By Wraggy | No Comments
Last updated: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

One of my favourite techniques, possibly THE favourite, is catching shallow. I’m not fussy about the species, carp obviously build a weight quickly, but canny roach or F1’s keep you thinking all day and make you earn every fish, so both have their attractions. With last weeks successes on the shallow rigs, and the onset of some better weather, there was a spring in my step when I got up for the matches this week, the first of which was at Hayfield, the venue for the up-coming Green ‘Un semi final.

The usual suspects lined up for the weekly Wednesday open, which was to be held on both big and little Adams lakes, giving the anglers plenty of room. The match is a rover, mainly due to there being a number of pleasure anglers already fishing both lakes, and an informal ruling is that you can’t sit any closer than two pegs away from another angler, for example if there’s a lad on, say peg 20, you have the choice of either peg 18 or 22, but not 19 or 21. I got 7th pick out of the twenty or so anglers there, and not having been near the venue since the turn of the year I was a bit perplexed as to where to go. Eventually I plumped for peg 47 on the Torne bank of big Adams, as the wind looked favourable for a shallow attack, and I knew there would be some fish in the area at some point in the day. When venue expert Dennis Seeds chose peg 49, and another of the regular lads put his gear down on peg 44 I felt my choice was pretty good, but I’d obviously got my hands full with these two! Oh well, it was a fact-finding mission first and foremost, and if I didn’t win owt, I’d certainly learn a bit for the bank holiday Monday semi final

The match started very slowly for me, my choice of pellet waggler seeming correct if the lads either side were anything to go by. Only trouble was, it wouldn’t go under! Dennis had two fish early on, while the lad to my left was dry like me, except for a foul-hooked fish, which came unstuck on the way in. I decided to fine down a little; the fish in Hayfield run big and fight hard, so my starting point was an 0.16 hooklength with a size 16 PR27 hook, hair-rigging an 8mm pellet. This came off and was replaced by a 16 B911 eyed hook to a 0.14 bottom, still with the hair rig. The results were almost instantaneous; first cast and I was into a fish, a ghostie of maybe 5lb. Dennis lost a foul-hooked fish as I was playing mine, and for the first half of the match it seemed we were fish for fish, with him just one or two fish in front, and try as I might I couldn’t seem to peg him back. The turning point came four hours into the six-hour event, when a number of things conspired to see me pull in front. Dennis announced that he’d just been snapped by a fish so intended to step up his hooklength, all this time I’d been on the relatively fine line and wasn’t experiencing any problems, so I stuck with it. Incidentally, I’m sure the reason I can get away with finer lines is due to my rod, it’s a Maver Reactorlite No1 13footer, the softer one of the two, and I find it perfect for all my commercial work. Ok, there have been advances in rod design since I bought it about five or six years ago, but it’s never let me down and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

At the same time, the wind swung round almost 180 degrees, and was now coming straight at us, bringing rain that was getting steadily heavier, making for very uncomfortable conditions. There was nothing for it; it was Gore-Tex time, and hope for the best! I can’t fish running line under a brolly, so plugged away, as the lads either side went onto their pole lines and sought the sanctuary of their umbrellas. This gave me the line to myself, and to cut a long story short my catch rate soared, until the end of the match came round and saw me soaked by the now torrential rain, but happy with 13 good carp in my two nets. I wasn’t surprised to see the scales arrive quickly, a lot of the lads on little Adams were packing up early due to the weather, and also the fact that a couple of the lads had caught well and were admitting to 100lb! I didn’t think I’d anywhere near that, but the carp were bigger than they looked, and my 91lb 8oz surprised even Dennis, who promptly tipped his 50-60lb net back. Dennis’s mate in corner peg 58 was claiming a big weight, but I just held him off as he put 82lb on the scales, and they progressed onto little Adams.

Everything was soaked, so I simply bundled all the gear into the back of the car, and drove round to the pub car park. On arriving, I could hear the organiser, Dave Loveday, shouting my name. It turned out my weight was enough for 2nd place, only being beaten by one lad on the end peg on little Adams, who’d had some real animals down the margin late on, to squeeze me out with 107lb. I was more than pleased with the result, on a venue that I visit spasmodically, and my results usually bear this fact out!

Next morning, despite a hot bath, I was aching all over from the previous days soaking, but I was picking Ian up, and it would be his only chance to practise before the semi, so I dragged myself across to Catcliffe and chucked his gear in the car. We stopped on the way for a superb bacon sarnie, which turned out to be the highlight of the day; it all went downhill from there! Only six of us turned up, so another rover was agreed on, this time after much debating to be held on Lucy’s, or Island Lake or whatever it’s called this week! Fourth pick out of six wasn’t very inspiring, so with Ian on peg 42 (the peg I’d come second from on the previous year’s semi final) I half-heartedly plonked my gear on peg 40, which had some form when tackled with a margin approach. It wasn’t to be however, I spent the day messing around with various rigs and techniques, tried to put a net of silvers together, and generally turned the day into a practice session. Four late carp on the feeder saw me weigh a token 15lb, no-where near enough to take one of the two places on offer, but more worryingly I didn’t feel I’d sorted anything out should I draw a real bad ‘un, and there were a few in the bag! Roy Gibson won with 79lb, having chosen a peg right round on the other side of the lake, and Ian filled second spot with 29lb, casting the feeder to the aerator, much the same as I’d done the previous year. You’re always up against it on a rover if you don’t really know the lake, but I’d had a stroke of luck the previous day so I couldn’t grumble really.

The first round of the Bankside Tackle series was to be held at Sherwood Forest Farm Park fishery, on the prolific Holmedale lake, and in the run up to the match it had been patchy, to say the least. A couple of my mates are regulars there, Daiwa Trentmen’s Kev Baxter, and Universal Angling’s Sid Whitehouse, so I picked their brains for info. It seemed that the safest bet would be a chopped worm approach, catching anything that was in front of you, and hoping for a couple of lumps down the edge late on. I drew peg 45 on the roadside, and as I was waiting for the start I decided to have a wee and throw a few casters in the River Maun that runs behind these pegs. So, picture the scene, I’m standing there peeing away merrily, flicking casters at a shoal of Dace, when I look up and to my horror a dad and his two daughters come trotting along the woodland path on their Saturday pony trekking session! I turn away quickly, mid-stream if you know what I mean, to be faced with a gorgeous teenaged jogger, out for her morning run! She carried on regardless, with a grin on her face, and I’m convinced I heard her say something about ‘like a prick only smaller’, although I might have misheard her? Anyway, the dace shoal had spooked away with all the commotion, so I sat back down and composed myself for the start.

A slow start actually, with odd roach and rudd falling for the worm hookbait. Carp were cruising all over the lake, but even the trusty popped up crust was being ignored. About an hour in, something made me look down the margin, and I noticed a swirl where I’d fed in front of the next platform. I quickly shipped my rig into position, and after a couple of minutes the float slid away after a couple of liners. I gently lifted into the bite, to feel solid, heavy resistance, almost as though I was snagged up. The snag moved though, and I gently shipped back to the top kit, as the carp obviously hadn’t realised it was hooked. It just pottered about along the margin as I led it quietly to the net, and scooped it first time! Cue all hell breaking loose! An ominous click from the landing net pole as the carp did its best demolition job on it saw the angler next door, Pat Kelly, look up from his float.’ What the f…’s THAT Wraggy?’ He declared, as I jumped on the excitable fish and bungled it into my keepnet. ‘There goes the section straight away!’ he said. I estimated the fish at six or seven pounds, and with only the odd silver fish showing at our end, it was a bonus fish indeed!

The rest of the match went very quietly, the odd few silvers that were willing to feed early on finally shut up shop, so I decided to spend the last hour looking for another carp down the margin. Odd little dibs on the float that could have been from silvers were all I could muster, when I remembered the bag of Atomic cloud in my bag. A few matches previously I’ got out of jail a bit by putting some in and snaring a few fish late on, so it was worth a try again. In went a pot, and within 10 minutes a positive bite saw me attached to another lump. I followed the same procedure as with the first one, but this time I decided to annoy the carp by hitting it on the head with the landing net as it surfaced, resulting in one angry fish!

Fortunately everything held, and another biggie was deposited into the onion bag. (Imagine if somebody who knew what they were doing drew some of the pegs that I get eh? Doesn’t bear thinking about!) Another pot went in, and with five minutes to go I lowered the rig into the cloud. This time though, I got that ominous ‘wobble’ of the rig as it fell through the water. The line had fallen against a fish, and as I was deciding what to do, the carp made my mind up for me, by panicking and tearing off, the hook snagging its side in the process.

The black hydro bottomed out on a couple of occasions, but I had hardly any control over it, as it was foul-hooked somewhere in the flank. Eventually I gained some sort of order and had the fish close in on the top kit. At this point it decided to do a tour of the margins on my right, and the line snagged around a five-foot piece of floating reed & weed stem. The fish, on feeling the angle of pull change, made for the platform, and all I could do was watch helplessly as its run came up short, but it surfaced on its side momentarily, allowing the scale that the hook was lodged in to peel off almost in slow-motion, and the five pound-plus fish to sink back into the depths! B*ll**ks! There wasn’t even time to put another worm on after I’d cleared all the weed off the line, so I packed away rueing the lost fish. As it happened it didn’t really make much difference, the lake had fished poorly in general, with 25lb leading as the scales arrived at my peg.

My two carp and bits went 19lb 10 oz, the lost fish would have seen me there or thereabouts, but deep down I knew it would probably have fallen just a bit short. The match was won with 27lb from a noted peg opposite the end of the island, and just 4lb won my section by default as I finished third, so I wasn’t too unhappy with the result in the end, in the company of some very good anglers. Once again, the Atomic had brought me a few extra bites. If you’ve not tried it yet I’d strongly recommend that you do so soon, it’s top stuff!

I’ve run out of space before I can cover the Green ‘Un semi, but lets just say that disappointed would be an understatement! Till next time, tight lines.