to major on the tip. A small cage feeder with extra lead held bottom nicely at 31 turns of the reel handle. Groundbait was 50/50 brown crumb and green Swimstim, and chopped worm and dead maggot went into the mix, with a few pinkies to hopefully induce a few roach trembles to keep me active before the skimmers moved in. Starting on the tip I had my first fish, a tiny roach, after half an hour. By this time the angler to my left (my brother!) and Ken to my right had both had a skimmer each. Bear in mind you can double-hook here, so you can fish both pinkie and dead maggot. Interestingly, in my experience the point hook (the bottom one) outscores the dropper hook (the top one) by two to one.

I had also set up a 3g Cralusso Bubble for inching through the swim on the 12 metre pole, so after 30 minutes  I had a look on this having cupped in two balls of leam at the start. But to be honest it never looked right all day and I spent no more than 15 minutes on it before chucking it up the bank. So back on to the tip.

Second time on the tip things started to happen for me. I had four skimmers in four chucks before it went dead again. Interesting that I’d caught straight after resting the swim! You are caught in a bind when this happens – you need to get some feed down otherwise the anglers either side of you will nick your fish, and yet the constant crashing of a feeder on top of grazing skimmers is clearly having a detrimental effect. So I came up with a plan to alternate between bomb and cage-feeder. Basically, I had two casts with a cage feeder, followed by two casts with the bomb, then two more with the feeder, and so on for the rest of the match. By the end I had caught 14 skimmers, biggest of about 1lb, plus a handful of roach. I definitely had more fish on the bomb than on the feeder. In fishing of course, you never know whether your tactics (in this case, two feeder chucks then two bomb chucks) has optimised the return from your swim, but I felt it had been right, and on the same swim would do the same thing again.

At the all-out I hoped I’d done enough. I needed to score well to try and make-up for being one man down. By the time the scales got to my peg, with two left to weigh after me, Hazel Grove’s Bobby Birks was leading with 9lb 5oz. I knew it would be close between us, and when I tipped my fish on the scales the needle went round to …9lb 5oz. So we shared the section win, with the next best weight being Kenny’s 6lb. I could have done with one more ounce, but if I’d expected any generosity from the scalesman (my brother) I had another think coming!

The Final Positions

Back in the Red Lion pub, the rest of the Last Cast team had done pretty well, which saw us finish as second team on the day despite being an angler short. But in the real competition Hazelgrove Angling Centre emerged as league winners by a single point (209 points). They also had the top individual in Steve Mottishead. Trafford came in second (208 points), and ultimately I was pleased that we had held on to third (187 points).

It is easy to blame our failure to win Winsford this year upon our trials and tribulations – the pike attack and being a man down. But even if Darren had won Round 2 with his roach weight, and even if our missing angler had won his section on Sunday, we would probably have been one or two points light. And anyway ‘if’ is a big word – as the Dutch say “if my auntie had balls she would be my uncle”. So it’s roll-on next year, and let’s try and get our title back. Thanks to Dougie again for organising this league.

Looking Ahead

With one Winter League finishing last Sunday, the next one starts this Sunday at Cudmore, organised by Vinnie Smith. This is a 6-man event, 13 teams over 6 rounds. The lakes are New Pools 1, 3, 5, Arena, Suez and Brewsters. Cudmore is fishing well so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll keep you posted.

Merry Christmas. These are dark days at the moment and if you are up against it, keep your chin up and may your god go with you.

The Classic Rig
This rig consists of a tiny float – 0.05g or 0.1g maximum, set at about 12 inches deep, with a Mosella F1 pellet band on a hair rig. Shot are No 10s positioned at half depth. Hook is something like a B911 size 18. You put a 4mm pellet on the band, and feed 4mm pellets over the top. The Verdict: this rig does work. By slapping it you get 3 splashes (float, shot and bait). On a good day you can start on this and catch all day, but to be honest this rig is starting to prove less effective. More recently we have tended to start on it, get a few quick fish, but then they back off.

The Classic Maggot Rig
Identical to the above, but with the hair bitten off and a red maggot put direct on to the hook. Verdict: This rig seems to kick start the swim again, and produce more positive bites than the banded pellet. I have found it is best to keep feeding the pellet, rather than switch to feeding maggot, or a mix of both.

The Rigless Rig
This consists of a length of line, with a hook attached and nothing else. Can’t claim any credit for inventing this – we first saw it used at Gwinear about 15 years ago when they would just put a BB shot on the hook to imitate the pellet. We have tried this rig both with a banded pellet on the hair or just with maggot on the hook. Basically, you lower it in, and the hookbait falls very slowly. Verdict: At first this feels really weird, and much slower, but it does work. Bites are signalled by the elastic coming out of the pole. Therefore, you only ever see fish that are properly hooked. It feels much slower because you are not missing bites, and yet measured over a set time period you seem to hook as many fish as with the classic rig. Takes some faith, and is worth trying, but suffers because of the lack of splash ie you can’t slap it.

The Lead Rig
As above, but with a small row of No8 shot where the float should be. So basically, 2 ft of line with a hook at the end, and 3 No8s bunched together half way along. Verdict: This rig gives you something to splash, and also allows you to have some control over the rig. Try to hold the shots level with the water surface. I thought this rig was going to be a killer, but it practice it has met with mixed success. That is, we caught a few on it but not as many as the method below

The Flying Classic Rig
This is the same as the classic rig, but with the float held about 1 inch above the surface, to keep the line tight. Verdict: if you are missing bites, this is one of the most effective ways of upping the hit rate. You get more bumped fish (they are hooked momentarily, and then gone) but you definitely hook and land more as well.

Putting it into Practice
Most of my shallow fishing of late has been at Partridge lakes in Warrington. The fish here on the match pools are small stockies (carp) typically 6oz with a pounder a good fish. We have been trying the above variations. My last match was Sunday just gone. I drew Peg 52, not one I was too excited about – 12 metres across with no wide bay area or bridge to fish to, unlike those pegs either side of me. Worse, when I got there the water was gin clear, not ideal when combined with bright sunshine. I set up two classic rigs, one with a band (pellet) and one without (maggot). Elastics are the Middy Hi Viz 6 to 8 (orange) – perfect for stockie fishing.

I have not fancied a peg less for months. Or at least that was the case, until 15 minutes before the start a ball of fish surfaced about 10 yards to my left, and started gobbing off the surface. Over the next few minutes that moved slowly past me and took up residence about 10 yards to my right, halfway between me and the next angler. Only small fish but beggars can’t be choosers.
On the all-in I went straight at them with the banded pellet and caught from the off. Over the 5 hours I had 119 fish for 43lb (told you they were small) to win the section by 5lb. Here is what I learnt. The Classic pellet rig worked but started to fade after 2.5hrs. I’m not sure whether this was because they were tired of it, or because the hair was knackered and a bit twizzled up – I’d had 52 fish on it at that point. Switching to the classic maggot rig saw a sudden lull in activity, before they seemed to adjust to the maggot and started to take it. I loose fed a few maggots at the start but mainly kept feeding pellet.

In the second half of the match, on the maggot, I had 67 fish. During this period I also tried the Rigless rig and the Lead rig. Both produced fish but top method by far was the Flying Classic maggot rig, suspended an inch above the water. This critical factor here was not the revised depth of the rig (obviously an inch shallower) but the direct connection with the fish.

But the most fascinating observation was this. At one point I tangled my rig. I decided to try and untangle it, which took about 5 mins. In this time the fish moved along the bank towards me, so they were only about a yard to my right. They had obviously been scaring off the pole in the clear water. And with the pole over their heads they again backed off. Fair enough. But at another point on the match I decided to try down to my left, where I hadn’t fed anything. I could get bites, but only by slapping a few times first. In fact, three hard slaps of the rig on the surface would generally yield a bite. So what can we take from this? Fish don’t like the pole over their heads, but the urge to investigate noise is stronger than the urge to back off the pole (or at least it was that day).

So slapping is absolutely key at Partridge. Our new approach is to slap more and feed less. In fact I only got through about 2 pints of pellets in the last match, and in the next one I’ll aim to feed one pint. Also we are going to try a Long Classic Rig – basically the same rig on a longer line (a ‘flick rig’ as the southerners call it) to try and combine the benefits of a loud slap without the pole too close overhead. Obviously missed bites might be the problem but we’ll give it a whirl (literally). So this Saturday morning I’m going to slap on the suncream, go to Partridge Lakes and slap my rig all day long. Then I’ll go home and have a slap-up meal. And maybe a bit of slap’n’tickle.

Yes, I know I have got issues. But once you start slapping it is hard to stop.

Whiteacres – no fish left?
Whilst there was a fish kill at Whiteacres last year, rumours of the venue’s demise are unfounded. With winning weights of 150lb and 170lb on the two matches we fished at Twin Oaks this week, in reality it seems in better form than ever.
This new festival only had 18 entrants, but was the most enjoyable I’ve ever fished because of the friendliness and banter. The anglers were split into two 9 peg sections, and we fished on Trewaters Mon and Thursday, and Twin Oaks Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday was a day off. The weather was shockingly bad on the Monday, and slowly improved over the course of the week.

Some of the festival crew - the cream of UK match angling

On Day 2 I drew peg 10 on Twin oaks, a reasonable peg in that it is better than 2, 4, 6 and 8, but not as good as 12, 14, 16 and 18. Alan proceeded to empty it on Peg 16 on the bend taking approx 140lb of carp on the method tight over, and to be honest the match was over by the hour mark. For me, when plumbing up in my left hand margin before the start I noticed that a decent fish brushed my line. But at the all-in I kept my discipline and religiously fed my margin for three hours before trying it.
Did I hell! I dropped in to the margin straight on the whistle with meat and had 3 lumps in the net for 15lb before they drifted off.

It was then on to the method tight over whilst trying to coax my margin line back into life. I picked up a few fish across the day but never really got going, and I only managed one more fish from the margin. Dave Smith on 14 started to catch down the margin at the end and was flying, whilst Paul Taylor between us had some lumps on the pellet waggler. Did my gamble to plunder the margin early back-fire? By the time the scales got to me Dave Smith (peg 14) had weighed 51lb and Paul Taylor (Peg 12) had 53lb. My bag crept past them to 55lb, and another section second. Phew!

Day 3 (the Thursday) saw me draw peg 40 on the lower of the Trewaters lakes. I put my faith in worms again but this decision cost me dearly. Calvin Lawson to my left fished pellet all day for 40lb. My mate and fellow fishing4fun blogger (at least in theory) Mark Murdoch drew the hot peg 53 which Harry had been on. He then pumped Harry (literally I think) for information and even borrowed some of his paste. To be fair though, Mark then fished well to take another 50lb off the peg, fishing paste over pellet at 6m in front of him.

Proof that Mark Murdoch is still alive

The 4th and final day saw me draw a good peg – end peg 35 on Twin Oaks. It can be iffy but Harry had done a ton off it 2 days before so there had to be fish there. I had a margin fishing 16 metres to my left but never had a fish off this. But I did catch chucking a method feeder over. The most important factor, beyond any doubt, was the need to chuck tight over. You had to crash it onto the base of the reeds on the far side. If you were a foot off – even if you bounced it off the far bank – you did not get bites. Small method feeder using soaked (overnight) micros and lassoed 6ml pellet of double hair rigged corn was the bait.

Every time I chucked short I reeled in, rebaited and chucked out again. Sometimes it took me three attempts to get it perfect, but accuracy was everything. Skip McCabe talked about Twin Oaks being a casting competition not a fishing match, and I know what he means. I returned 72lb but should have had more. Alan again won the section from unfancied peg 31. Well done to him. 50lb was third in section.

Calvin Lawson….. we used to be freinds

On the other lake Mark again fished well to take 170lb to win the section, also on the method with micros. Final festival placings were 1st Harry Billing (naturally) then Alan, then Mark, then Calvin who pipped me on weight to take 4th. Paul Taylor was 6th behind me. Overall, we had a cracking week. My mistake was the worm decision on Day 3 – it took too long to work. Mind you, we’d all still have been trailing Harry, whose knowledge and attention to detail is exemplary. One final point – at the start of the week in the bar I took a count of how many, of the seven of us, used a method mould. Two owned up to it. For the the rest of the evening we all took the mick out of them for wasting money on daft gizmos. But by the end of the week we were all on the mould. Why? Method mould = standard weight = accurate casting. Seemples.

The Glebe – best fishery ever
Two weeks later I travelled down to Leicestershire, and despite my enormous angling ability, the fish at The Glebe were not impressed. I must begin by saying what an amazing fishery The Glebe it – Roy Marlow lavishes care and attention on it, and it shows in the fishing. The weather was also glorious.

On Day 1 I drew on Foundation lake, Peg 3. This lake is right next to Mallory Park race track, and our visit coincided with the world motocross championships. The noise was deafening all day. In fact it was so loud, I didn’t even realise that Pebs had balled it in at the start of the match, and he was only two pegs away!
On the end peg, he went on to empty it with 180lb+ shallow, whilst Kev to my left had 66lb, I had 55lb, the guy to my right had 30lb, the next guy had 50lb etc etc. They were in the margins all day for me, but every time you dropped a rig in they calmly swam off. Jamie Jones top-scored on the lake with 200lb shallow from the other end of the lake, and he then went on to win the 2 day event.

Day 2 saw me draw where I didn’t fancy – Uglies Peg 55. This was a 35yd chuck up tight against the boards, with a second option down the margin to a bush on the right. Plumbing up I found it was really deep in the margin – a good 3.5 ft. This encouraged me, but with 55lb coming of the peg the day before, I wasn’t bouncing up and down with excitement. All the anglers in my 5 peg section were to my right where the bank curved round in front of me, so I could see them all. We could see fish rolling in front of them up against the island, and on the all-in they all chucked out a feeder, and all their rods went straight round! Literally, all four were into carp within 30 seconds of the match starting – I couldn’t believe it.

It took me about 15 minutes to get my first wrap-around, and a 6lb common was the reward. To cut a long story short, I went on to land 9 fish for 79lb, which got me third in the section. I had 7 fish over and 2 down the margin. At the weigh in, four of my fish pulled the scales round to 41lb. They might be ugly but they are heavy.

My learning from this match concerned casting. One of the rules at the Glebe is a minimum 20 inch hooklength. This makes chucking tight a nightmare as when you land it the hook flicks over the board and into the bushes. I snagged up about 3 or 4 times, but more annoying was the two or three occasions I sat there thinking I’d landed the perfect cast, just waiting for the tip to fly round. When nothing happened, I’d reel in after 5 minutes to discover I was snagged in the boards. The secret seemed to be delivering a lower trajectory cast and crashing your feeder into the boards in an unsightly mess. Casting tight was mandatory – “if you aren’t tight they don’t bite”.
I did consider a possible solution to this conundrum, which was to ‘tie’ my hook hooklength back onto the mainline with pva tape ie. lay the hooklength back against the mainline, so that the hook ends up 20 inches back up the mainline away from the feeder. But I didn’t have any pva, and as a solution it was probably no less fiddly than chucking and re-chucking till I got it right. Obviously none of this would have been necessary if the method or pellet cone were allowed, but ‘them’s the rules’.
Roy also insists on ‘reasonable’ elastics rather than harsh elastics. However, the 17lb mirror I hooked in the margin seemed to regard my black hydro as ‘pitiful’ rather than ‘reasonable’. After about 15 minutes I netted him, but only because I think he felt sorry for me.
Overall, it was a great event. My travelling companion Steve May came 4th overall with two section wins, but a combined weight of ‘only’ 180lb. What a place. Over the same weekend my brother got 2nd at Partridge with 60lb caught shallow, so I think I’ll have a dabble there on Saturday.

Since the new year I fished several matches on Cudmore, on Suez and Brewsters lakes. But I have been consistently unable to get on the preferred Suez, constantly drawing Brewsters. A couple of section wins, and a couple of nowheres, without a personal weight above 11lb, had me looking elsewhere, especially when the highly entertaining Scouse mafia moved on to pastures new. The shocking weather hasn’t helped Cudmore, or anywhere else, but I decided to target somewhere new with a larger head of small fish.

Partridge – Visit 1

They live near Warrington

The first match I fished was three weeks ago, and I drew peg 37, a nice-looking corner swim with options across and down the margin to the empty peg 36 to my right. The web chat rooms had suggested maggot and micro-pellets were the best, so I plumbed up across, found 2ft near to the far bank, and put in three swims, spread across about 5 metres of the far bank. My left hand swim was next to a canopy of grass that had grown out, the middle swim was next to some dead stick-ups, and the right hand swim was by the end of the island. (I wasn’t short of features).

In addition, I put in two lines down the track, one to the left and one to the right, and also a margin swim down to the platform on 36 on my right. By the time I had set up all these lines, I had forgotten where I’d put my first swim, so had to put the plummet on again and go over and check!
I decided to attack it just like Suez, so on the all-in put 2 maggots and 7 or 8 damp micros into each of the far lines, and cupped in ~25 maggots into each of the middle swims. I put just micros, maybe 20/30 into the right hand margin.
When I dropped in on the far line with maggot on the hook, something amazing happened – the float went under. Rotating across the three far swims, feeding and then leaving, I had a steady stream of stockies for the first 30 minutes, but then my middle swim started to die, quickly followed by my right hand swim, leaving only my left hand swim still producing (grass canopy). I re-fed my middle and margin lines but it was way too early to come onto them, so I faced a dilemma – plunder (and possibly ruin) my one productive far swim, or try and persevere rotating across all three. I opted for the latter, allowing myself no more than two quick fish off the canopy line before sitting and waiting on the other two lines. This yielded odd fish, but was slowing me right down. Of course, this is where venue knowledge is so vital – stick or twist?
Determined not to kill my one remaining productive line, I had a look down the middle, but could only muster an ide, despite spending 10 mins on each line. My brother Pete, drawn to my left, had started to catch down the margin so I optimistically had a look on my margin swim with pellet – not a bite.
The angler to my right was starting to catch down the middle, but appeared to be feeding absolutely nothing. He wasn’t going mad but was now catching quicker than me. I started to think that if I could combine my opening hour with his middle hour, I might be on to a winning combination. I spoke to him later and he was dead honest, telling me he was feeding very occasional small balls of fishmeal groundbait and fishing it out.
Back to the chase, and with maybe two hours to go I decided to exploit the grass canopy line. It actually stayed alive reasonably well, producing steady fish all match, probably helped by the two further 20 minute spells I had trying to make my middle and margin lines work. I ended up with 13lb, way off the 20lb winning weight. The relatively heavy feeding with maggot down the middle had been a complete failure, but I had learnt a lot.
Partridge – Visit 2
This time I whisked up a bag of Ringers Dark green, and as Steve May put in a last minute appearance, gave half of it to him. I drew Peg 7 which looked to be a typical peg midway along one arm.

Hillbillies

I set up exactly as before, using a Gaz Malman float over and a Hillbilly float down the track. My brother Pete has got into these hand-made floats recently, using Malmans, Hillbillies and Sconees, so after hearing him rave on about them I agreed to give them a try. The far bank float has quite a thick tip, which I prefer when dotting right down, because when I do this with a fine tipped float I can’t actually see it.

In the middle I only put one swim, feeding it with a small ball of fishmeal every half hour. The track here was actually a bit deeper than the previous week, probably 6ft plus, so I’m sure the fish will come shallow here in the summer. Andy May assures me that if you’ve got proper depth in the middle of a snake lake then you can put your track line right in front of you, only if you have less depth here do you need to put extra sections on go to the left or right. On this basis, I put my track line straight ahead of me. Again a margin to my right was fed with pellet.

Sconees

Hand-maids - they did their job well

PS. I forgot my camera…can you tell?

Having adequate cover when team fishing is essential. I now don’t enter a team for a series unless I’ve got at least one angler as cover ie 6 men for a 5 man event.
In the week leading up to this round the weather had been mixed – essentially mild with some rain but not loads. So it was likely to be an in-between river, although when we arrived on the Sunday morning it was fuller and dirtier than expected. Many regulars still felt skimmers would be necessary.
I’ve not talked much about my pegs in this series – this is because the aerosol section is essentially relatively fair. There is not much to choose between the pegs, with the end pegs being worth perhaps a few extra fish but not that much. The pegs are permanently marked, and number from 569 downwards. In round 5 I drew Peg 563. You can see my peg in the photo below.

Peg 563 on the Aerosol

Although I planned a roach-on-the-pole attack, the last round had taught me the importance of having a tip rod to fall back on (not literally), so I set up a light bomb/feeder rig, and a 1.5g pole rig. My roach groundbait was 50% VdE Supermatch, 40% damp leam and 10% pigeon shit. Using my pole pot as a target, I balled in 5 balls at the start at 12 metres, with zero loose offerings. I then cupped in a single small ball with half a dozen squatts in. I added my half butt to the pole, put a flouro pinkie on the hook, and dropped the rig in just past the feed.
I was into fish straight away, and put 30 small roach in the net in the first hour. As soon as I realised fish were there and ready to feed I started to loose feed squatt over the top. I couldn’t see many other anglers, although I could hear from their conversations that the tip anglers were catching roach, but fortunately not (yet) skimmers. In the second hour I again put exactly 30 fish in the net. Steady progress but could I catch them any quicker? On the two hour mark I chucked the pole behind me, put a tiny quarter ounce bomb on my tip rig, and cast it out over my pole line. You may recall from my previous blog that you can fish two hooks on the Weaver, so I hoped my two hook baits would increase my catch rate.
I cast the bomb out, and waited for a tremor. It came straight away, so I gave the reel handle a quick turn to try and hook the fish. But I’d missed in. Leaving the bomb where it was I waited, and another tremor saw me ‘reel-into’ a fish that this time I did hook. Bonus time – it was a double header with two fish on! In the next three chucks I had 2 very quick fish and then another double header, so that in the first 6 minutes of the third hour I had caught 6 fish – I had doubled my catch-rate by switching to the bomb. However, despite keeping the feed going in, the roach quickly backed off the bomb. I started chucking it round a bit, and continued to catch fish but at a slowing rate, to the point that I switched back to the pole line after about half an hour.

Just a quick note on this light bomb method. It works best if you have a mega-sensitive quiver tip, so you can read the tremors. When you get a bite leave the rod on the rest and give the handle a quick turn to reel into the fish. This does work, but sometimes depending on the day it is best to do a ‘mini-strike’, that is, jerk the rod slightly (moving the tip no more than a foot). Of course with both methods, if the fish isn’t on you leave the rig where it is ready for the next bite. I have also experimented with a heavier bomb, to try and create a bolt-rig effect. Again, this seems to work some days but my preference is still for a light bomb. This whole method works less well if there is heavy flow on – because when you dislodge the bomb in flow it moves much more than a foot.

So, with the match half-gone I had a couple of pound in the net, and decided to stick on the pole fishing the squatt. I know I keep droning on about this but on the Weaver you do need to keep changing things for roach. Add a pole section and go further out, take one off and come nearer in. Fish directly over you bait, then downstream, then upstream. Go dead depth, then deeper, then shallower. Run it through at pace, then half pace, then hold back hard. Basically, when roach are having it on the aerosol – everything works, but nothing works for long.

Jimmy from Daves - purveyor of the best squatts in the land

At the all out I had put 141 roach in the net. Slightly below my 150 fish target I set after the first hour. By the time the scales got to me 7lb 11oz was best, caught by Bobby Birks of Hazel Grove, our nearest competitors. I knew it would be close but wasn’t surprised when my net fell short with 7lb 6oz. Next best weight on the bank was 6lb so I was second in section.

Back at the car park, the news ranged from good to very good. Darren Mulheir had won the match again with 21lb roach on the slider (not on the stick float as reported in the weeklies). Ernie Ayers also won his section, so overall we had two firsts, a second, a third and a below-half way to give us great team points. Some sympathy has to go to Hazel Grove, however, who were a man down owing to one of their team being in hospital with pneumonia – best wishes to him.

So with one round to go, Last Cast is 20 points ahead at the top of the league. A strong position, but as I posted in my previous blog, the imminent cold weather brings the prospect of a raft of blanks in the final round. This could turn the league on its head.

Round 6 – The Ice Man Cometh

 And so it proved. Overnight temperatures of minus six, combined with the attentions of numerous cormorants in the week preceeding this final round, meant the fish would be in pockets. On the Marina section we knew we had to draw between the bridges, basically a draw of 1 to 9 (from 13 pegs) would be ok. Into the drawbag went Sean’s hand, and out came… Peg 11. We all looked at each other, and knew we had our work cut out – “just one fish” was the mission for each of us.My peg on the aerosol was 559, and it looked cold, hard and uninviting – as you can see.

Peg 559 on a frosty River Weaver

The river actually had some pace and colour to it, so I set up two float rigs – a standard 1.5g rugby ball and a 1.5g Cralusso Torpedo (flat float) for holding back dead still. For the tip, which was to be my main line, I used a small 14g Drennan cage feeder, with a size 20 B520 hook to 0.07 line. Very fine for the tip but these are hard times.

I had decided to change my groundbait mix for this final round. Instead of the VdE Supermatch/leam combo, I instead mixed up (the day before – to deaden the mix) 1 bag of VdE Secret with 1 bag of plain brown crumb. Secret smells of molasses so I enhanced the water with some Dynamite Baits XL Molasses flavouring, and I darkened it with Sensas Tracix Noir (black). This recipe represents a much higher feed content than the Supermatch/leam combo, but I just thought there might be a skimmer or two about, and roach love brown crumb too. My previous experiences with flavourings have always proved a complete failure, so I’m not sure why I tried it this time. Basically, I had a bottle left over from the Dynamite Baits festival so gave it a whirl.

On the all-in, I cupped in one hard ball at 12 metres containing 4 flouro pinkies. And then I chucked the feeder to 33 metres (ie 33 reel handle turns of a TDR). I sat back and prepared for a long, long wait. But I was in for a major shock. After 5 minutes there was a tremor on the tip – a definite bite, which I missed. The anglers either side – both also on the tip – remained motionless, so I tried to contain my excitement. I replaced the flouro pinkie, and chucked out again. Second time there was no mistake, and a half-ounce roach was placed carefully – in fact, very, very carefully – into the keepnet.

In the first hour I put 11 small roach in the net. I could tell from conversations further up the bank that all were having bites, so in truth the section was fishing better than expected. I had my first look on the pole after an hour, but two runs through without incident were enough to put me back on the tip. This was a race I couldn’t afford to fall behind in. Hour two on the tip produced 8 fish, giving me 19 in total before another wasted 5 minutes on the pole. On the tip, missed bites were a real problem. Despite a super-sensitive quiver tip, there was simply no indication, and yet totally smashed pinkies when you reeled in. I couldn’t go any lighter and still hold bottom. Other anglers said the same afterwards about missed bites. So I was back into my inching the rig to try and reel into the fish. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

For me, hour three started to slow down considerably, and I only managed 7 fish. I could feel the swim slipping away from me, and was alternating between the feeder, a half ounce bomb and a quarter ounce bomb, to try and induce bites. I feared I had overfed it. Hour four saw me with long periods of inactivity. Stuff started to go wrong – bites slowed, then I started losing fish off the hook – you know how it goes. I came in on the pole, and had two fish on the flat float, which I thought was a new dawn but again they disappeared. I’d lost my way. When things start going wrong I believe you have to break the rhythm. So I stood up, went for a pee, poured myself a tea from the flask, and re-grouped. The good news was that I felt I was ahead of the anglers either side of me, who I think were fishing big maggot for skimmers. (I had tried big maggot – the result? Same small fish, but bites twice as slow). So in the last hour, I decided to concentrate on the tip again, replaced the bomb with the feeder and committed to keep feeding whatever the cost.

Ten more minutes produced nothing, but then I had a quick bite. Then another, and in that last hour I added 11 more fish to give me 42 small roach by the end of the match. My fish went 2lb 6 oz, which was leading the weights all the way to the end peg, where our closest competitors, Hazel Grove had drawn. Bobby is a good angler, what would he pull out? The answer was 1lb 2oz, so I had won the section by a pound.

Back at the car park the news was mixed. Some had caught but some had struggled. But on the upside it was the same story for all of the teams. So it was with excitement that we all waited for Dougie to work out and announce the results. And then it came: “The winners of this year’s Winter League are… Last Cast”.

The Last Cast Winsford WL Team

I was made-up, especially for Pete Mulheir who has been unwell with heart problems this year. The final placings were Last Cast, Trafford Angling and Hazel Grove. On the less-important individual front, I finished second, behind winner Eddie Robinson. Well done to him. He dropped only 6 points over the six match series, to finish with 72 points! With two firsts, two seconds, a third and a fifth I dropped 8 points, taking 70 points from a possible 78. I’d love to have won it but Eddie was unbeatable this time round. Big thanks to Dougie and Alan who organise it. Their effort is appreciated.

Now, I wonder if molasses will work on Cudmore…

Marina section - for glory boys

History

Last Cast, and its previous incarnation Whizzo, has finished in the top 3 teams as long as I can remember, and certainly for the last 10 years. In that time, we have won the title many times, but not for several years now. Grange won it last year and Hazel Grove the year before that – so it is time we got back on top. There were 13 teams entered this season, so it is all to play for.

Our team this year consists of six anglers – one extra to cover for drop-outs. Darren Mulheir is on the Marina, Ernie Ayers on Red Lion, me on Aerosol, and Pete and Sean Mulheir on the National sections. Neil Lloyd has stood in for a few matches, and more than kept his end up. All are experienced anglers, most notably Ernie who has fished the river for years and is well-known. I love fishing this league as it is well organised by Dougie (another legend) and it is competitive but friendly.
The fishing is for skimmers and roach. If it is clear it will be a roach river, if up and coloured it will be skimmers. But of course, usually the flow is somewhere between these two, and he who calls it right will have a distinct head-start. A lot therefore depends on knowledge of the river and its moods, which makes the locals hard to beat.

Seconds Out, Round 1
You can’t draw hard and fast rules in fishing, but as a general principle, a roach river will see Last Cast do very well. We are certainly able to catch skimmers, but history shows that we do best on the river when there are bites on the pole line.
And so when we were greeted by a low, steady, low river on Round 1 things went our way. I set up three rigs for the 12 metre line, which is roughly 8 ft deep on the aerosol, depending on where you draw. These were 1.5g rugby-ball shape (wire stem) for full depth, 0.6g slim cigar type shape (wire stem) also for full depth, and a little canal type float set to about 3 foot deep.

My roach groundbait on the aerosol always consists of some combination of VdE Supermatch (the one on the turquoise packet) and damp leam (preferably dark grey rather than light brown). Early in the series when I’m expecting plenty of bites it may be 100% groundbait. Later in the series where I’m expecting it to be hard it may be 100% leam. But mostly it will be a combination of the two, typically 50/50. I also add in pigeon shit, up to 10%of the mix, mostly when it is harder. Basically, anything that clouds the mix (eg leam, pigeon shit) tends to bring in the smaller roach – not what you want when it is fishing well, but exactly what you want when it is hard.

Red Lion Section - the pegs nearest are the fliers

Round 2 – Steady As She Goes
The morning of Round 2 a fortnight later produced a river in similar looking nick. Again I went for a similar approach, although this time cupping in rather than balling. Can’t explain why to be honest, I just felt like it, especially because those who had drawn around me where, I felt, most likely to fish the tip. A word on elastics. Fishing deep rivers demands heavier elastics than you might ordinarily expect given the size of fish. This is especially the case when you are on 1.5g or 2g rigs, when you need to get the olivette moving upwards before you connect with the fish. Having tried many different elastics, I am now totally comfortable with Middy Hi-Viz 4 to 6 (the dark purple one). For my shallow rig I’ll use the Middy Hi-Viz green one (2 to 3 I think). That said, I’ve not had a fish shallow at all so far.

In Round 2 I weighed a big 5lb, but was beaten into second by the Hazel Grove angler, who did me by 8 ounces. I could tell from the dye on his fingers (and from previous form) that he fished bronze maggot and hemp. Back at the car park, we had again done okay as a team, meaning we were top of the league after two rounds.

Round 3 – Bad Angling
Round 3 I got wrong. Basically, the river, and the aerosol stretch in particular, fished better than anyone expected. I caught 7lb of roach, fishing maggot, but was beaten by roach weights of 8lb, 9lb and even a 10lb. Most of these were down the other end, and out of sight I simply wasn’t aware I was slipping behind. But I also got beaten on my left by a roach weight, which hurt. My mistake was coming in too close. Once they were feeding well at 12metres, I opened up a closer line at 7m, and unfortunately as it turned out, when I first came in on it I got bites. I thought I was going to empty it, but the swim slowly died on me, and I kept trying to make it work. Even though I kept the long line fed by the time I went back out the rhythm was broken and they were no longer queuing up. I think I came fifth in section. Not a disaster, but vital lost points for the team, and in the individual league which I had been winning at the start of the day. The good news was that Darren Mulheir won the match overall with 17lb roach on the slider. Marina glory boy.

From front, Sean, Pete and Darren Mulheir, plus Pete Woodruffe

Round 4 – Winter Arrives
This was a case of where (nearly) everyone got it wrong. The river was up and coloured, and in the pub before-hand everyone was saying it would be skimmers today. This presented a problem for me, as because there had been no rain all week, I had only brought roach baits – no fishmeal, no worms etc. So I ‘borrowed’ a bag of Cudmore fishmeal off Sean Mulheir, and knocked up a skimmer mix for the tip – it would have to be maggot on the hook. But despite others’ optimism I still felt it would be harder than people were saying.
You can ‘double-hook’ on the Weaver ie fish with two hooks on your tip rig. Not something I would vote for, but it’s allowed so I do it, as does everyone else. Now if you don’t think fishing is weird – check this out. At the start of the match, I sat on the tip without a bite for an hour. Then a sudden tremor saw me bring in a double-header – two roach at once! Great, they’ve arrived. Straight back out on the tip – no more bites! How does that work?

I then came in on the pole line, and had a few roach before they disappeared. To cut a long story short, I alternated between tip and pole all match, really scratching for bites. I even put a half-ounce bomb on and chucked it right over to the far bank – rarely done on the aerosol as the fish tend to be in the middle. Still, my long chuck (50 reel handle turns) snaffled me two quick bites and two more vital roach, before that line went dead also.
At the end of the match, I weighed 1lb 11oz, for second in section. 1lb 12oz won the section, and 1lb 10oz was third. So job done, but again it was a close call. Back at the car park, it turned out we had done reasonably well as a team – a first, a second, two fourths and a struggler. Our closest chasers, Hazel Grove, had done similarly, so with two rounds to go, Last Cast is top by 5 points. In the individual, I guess I’ll still be in the top three, but won’t find out until I see the results-board on the morning of next round.

Looking ahead, we are in a good position, but in reality anything can happen. As the league goes on, and the weather deteriorates, fate plays a bigger and bigger hand. For example, in one of the later rounds last season, every angler on the aerosol blanked, including me. Except for the angler on the end peg who had a tiny roach with two minutes to go. Maximum points for him, zero points for the rest of us. Game over. So I’ll pray for a bit of luck, because in fishing you’ll win nothing without it. Round 5 is this Sunday. I’ll keep you posted.

Day One – Pollawyn
I had, apparently, been drawn in the “Section of Death”, otherwise known as A section. As I looked along the rest of the A section draw queue on Monday morning there were certainly plenty of well-known faces. But whilst this would have spooked me once but I’ve learnt to concentrate on my own game and just get on with it. Out of the bag came peg 9, a reasonable peg and one of several potential section winners, along with 6, 10, 12 and 13. I looked at the lake-map in the bar and noted it was opposite the point of the island. So I quickly borrowed my brother’s two Tourny Pro extensions and made my way down to the lake.
I got to the peg opposite the point of the island, dumped my gear, and then discovered this was in fact peg 7. So I moved two further along to a very different looking swim. Peg 9 is about 25m across to the island, with the lake opening out to the right of you, so that Pegs 10, 12 and 13 to the right have much more water. But on the upside, Peg 9 has a nice looking left-hand margin, which a passing competitor told me “used to be good”.

I decided on a margin line to the left at 12m, a long pole line at 13m in front, a 6m pole line, and a chuck across to the island. The latter would be my main attack (pellet on the bomb to the island) with my left hand margin primed for the last two hours. Given the problems with fish deaths, I had seriously thought long and hard about an out-and-out silver fish attack. But in talking it through with my mates we had reasoned that two fish an hour on the bomb would still defeat a silvers bag, so that should be your opening gambit on Pollawyn. So at the all in, I cupped in at 13m in front, and 12m to the left margin, and then chucked a drilled, hair-rigged 10mm pellet tight to the far bank. I picked up the catty, fired 5 over the top, one at a time, and began the waiting game. The angler to my right on Peg 10 went straight after silvers, fishing worm and caster at 5 metres. He would prove my strategy right or wrong.

After 25 mins the tip went round, and a 7lb mirror settled my nerves. A second smaller fish half an hour later meant I was on track. Jon Arthur on Peg 6 had landed a lump early on, and and some other fish I couldn’t judge the size of. No one to my right seemed to be catching much, and the guy on 10 was getting a few smaller fish on the silver fish line but not enough. I couldn’t see the anglers on pegs 1 to 4 so had to forget about them. I stuck to my plan, by re-feeding my pole lines, and going back out on the bomb.

A second quieter hour saw me ring the changes with hookbait – corn, double meat, double pellet, but to no avail. One fish in the second hour was welcome, but with Jon Arthur continuing to catch, after two hours I had to have a look long at 13m. A few very iffy bites showed me that the skimmers were not going to play ball at all, and I then treated myself to a very quick look down the margin. An instant bite set my heart racing, but my red hydro catapulted a 2 oz roach skywards. I went back in again but 5 minutes with no sign made me re-feed and leave it. Back out on the bomb, and a wrap around virtually straight away led to a foul-hooked lump that quickly shed the hook.

It went quiet again on the bomb but no-one else was doing much. The guy on Peg 7 opposite the point had 3 big fish in 3 chucks, which started to worry me, be then they drifted away from him. Although it was slow, I couldn’t see any reason to change my tactics. I kept chucking the bomb, and feeding a few big pellets over the top. In the fourth hour things looked up. I had another two fish, one of them 10lb plus, which gave me five fish. With an hour to go I came down the inside, but nothing showed. Another fishless 20 mins on the bomb saw me trying the margin again, and this time the float buried and the red hydro came streaming out. In the last half hour I managed to put two more carp in the net, one of them smallish, to give me a 7 fish total.

Because of the odd shape of Pollawyn, pegs 1 to 6 are weighed in, then all the other sections and pegs on the lake, then finally pegs 13 down to 7 are weighed in at the end. Best weight in the other half of my section was Jon Arthur’s 48lb. I figured it would be close between us. When the scales eventually arrived my 7 carp (plus 1 roach!) went 52lb, giving me a section-winning start. Better still, it turned out 52lb was second on the lake, giving me £160 into the bargain. Patience is not my strong point, so I was delighted that I had the discipline to sit and wait for the tip to go round.

Day 2 – Twin Oaks, Acorn, Canal or Python
I drew on Python, peg 10. Most of the fish in Python seem to congregate in one area, and so 9 pegs in a line form the section on this lake. The venue is narrow at either end (pegs 18 and Peg 10) but much wider in the middle. On day 1 the section had been won by the angler on the widest peg (15 or 16) who caught 60lb of F1s shallow. Alan Scotthorne had 10lb off Peg 18, and from memory Don Slaymaker had 12lb off the other end peg – my peg 10. So I wasn’t too enthused. That said, the Monday had been sunny and quite calm, whereas Tuesday was blowing a gale. End peg 18 still looked awful – dead still and tranquil, but my peg at the other end had plenty of wind on it, so there was some grounds for optimism.

I started on the tip over to some far bank rushes – about 22m in my swim. I bumped one small F1, and landed another after 45 mins, but those further up were catching quicker than me, particularly Callum Dicks. He was soon on the pole and catching steady, although not mega fast, shallow on peg 15.

I tried to catch shallow but with no bites, presentation was also a real problem with the wind. I had put in a swim 12m to my right down the track. A look over this with soft pellet led to a skimmer, then a better F1. I decided to try and coax this swim by feeding tiny amounts of micro pellets, fishing a tiny expander over the top. This was painstaking work in the wind, but it started to bear fruit, and after a couple of hours I probably had 10lb to 12lb in the net.

I had been feeding meat at 5m by hand from the start of the match, – 4 or 5 small cubes every few minutes – but persisted on the 12m down-the-track swim. It went through a quiet spell, but slow and steady feeding brought it back to life and I probably added another 4 decent F1s in the third hour. With 2 hours to go, I dropped my 12m rig in over my 5m line – the swims were identical depth. I missed the first bite, but was encouraged. The second bite was a roach about 6oz – not huge but still welcome on a tough day. The third bite, however, was when the fun started. My orange Middy Hi-viz elastic came out, and out, and out, and out. The fish only decided to turn when it ran out of lake. I had 0.12 bottom on so I knew I had a chance. After a good 10 or 12 minutes, I got the extractor from my draw and started pulling elastic out through the bung. 5 minutes later I had the top two in my right hand, pointed at the fish, with my Middy Hi Viz elastic now very taught, having turned a very pale shade of orange! The fish wallowed on the surface, and I scooped a very welcome 6lb mirror.

Decision Time! Do I go back out on my proven F1 rig, or throw this up the bank and ‘waste’ 10 minutes sorting proper gear out. I decided to do it right. 10 minutes later I was ready to go back in with 0.16 straight-through to a grey hydro elastic. It proved a wise move as I went on to land 3 more lumps at 5 metres on the meat.

At the scales I was first to be weighed and put 39lb 15oz in the purse. This beat everyone apart from Callum Dicks who had 40lb 3oz of F1s from the wides. I was disappointed to be ounced for the section, but glad to have come back from the dead.

Day 3 – Trewaters

As a newly stocked water, this was an unknown quantity. I pulled out peg 49 at the draw, and when I checked the boards I was pleased to see that young Last Cast squad member Jamie Howarth had 45lb off it the day before, for second in section. I quickly tracked him down. “Fish soft pellet at 5 metres, slightly to the left” he said, and added: “You’ll empty it”.

I followed Skip McCabe to the lake, about a 10 minute drive from the site, full of anticipation. My peg was sort of in a corner, but the wind was howling. It didn’t look too exciting, as the pegs further round were more fishable, but it had form so I set up two 5 metre pole rigs, one lighter one heavier. The tow was ripping through so I left myself plenty of line on the rig to lay on the bottom should I need it. There is a 13 metre pole length limit at Trewaters but a long pole line was impossible in the conditions, so I also set up a small feeder for the far bank at 16 metres away.
On the all-in, I cupped in a hard ball of soaked micro-pellets, and went over the top with a 4mm expander. Two small stockies in two chucks had me greatly encouraged. The next 1.5 hours brought only two more and had me scratching my head. Stewart Lister to my right hadn’t had a bite, and Skip McCabe to my left had caught for the first hour, then stopped. Further up the section in the more sheltered area they were catching odd fish – not emptying it but certainly leaving us for dead. The rest of the match was a dour wait for odd bites. Stewart did it right. He sat on the tip for proper fish and had three in the last hour to give him 10lb. I weighed 7lb for last in section, and Skip had 9lb to my left. We were all in the doldrums though (eh? Isn’t the doldrums dead calm rather than wind-battered?) as the weights went up and up around the bend, with 35lb winning it from pegs we couldn’t see.

So, crashed and burned on Day 3. With three days gone I had a first, a second, and a last. You can drop your worst result, so I had well and truly used my get-out-of-jail-card. No room for any mistakes. On to Porth where I have traditionally done well.

Day 4 – Porth

My favourite peg here is 89 – the end peg on the furthest section. Into the bag went my hand, and out came … peg 86. Mmmm. A standard Porth peg as far as I’m aware. If you are on the far bank at Porth there is a boat to take your gear across which is a great help. Arriving at my peg I spent the first 20 minutes getting my box sorted with its extending legs. I decided to sit in the water, so donned my chest waders. The rubber felt lovely.

The pegging in the upper 80’s is very tight – literally 5 yards between each angler – so I picked a tip line slightly further out than I would normally go, at 29 turns. I use a Daves of Middlewich Bite Finder rod at Porth. It has two lengths – 8 ft and 6ft! It has the softest tips you could ever imagine, is designed for the River Weaver, and is perfect for skimmers. I use 3lb Ultima line on a TDR reel, with my feeder in the loop. Finished off with 18 inches (to start) of 0.11 line to a 16 B520. They are not ravenous, eat-anything fish at Porth, but nor are they hook-shy.

Groundbait is 50% Crazy Bait Gold and 50% Sensas Roach and Silver Fish. I take two kilos which does me for both tip and pole lines. I have never needed more than this. Some chopped worm and a few casters go into the mix. It has to be packed very lightly, so it comes out on the way down. That’s my thinking, anyhow.

I had decided not to ball it on the pole line, but when Simon Fry to my left did so, and the guy to my right did also, I felt I had to. Why? Basically, the angler two to my left fished the tip all day, giving Simon space to his left. Ditto the angler two to my right, giving the lad on my right space on the pole line all day. The way I figured it, I was hemmed in, and had to announce my presence, so I quickly changed plans and balled it at 12 metres.

I started on the tip and had bites straight away. Small skimmers, but mainly roach. This kind of fishing is all about rhythm (took me three attempts to spell that). You have got to take it easy – keep plopping that little feeder in the same place and gently try and ease your way ahead of the other anglers. The more groundbait that goes in, the more the ratio of skimmers to roach increases. I felt 45 mins into the match I was doing this, ahead of those around me, and then disaster struck in the shape of a 10lb pike. He took a decent skimmer off the hook and spangled my feeder rig. Simon to my left had an early look on the pole, and had a few fish but they dried up and forced him back on to the tip. I stayed on the tip and sought to press home my advantage.

The fish were coming and going on the tip, so after a couple of hours I swapped the feeder for a small bomb, and chucked it onto my pole line. A bite straight away had me throwing the tip up the bank, and reaching for the pole. I do sometimes like to fish the bomb over the pole line with my dinky little rod – it works well on the Weaver and indeed I think Tommy Pickering did this to win the lake two days later – but I felt pole was best so went out on my 1g rig. I had bites straight away, but could not get the skimmers to settle. Roach were plentiful, but I couldn’t put a run of skimmers together so I took a fateful decision and decided to go for roach. I went out with my lighter 0.6g rig, set 6 inches off bottom, and started to catch roach steadily. As usual with roach, I had to change depths, presentation etc every 4 or 5 fish to keep them coming. I was catching, but in the last hour the anglers either side of me had the skimmers lined-up. I felt both had overtaken me.

End peg 89 weighed first – 15lb which I knew was way too good for me. Simon Fry to my left put 12lb on the pan which was second best. I pulled out a net of smaller fish which went a big 10lb. The lad to my right pulled out a skimmer net which went….a smaller 10lb. The remaining weights were mainly 5lb to 7lb. So I’d got third in section, but frankly I had a narrow escape. I should have waited a bit longer for those skimmers to show on the pole line, putting more worm in to get them chomping. So much for me emphasising the importance of patience when skimmer fishing! I should try listening to myself. Still, with a first, second, and a third – there was still an outside chance of a good finish. It turned out the 15lb weight from Peg 89 won the lake, so I sneaked my section by default. Happy days.

Day 5 – Bolingey

I needed a good peg on the last day, and I got one. Peg 45. Only problem is, it is in with all the other flyers, such as 21, 22, 23 etc. I was told I would need to fish long so I again borrowed Pete’s extensions. It turned out 17m was about right, so I set up the old-man-bar (spray bar) on my Milo box to try and take some weight off my twisted, decrepit back (courtesy of two collapsed discs). But crucially the peg was out of the wind so it was actually quite manageable. The long swim was against the far bank, and I had a second swim at the bottom of the near shelf, approximately 6 metres. Plus I fed margin swims either side. I never fished these, and as experienced readers will know, that means I had a few fish!

I had three carp long on small cubes of meat, over meat and hemp fed through a toss-pot, in the first hour. Red-hydro sorted them out. Nevertheless, it is quite alarming to have 17 metres of Tourny Pro bent through nearly 90 degrees as a big lump takes off. Dead exciting though. The second hour I had four fish, averaging around the 5lb mark, and in the third hour I came in on the 6m line – the killer line on Bolingey. Again, fishing meat over meat and hemp I caught reasonably steadily, although the fish were slightly smaller. I went long again in hour four, before coming in again in hour 5. Basically, it was one of those matches where you are not emptying it, but every time you think of changing you get another fish. I weighed 91lb for second in section, way behind Jamie Hughes’ 120lb from peg 22. I also got third on the lake, so a bit more lettuce to feed my wicked habits.

The prize-giving that evening was a cracking affair. Everyone knew Steve Ringer had blitzed it with not only maximum points, including dropping a section win, but 4 lake wins and a lake second! Awesome is an over-used word, but apt in this instance. I had 32 points, which was a decent return, but not enough to frame given the calibre of anglers on show. On stage, Clint counted down, with prizes from Maver for those in the top 20: “And in 16th position, with 32 points, dropping 1, with a weight of 200lb 13oz , is Colin Mercer”. The crowd went wild. Well, at least the crowd in my imagination went wild.

So, overall a good week. You tend to look back and rue the missed opportunities – losing the section by 3 ounces on Python – that would have given me 33 points and a top ten finish. But in truth, everyone has these stories. Better to be happy with what you’ve got. Me, I loved it.

The battlefield was bordered by the Kings Sedgemoor Drain to the North (sections H, I and J) and The River Huntspill to the South (sections A to E). The winners would claim this hallowed English turf forever, whilst the losers would be driven mercilessly into the sea, drowned beneath the cruel waves of the Bristol Channel. (Am I over-dramatising this?)

After a long journey south, the band of Last Cast brothers arrived at dusk and set up base-camp at an Olde English Ale House on the outskirts of Taunton. I bade my soldiers to be seated, called over the buxom serving wench, and made our intentions clear: “Wine for my men, we ride at dawn”.

The Importance of Preparation

We were promoted from Division 2 last year, and as mentioned previously we ‘got away with’ not practicing last year, but would surely be found out if we adopted the same approach in the top flight. Unfortunately, owing to work commitments, holidays, and the long distance we had to travel (it took me 5 hours to get there on the Friday) we again had no practice. The closest most of us got was a quick glance as we drove over the venues on the M5 motorway. However, what we did have was a reasonably strong team in the shape of: Andy May, Steve May, Darren Mulheir, Sean Mulheir, Pete Keenan, Pete Jones, Neil Lloyd, Keiron Rich, Derek Willen and me (Colin Mercer).

As captain my philosophy has always been to put the best anglers on the bank that I can get. For those of you who think that team captaincy is a position of honour, glory even, let me disabuse you. Being captain involves a lot of hard work, cost and hassle. Personally, I’m okay with it (obviously, or I wouldn’t do it) but don’t underestimate the chores it involves. On the subject of thankless tasks, a big thank you to the NFA for pulling off a great match in very difficult conditions – the event was nearly cancelled on the Friday night due to the rain, wind and floods. Thanks also to Pentax, the camera people.

Next time you need a camera, why not buy a Pentax? They produce good kit, including waterproof cameras, and this is an organisation putting real money into angling when few other companies are bothering (www.pentax.co.uk). Anyway, back to the chase.

The draw was the usual big match affair – lots of familiar faces, and a sense of excitement and anticipation mixed with competitive edge. Owing to the need to get myself a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, I found myself towards the back of the draw queue, despite getting there at 7.40am (What time do some captains arrive?!). The weather had been appalling with 31 flood warnings in operation on the morning of the match, but thanks to the EA, who had put a watch on the venues all night, the levels were looking reasonable. To be honest, they looked to be a normal level, with maybe just a tinge of colour.

As many of you will know, at a National you draw a packet of pegs which are randomly pre-allocated to your team members. I went back to my team, dished out the pegs, along with the road directions which you also get given. My team talk was, word for word: “Enjoy yourselves, and don’t fall in”.

Team Tactics

Some anglers may want a bit more guidance than that from their captain. But I decided to keep it brief for three reasons: 1) we hadn’t practiced and have no information other than that gained from Match Fishing magazine (very good by the way) and the websites, 2) an ocean of cold water has gone in over the last 24 hours, negating what little we did know, and 3) the “names” in the squad do not fish for big teams despite having been invited – mainly I think because they like to do their own thing. They get that freedom in Team Last Cast.

Next year on the Staffs/Worcester and Shropshire Union canals we will be more structured, as we will have had more practice and information (it’s an hour away for most of us). But even then our anglers will get latitude to adapt to the circumstances and use their judgement. Right or wrong, that is how we do it at Last Cast.

My Match

I found my way to my section quite easily, thanks to the good directions. (Note to NFA – never underestimate the value of the directions provided – they are vital and do much to calm the nerves in the pre-match scramble). We were all fearing long walks, and I discovered that mine was not too bad. I had drawn E49, one of the double-banked sections on the Hunstpill. I could park beyond the end of Peg 63, so I ‘only’ had to walk 14 pegs plus the distance to the first peg. Having said that, the veins in my head were pounding by the time I eventually dropped my gear at my peg. Shakespeare’s Nigel Bull was next to me, and he had practiced a few week’s earlier further up the stretch, and felt there could be a few bream around.

My first look at the peg was not too encouraging. It was essentially similar to all the others, but it had some awkward marginal reeds out to about 8 metres, with only a very narrow channel through. I got in with a weed cutter to try and widen it but it was too deep to do it properly. If I was going to fish the tip, the first few yards of my line would have to lie on top of this marginal weed.

I have great faith in balling it in on big silver fish venues, and mixed up my pole line groundbait – one bag Gros Gardons, one bag Noire, half bag Lake 3000. My tip groundbait was 1 bag Swimstim and half a bag of Lake 3000. Everyone was saying that the river would be still for the first two hours, and from 1.00pm would start pulling like hell. I found 5 ft at 13m, and set up a 0.6g rig for no flow, and 1.5g and 2g rigs for when it really started moving. I left plenty of line above the floats so I could lay line on the deck, and follow the rig down the swim if I needed to. I also set up a very light 0.2g rig for the 4ft of water I found just over the marginal reeds to my right. I fancied this for a decent perch, eel or tench.

My tip rig was a small cage feeder (not taped up like everyone else seemed to have) with a 2 ft tail and size 16 hook. Although I fixed a big cage on to start in order to get some gear in. At the all-in, I was nearly ready – remarkable for me. On the whistle I shipped the pole out, and put 10 babies heads in. One fell a metre short but better this side than the other. I brought the pole in, and chucked 8 feederfuls out to half way. I never used to put bait on the hook on these initial feeder chucks, wanting to avoid hook-length twist on the constant cast and retrieve. But when I put bait on last time at Porth, I had a 6oz skimmer as soon as it hit deck, so I put on a worm section and a dead read maggot today and hoped for a repeat performance. Of course, no such luck.

After these quick 8 chucks, the moment of truth. I put a flouro pinkie (the bait I would put my life on for roach) on the 0.6g float rig, and shipped out. It buried straight away, and I bumped a small fish. Dropped in again, 30 seconds later, float went under. I brought in a tiny (one inch) roach, but at least the blank was avoided. Over the next few minutes I had some iffy bites, and landed two micro-perch. The bait seemed to be getting intercepted by minnows, and the rig didn’t look right, so I swapped to the 1.5g rig (I know – 1.5g in 5ft of still water!) with double red maggot. A 3oz roach was my instant reward. “Happy Days” I thought, this is right up my street. And then it happened. Or didn’t happen, to be more precise. No more bites. Nothing.

Barnsley Blacks’ Andy Kinder further up the far bank deepened the gloom, as he slipped the net under what looked like an early 1.5lb skimmer on the tip.

Desperate Measures

I tried all sorts of tweaks, changing depths, spreading shot to pick up the tiny bit of flow, even dragging the float ‘downstream’ in a very unnatural way (it can work on the Weaver) but nothing. I was now about an hour in, with maybe 4 oz in the net. I switched down to a 22 hook, attached a toss-pot to my pole tip, and started drip feeding in pinkies, lowering my pinkie hookbait amongst them. The result was a quick bite (tiny perch) followed by two more over the next 20 minutes. Going nowhere fast.

It was time to try the 7m marginal line that I had fed with a bit of choppie and dead maggot. An instant bite here produced a 2oz perch, followed by a 1/2oz perch, followed by nothing. Not quite the bonus eel or tench I had hoped for. We were now about 2 hours in and I was getting desperate. In “The Hustler”, after 18 hours of continual pool playing, veteran Fats is on the end of a beating from young upstart Fast Eddie. Fats is nearly out of money, nearly beaten. He calls a break, goes to the toilet, and gives himself a thorough wash. He looks in the mirror, draws a line under what has happened, and goes back out for round two. In the ensuing hours he turns the game round, and breaks Fast Eddie. I have found that taking a similar approach when struggling can definitely help.

So I got up, went for a pee, drank a bottle of water, and thought about what I was going to do.

I decided I had to make the pole work. A bit of flow had picked up (the much publicised tanking-through never materialised) so I decided to go for bonus fish on the 13m line. I cupped in some maggots, and held my 1.5g rig back hard on the deck. It didn’t work. The only response was when I let the 1.5g rig drag through – this got me 3 small ruffe.

Meanwhile the bloke opposite had a decent eel on the pole, and Andy Kinder had another two smaller (but still very welcome) fish on the tip. I concluded after 3 hours there were no fish on the pole line. It started raining (lashing down).

Bank walkers were saying most people had “a pound and a half”. I had to top myself, or go on the tip.

Please, please go round

After a few chucks, I didn’t like the way my rod was pointing, so I changed position and put my tip rod to the left, which gave me a slightly better bend in the tip. I went out with a small worm section and dead red on the hook. And prayed. After 20 minutes, two quick twangs on the tip saw me lift into something, I suspected a skimmer. I played it like my life depended on it, but what broke the surface was an 8oz perch. That’ll do.

Back out again and 10 minutes later the tip pulled round slowly, and a gentle lift put me in contact with another fish – definitely a skimmer this time. Just as it reached the marginal reeds, a sudden gut-wrenching lunge made my heart miss a beat, but it stayed on, and I netted a 12oz skimmer. I started to relax a bit, and now had a plan for the rest of the match (stay on the tip) which enabled me to take a few chances elsewhere, so I started loose feeding maggots (quite heavily) on the 13m pole line. Another half hour on the tip saw no return, so I allowed myself 10 minutes to try my two pole lines – the 13m maggot line and the 7m choppy line that I had also continued feeding.

Two micro roach on the 13m line, combined with no signs at all on the 7m line, had me back on the tip within my 10 minute time frame. 50 minutes to go. On the feeder I rang the changes with the bait, trying a combination of worm, red and white maggot, but with no further indications. Just to try something different, I swapped the cage feeder for a 1/2oz bomb, with double dead red maggot, and chucked it out over the same feeder line. It hadn’t settled 2 minutes, when a clear bite made me lift into my third and final tip fish. Another skimmer of 6oz was very welcome, and saw me end the match on the tip.

Tale of the Tape

At the all out I was exhausted. I tackled down, and spoke to Nigel Bull. He was admitting to 1.5lb, and so was I. When the scales arrived they had already weighed pegs 32 to 48 and I could see there were some low weights. (What had happened to all the 1.5lb’s the bank walkers were talking about?!). I put 1.1kg on the scales, and was happy with that. Nigel next door pulled out a very similar looking net, which went 1.18kg. Damn. But further along there were some more nearly-empty nets. When I got back to the car, I reckoned that of the 25 weights I’d seen, maybe 8 had beaten me, so averaging that out across 63 pegs, I estimated maybe 40 points. Of course, such estimates can be way-out – the other half of the section could have bagged up.

On the phone driving back to the draw, first to ring me was Neil Lloyd who was estimating “top-half”. Andy May rang to say he and Steve had done OK but not brilliant. News from elsewhere was mixed, with some saying they’d struggled. But I have learnt that different anglers respond in very different ways in this situation. Often, “strugglers” turn out to have done ok, and those who thought they had done ok have scored less well. In reality, it is very difficult to know, because no-one has the full picture. That is what makes the final result announcement exciting. That said, I was pretty sure we hadn’t done enough to feature in the top 10.

And so it proved. Keiron had top-scored for us with 61 points from a maximum 63 – an impressive performance where he fished waggler down the middle, catapulting balls of groundbait over the top, to land 6kg. But most of our results were between 30 and 40 points, resulting in us finishing 22nd out of the 63 teams. I had got 50 points, better than I had estimated.

On reflection, not a bad effort considering the distance the venue is away from us, and the conditions. Top 10 would have felt like success. We were 32 points away from this, which doesn’t sound much but in reality is something of a gap. Worthy winners were Starlets with a consistent team performance. Equally impressive was the performance of second place team Garbolino Harrisons Lincs who pushed Shakespeare into third and Daiwa Dorking into fourth. Drennan North West were 14th and Barnsley Blacks were 16th. There were plenty of other good teams who finished down the table, so 22nd will have to do for now.

Team fishing is a funny old game. You are hugely exposed as an angler, the results are in the paper, and if you score poorly you feel you have let others down. But it also brings a camaraderie and a sense of achievement like no other branch of the sport. Go on then, we’ll give it another year.

On my uppers

I’m on a poor run at the moment and haven’t picked up anything for a few months, not even sections. Partly this is because I’ve not been out often enough, so I’m out of touch with the changing moods, but it’s also partly down to the way I’ve fished. In particular, I am sick and tired of trying to do too many things, and not doing any of them properly. So this time I decided just to do two things. Long pole along the side of the lake to my right (about 12m was the most I could manage in the wind) and the margin to my left.

My new, focused, stick-to-my-guns approach lasted about an hour. By this time, Jay DeClouet and Neill Lloyd opposite me had about 5 fish each on the bomb, whereas I had one F1 in the net. Much to my annoyance looking back, I got the bomb rod out, chucked it out halfway (the same line Jay was fishing) and didn’t get a bite, while he continued to catch.

So about 2 hours in, and having re-engaged my brain, I went back to concentrating on the pole. I’d been feeding the left hand margin with meat and hemp from the start, but it was too early yet, so went back on the long pole, small cube of meat on the hook, feeding meat and hemp through a toss-pot. I caught two decent F1s in the next hour, and decided to have a look in the margin. There were fish there but they were not interested. I foul hooked a lump first put in (it came off) and then had a few roach and skimmers but it was no good.

Out long again, I was still going nowhere and with time slipping away I had to try something. So I replaced my small toss pot with a big one, and decided to feed a full pot (maybe 20 small cubes) every 120 seconds, bites or no bites. Amazingly, after about 5 minutes I had a fish. Then another one. I ended up weighing 29lb, all off this line. This was nowhere in the match – Trev Robinson won my lake with 83lb and Lewis Breeze won the match with 100lb – but something interesting was happening. Every time I tipped in a pot of meat, I got a bite within seconds. If I missed a bite, and dropped back in – nothing. Cup in again, go straight in, and you got a bite. But if you didn’t get a bite instantly, forget it.

‘Too late’ was the cry

So what was going on? Eventually I sussed it. Unfortunately, this was not until the following Wednesday morning when I was having a cup of tea. The swim was 3ft deep (obviously pretty deep for a margin) and I reckon that when the feed was cupped in, the fish dashed out of the reeds, took the feed dropping through, and ignored (or were mega-cautious) about any lying on the bottom. The answer was too fish half-depth and keep dropping it in. So, another lesson learned.

Seconds Out, Round Two

A week later I drew peg 134, only 4 pegs away from the previous week but actually on a different lake. New Pools at Cudmore is 6 horizontal strips each about 35 metres wide, and peg 134 put me on Pool 4, 3 pegs in from the wood end.
I decided to fish the bomb to half-way across, pole in front of me at 7 metres, and both margins. I wanted to go as long as I could in the margins and went 8 metres to my left but could only get 4 metres to my right because of the nearside vegetation. I started by feeding meat at 7 metres and in both margins, and chucked out the bomb.

Mad Bomb

On New Pools I like to fish a light bomb with a piece of hair-rigged punched meat on a 12 inch trace. I loose fed 4 or 5 pieces of meat over the top with a catty. The bomb is a mad method, that defies many of the principles of fishing most of us grew up with. You chuck out a single bait, pretty much wherever you fancy, and then fire a few samples over the top, vaguely in the area that you’ve chucked your bomb. But don’t worry if it’s not that accurate – they seem to prefer it spread out. Then you sit back, whistle a merry tune, whilst idly looking around you and taking in the wonderful countryside. If you tire of this, fire out a few more loose offerings, and then ring your mate on the mobile to see how he is getting on.
A relaxing first hour saw me land four fish, which was about par for those around me, but slower than they were catching on Pool 3 – which I could see opposite me. I decided to spend 15 minutes on the 7 metres line, but got no joy, so I went out on the bomb again, figuring that the quick 7m trial had cost me one fish. By this time the wind in my face had got stronger, with the result that my small cubes of meat could not be fired out as far as necessary. So I resorted to punching out some bigger pieces which I then fired out one at a time. Bites were indicated by the rod being dragged off the rest, and after 2.5 hrs I had 9 fish – nothing special but still in the hunt whilst I continued to build (or so I hoped) my 7 metre and margin lines. I was feeding just meat to the left margin, and mainly hemp (with the odd bit of meat) to the right hand margin.

Bad Angling

After a quiet spell on the bomb I came in again and tried the 7 metre line. A bite straight always resulted in a foul-hooked barbel of 2lb which I landed, Back out again, a missed bite straight away. Back out again, the float buried and my grey hydro elastic streamed out of my pole heading in an easterly direction! This fish was properly hooked and was a lump. After about 5 seconds it inexplicably came off. When I shipped back in I was gutted to see my rig had snapped. At first I thought it had snapped but in fact there was no piece of broken line – the rig had gone. I checked the crow’s foot knot but it was fine. The only conclusion was that I had not ‘snapped’ the knot shut when attaching the double loop to the elastic. And yet I had still landed a foul-hooked barbel on it. Whatever, it was bad angling to lose a fish in that way. And damned frustrating as I’d just started to catch. So I re-fed, and chucked out the bomb whilst I found another rig.

Decisions, Decisions

In the time it took me to select a replacement rig, attach it (properly this time) and adjust the depth and shotting, I had two fish on the bomb. Good news but ‘what to do’ – stick with the bomb on back onto the 7 metre line? No contest really, so back onto the pole. But I had missed the boat – I had a few more bites but they were skimmers and roach. The proper fish were gone, and I never caught again on this line.
With 2 hours of the six left, and with a fish count of about 10, I came in on the left hand margin. The float disappeared, and I lifted into a mirror of about 3lb, which I netted. I re-fed left, and dropped in to the right hand margin swin, and the float immediately disappeared. Another carp. I landed this, fed the right, and went down the left again. Five seconds later the float buried, and another carp was on its way to the net. Happy Days! I nearly (but not quite) started to think I was ‘on’.
Another biteless 10 minutes on both margin swims soon put paid to that idea. But others were catching, so I knew I had to try and make it work. I upped the feed considerably to the hemp swim (right hand) and started to catch every 5 or 10 minutes or so. And adding an extra section on my left margin to really stretch as far down as I could also bagged me a few extra fish, and at the all out I had 24 in the net.

The Verdict

The scales gave me 75lb, which was best in the section so far, but behind Jon Davies’ 90lb from Pool 5. However, Pools 2 and 3 blew me away. Trev Robinson won it again with a cracking 113lb from Pool 3. He fished meat at 6 metres all day. Aside from being a good angler, there is something in the way he is feeding it. Not sure what but if I draw next to him this weekend I’ll find out. Other framers included two of my Last Cast team-mates Pete Mulheir and Pete Lowry, both with 90lb plus. (If they continue to cost me money they face an uncertain future in the squad!) And to make matters worse, there was an 80lb from the other end of my section. So, no goulash for Merce, but I was happy. If you go home moaning after catching 75lb you need to have a word with yourself.

I’m at Cuddy again this weekend, then off to Stafford Moor the week after. Down in glorious Devon I’ll be fishing a few opens (which are mega-competitive) but also some ‘£5 each’ knock-ups with my mates. So I should at least pick-up something, then again…

Monday, Twin Oaks Peg 23
This is on the ‘less-good’ side of Twin Oaks, and is in the same section as Trelawney. The end pegs in this section (17 and 35) are regarded as the best, but after that there is no real difference that I’m aware of, so I didn’t have any particular views or knowledge about this peg. About 30 metres wide, Andy Lloyd had told me the previous day only to fish over, or down the near margin, and not to even bother setting up a long pole swim. I should have listened to him, as I probably wasted 20 minutes in total trying to get a bite at 12 metres without any success. I started on the meat feeder, containing mainly hemp plugged with grated meet – two small cubes hair rigged on the hook. I started well with a couple of early fish, so that after 20 mins I had 3 carp for about 5lb – this was level pegging with those around me.

The next two hours taught me a lot about Cornish carp fishing. I cannot emphasise this point strongly enough – if you put your feeder tight against the far bank reeds you got a fish, if you were 2ft off, you didn’t. It was as simple as that. Consequently, owing to the wind and my inability to cast, 3 out of every 5 of my casts were good, and 2 from 5 had to be immediately reeled in and cast again. If you got lazy and thought your cast was ’good enough’ you were wasting your time. Cast your feeder bang on the money, and the tip would wrap straight round. If it didn’t, your hook was caught up in the reeds.
From the start I had fed margin lines both sides, a make-or-break tactic on Twin Oaks. With an hour and a half to go the angler on my left started to catch in the margin. At this point he was behind me but with a few fish close he was catching me up. I had a quick look down the margin – no sign, so I chucked long again. And he continued catching to my left, so 15 mins later I was forced to look down the margin again.

Jackie Stewart in his autobiography says that there is a moment in every race when you do something that determines whether you win it or lose it. I dropped in on my right hand margin, and foul-hooked a lump. It came off, but gave me the confidence to persevere – looking back, that was the Jackie Stewart moment. In the last hour I had 5 fish for about 30lb, to give me a total of 83lb for second in section, beaten by 130lb from end peg 35. Weights behind me were 70lb, 60lb etc. So, a good start.

Tuesday, Grim’ere Peg 42
Of all the pegs on all the lakes in all the land……Peg 42 is where I didn’t want to draw. It is on the right hand side of the lake, and is pegged so tightly there is only about 10 foot either side to 41 and 43 (no exaggeration). It is a shocker. A bright sunny day, with 4 hours gone I hadn’t had a bite, and I was beginning to think that I was to suffer the same fate as those who had blanked the previous day. I had tried long pole (16m), short pole, and had spent most of my time sat on the bomb and pellet, without a rap. Mark Murdoch to my left had one fish, and the bloke to my right had 4, all on the tip. I then noticed that an angler further up was catching a few on maggot, so I killed a few reds, put on a small cage feeder with two maggots on the hook, and chucked out. After 15 mins the tip went round, and I landed a 3 pounder. Chucked out again, another fish same size. Then with 10 minutes to go, it wanged round and a proper lump was on. It took me about 10 minutes to put the net under a better fish. The scales when they arrived showed 13lb, which meant I beat two and rescued a few points at least. Although a poor showing overall, I was pleased I’d kept my patience and stuck it out for proper fish – not something that comes naturally to a scratcher. The Jackie Stewart moment? This was when I came off the tip after an hour and tried to catch at 16 metres, where the presentation just wasn’t right. In hindsight, I should have sat on the tip all day, and concentrated on doing one thing properly, rather than faffing around trying lots of different things.

Wednesday, Porth Peg 89
In my last three festivals I’ve had two section wins and a second off Porth, so I felt confident. More so when I pulled out end peg 89, even though it hadn’t fished for Tommy the day before. The whole venue was fishing a bit iffy, so I hoped that would suit me. Everyone was saying that all the fish were on the pole line, so I started by cupping in 4 balls in a diamond at 12 metres, sprinkling a pot full of casters in the middle. (Groundbait was one bag Crazy Bait Gold, one bag Sensas Roach and Silver Fish – this covered both pole and tip lines).
I had then decided I would quickly put out 10 feederfuls at 21 turns (~21 metres). Normally when doing this I don’t put a hooklength on until I have put the initial feed out there, as the constant casting and retrieving spins it up. But I had forgotten about this and already put one on. I chucked the feeder out, waited 30 seconds, and saw a slight tap on the tip just as I was about to retrieve it. Second cast saw the tip go round straightaway – first fish a small roach. (Note, I always pack my feeder very lightly on Porth – I read an article by Will Raison explaining this a few years ago. If the feed doesn’t drop onto your head a few times every match as you cast, it’s packed too tight – a vertical column of feed is what they want). I stayed on the feeder for about an hour putting about 1.5lb in the net but it had started to slow down so I came in on the pole. First put-in I had a small skimmer, which nearly cost me the match. Why? Because it encouraged me to stay on the pole for too long – I didn’t have another bite for 20 mins so switched back to the feeder, fortunately before too much damage was done.
I continued to catch steadily but not frequently on the tip, drip-feeding caster over the pole line every 5 mins. After about 3 hours I went back in the pole line and started to catch. I had 3 rigs set up – 1.5g deep, 0.8g deep, and a 4 x 10 shallow rig set at 4ft. The lighter deep rig was best, but just as I started to get into a rhythm a pike struck and spangled my rig. This has happened to me before on Porth and previously it really hacked me off, but I felt ok this time, mainly because I knew I had loads of replacement rigs. (By then end of the match I had lost 3 rigs to pike). Still the fish came and went, so I decided to just feed groundbait (2 balls every 20 mins) and stop loose feeding caster. This helped steady the fish and was a definite improvement. Then Jackie Stewart rand me on the mobile and told me to take a section off and fish at 11 metres. I didn’t even bother re-plumbing, brought the rig in a metre or so, and caught skimmers straight away. With half an hour to go my bait was getting intercepted on the way down, so I switched to the shallow rig, but it was too light. So I cut down my 0.8g deep rig (no turning back now!) and started to sack at 3 ft deep – only roach but one a bung. When the whistle went I was having great fun. Clint came round with the scales, and I won the section with 9lb 11oz, also enough to win the lake, with 9lb 6oz pushing me close. My first festival lake win, and I was delighted.

Thursday, Bolingey Peg 10
Although I enjoyed this day, catching 64lb of carp, if I’m really honest I got it wrong. Peg 10 at Bolingey is not the best, but I was beaten both sides, Jon Davies catching 80lb to my right on peg 9, and the angler on 11 fishing a great match to land 110lb. What did I get wrong? My main attack was meat feeder over to the island and although I had a few fish on it, in hindsight I think meat was wrong, and pellet would have been better. Stewart Lister gave me a good briefing before hand and stressed the importance of the 5/6m line. I really tried to make this work and had a few off it but couldn’t really kick-start it into life. I fed corn and pellet here.

I also had a few on my left hand margin, and learnt a valuable lesson. Here is a question for you. There is 13 minutes to go in the match. You’ve just landed an 8lb lump from your margin swim. As you are rebaiting, you notice your Drennan Carp Feeder hook has been bent slightly out of shape. Do you a) crimp it back into shape with your teeth, or b) replace the hook? I opted for ‘a’, dropped back in and was immediately into another lump, on red hydro. Two minutes into the battle, the hook inexplicably pulled out. Inspecting it, it looked fine. But I’d been a fool once I was determined not to be a fool twice, so I quickly replaced the hook. In the 6 or 7 minutes remaining I managed two more lumps, safe in the knowledge that I had a good hook on. At the scales I faired badly in the section, beating only 2 other anglers. The next angler above me beat me by only 4oz. That mistake with the hook had cost me a point. Next time I will try to keep my discipline and do the right thing!

Friday, Pollawyn Peg 52
This peg is up one of the dreaded arms – I drew it last time as well and struggled then so I wasn’t too confident. The Jackie Stewart moment happened at the draw, before I’d even got to my peg. Andy Lloyd told me you needed to fish 17 metres over to the point of the island. My brother Pete offered me his spare Tourny butt section as I only had 16 metres, but because my back is not the best, I refused the offer, electing to fish a flick rig instead (ie 16m of pole plus 2m of line). When I got to my peg, I realised a flick rig would not work, due to overhanging bushes. Rather than try and find a way to attack it with a bomb or waggler, I chose to fish at 16 metres instead and plumbed up swims there, sending my Festival Formula 1 car spinning off the track and into a wall of tyres. I fished for carp for two hours without a sniff (first and last hours), and spent three hours down the track for skimmers, weighing 15lb for second to last in section. The reality? A below-average peg made into a non-starter thanks to a bad tactical decision. If I drew it again tomorrow I would fish 18 metres and attempt to get ‘round the back’ of the island where I’m sure a few carp lurk. Skip McCabe was further round that bend and won the section easily with a netful and if I’d done it right I might have nicked a few.

Looking Back
I finished 83rd, not a great showing, but I have done worse in the past. I made some mistakes which compounded some lacklustre draws, although I had a few reasonable pegs as well. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, met up with some great friends, had a few fish and a load of laughs. It is really a different world down there – festivals change you, as an angler you cram so much learning into a (too) short week. Can’t wait for next year, but I need some coaching from Jackie Stewart before then…