By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Wednesday, March 26, 2008

After last Sundays disaster at Hallcroft I honestly thought my current run couldn’t get any worse. Unfortunately, once again I was wrong as another grueling two days sport have seen me yet again come out of the weekend without a brown envelope.

On Friday I had decided to venture to Wetlands at Lound for a pop at the open match. For company I had fellow Woodseats angler Paul Gorman, and Jim Smith who had travelled up from Evesham. With a good turnout of 46 anglers, there weren’t many spare pegs on the 48 peg match lake, so there were some peg in that you really did not want to draw!

In the past, I have had a lot of success at the venue fishing with chopped worms and casters. This only works in the summer months however, as when the weather turns colder the bomb and feeder tend to dominate, making the matches into something of an aquatic lottery.

Being somewhat optimistic, I fancied the worm for a few fish however, as I had noticed in the results that venue regular Pete Nunn had started taking the odd weight on pole fished maggot, which led me to think that the fish were coming in on the pole line with the weather warming up.

I stuck my hand in the bag praying for a draw in the main lake, where the majority of the weights have been showing, and was gutted to pull out 36 peg at the back of the island. I am not normally one to to get sucked into the culture of blaming the drawbag for all my misfortunes, but on the day this was one of the worst pegs in the bag.

Tight Pegging

The area was tightly pegged, with a strong crosswind making presentation on the pole line difficult. The pegs to my left had a chuck to the island, which often holds a few carp, there were two pegs in the middle of nowhere, with me sat on one and Nathan Watson on the other, then someone in a corner again which often holds a few resident lumps, before the lake bends round onto the back bank, where all the anglers had the wind sailing over there backs.

The only thing I had going for me was that nobody else was setting up a pole line, so I had my chopped worm line all to myself. Because of the wind I couldn’t really go any further than 12 metres, so I opted to fish here, and then flick a bomb to some stick ups I had in front of me.

At the all in, I fed some worm and caster on my pole line, before flicking out a bomb with a small piece of meat attached to it. After 20 minutes I hadn’t had so much as a liner so I came on the pole.

Normally, I like to try and draw fish on this line by regularly loosefeeding with the catapult, but the wind was that bad I couldn’t do this, so I instead started feeding with the kinder pot every five minutes or so.

After an hour, out of the 12 anglers behind the island only one had caught, and things really were looking grim.
To cut a long story short, I kept swapping between the pole and the tip for the remainder of the match to try and get a bite, then at half one, the wind got up to such an extent that I could no longer hold my pole. In fact, I probably should have put it away a long time before, as the wind was nasty, but what finally bought it home to me was that as I was shipping out the wind blew the pole, so I held it against the roller, and the lot blew over!

Got One!!!

Rather than chance a broken section, I decided to put it away, and sit on the tip for the rest of the match. I kept dropping over my pole line however, and at ten past three I had my first fish, as a two pound ide tentatively pulled my tip round.

Sadly, this was my only fish of the day however. The chap to my right managed two small carp chucking up to the corner of the island. The six to my right never had a bite (actually someone in amongst them had a gudgeon, but cant remember who!).

The main lake fished quite well however, 60 odd pound won the match and there were a few 30s and 40s.

Despite catching only one fish, I had had a nice days fishing and plenty of banter with Nathan so all was not lost. Besides, I still had a side bet that I was confident of winning.

Whenever Jim comes we always have a £10 side bet. Last time he came, I won the bet beating him by two ounces at Lindholme. He hadn’t drawn very well on peg 46, and I hadn’t seen him have a fish all match. He walked around half way through, and told me he had a carp at 4lb, but knowing him as I do, I didn’t believe him.

However, my confidence was misplaced, Jim had indeed had a carp that weighed 2-8-0, and when my ide went 2-6-0, it was my turn to be gutted!

We had a laugh though, and in all seriousness, I don’t feel there was a lot I could have done to improve my result from where I had drawn. If I had been able to fish the pole for longer I may have done better, as the fact that I had the ide over the pole line may have indicated that a few fish moved in eventually, but the weather put an end to that so there was little I could have done.

I had Saturday off to do some work on the website, but had every intention of fishing Sunday. The weather had other ideas however, and when the match organizer rang up at six on Sunday morning to cancel the match I was still in bed! I got up and looked out of the window to see an inch of snow covering the ground, and fully understood his thinking, as there were flakes like 50ps still falling fairly quickly.

A day spent moping around the house like a caged lion, messing about with bits of tackle and winding the dogs up was the inevitable result, but with a night out planned for that evening and a pairs match the next day at Woodlands to look forward to, all was not lost.

Time For A Beer!

I picked Matt up that evening, as he was coming for his tea, and then we were going for a few beers. Despite us both agreeing to have a ‘steady night’ and deciding to stop local instead of going down town, we still managed to find ourselves rolling in at 2 am, and then trying to sort our bait out for the next day!

We ended up with turmeric all over the floor, and some very oddly cut bits of meat, but we got there!

The draw wasn’t until 10 the following day, so we weren’t in too much of a rush the morning after. With 48 pairs competing it was a big match, but with the cold weather meaning that the fish were pocketed up quite tightly, everyone was thinking it would probably end up being a bit of an aqua lottery.

I drew peg 16 on Skylark. Peg 10 had won the open match the day before with 98lb, so I hoped that the fish had swim down a bit! Matt drew peg five- a bad area on Kestrel, as the pegs in the middle of the bank often tend to produce best. Despite this, we went to our pegs confident, our plan being to try for the carp early doors, then try and get a few silvers in the net, as we didn’t reckon we would need much for good section points.

I started my match on the bomb with meat, thrown around half way across the lake, and everyone seemed to be doing the same. Within five minutes of the match starting the three anglers to my left ( I had a spare peg next to me, so the first angler was two pegs away) were playing fish, and I could see a couple of anglers on the opposite bank in a similar position playing fish.

I threw as far down to where the fish were as I legally could, but still it seemed it wasn’t quite far enough. After around 40 minutes, I had my first bite, a carp of around 4lb. The chaps below me were getting one a bung however, and once I had established they weren’t doing anything different to me, I.e. they were fishing a bomb with meat on the hook chucked around half way across the lake, I felt there was not a lot I could do except keep dropping the bomb around and hope that the fish would move down to me.

Might As Well Go Home

There was no point going for the silvers, as I could see from the way the first hour had gone that 50lb + would be needed for good section points. I went through the motions of trying different hookbaits, but I knew what I really needed was the fish to move down in front of me, it was like there was a line down the lake.

I ended up with four carp and an ide for 17lb, while the chap bang opposite me had just one carp for 4lb odd. The next three weights down on my lake went 70lb odd 90lb odd and 50lb odd, with Sean Cameron one peg below these three weighing in 18lb- He, like me was just off the fish.

Matt had a similarly frustrating day, watching those in his section who had drawn on fish catch while he struggled. All in all, it was a bad day at black rock for both of us!

Still, we had a bit of loud music on the way back down the M1 to vent our anger, before stopping in Wetherby for a pub tea- a bit of comfort food!

I for one am getting really fed up of this cold weather, the sooner it warms up a bit and the fish start spreading out the better! I could do with a day of bagging up to banish the winter blues once and for all! Lets hope its next weekend!