By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Wednesday, August 27, 2008

With the nights now drawing in I have been trying to make the most of the bit of summer we have left by cramming a few evening sessions in. Last Wednesday saw me, Mr Godfrey and a couple of lads from work drop onto Horseshoe Lakes at Wales for a bit of margin fishing.

A sidebet was duly arranged to spice things up, and as keepnets arent allowed, we decided that the spoils would go to whoever weighed in the biggest fish. Matt took the competition very seriously, and as he only lives a stones throw from the pond made sure he was set up and fishing before we even got there, not only did this allow him to pick the best peg on the lake, but also to prime it with bait!

I opted to just fish a top two with paste, but a cold wind and a bit of rain earlier in the day had really knocked em off, and the going was tough. To cut a painfully long story short, I had two fish all night, Matt had about ten from the swim he had been prebaiting for a fortnight (five of which before we arrived), but unfortunately for him none of em were big enough! One of my paste caught munters went 11-8-0 which was enough to secure the spoils, as the other two lads struggled as well only taking one fish a piece. Matt was not happy – I had to buy him a bag of pork scratchings to cheer him up!

I finish work at four on Fridays and another evening session was duly arranged at Kiveton Waters this time, as we were fishing a match there on Sunday and wanted to get a bit of practise in. I was hoping to try and catch shallow, but the wind was horrendous so decided to concentrate on a pellet line short, as this has been our banker in matches there in the past. Matt did the same, though he also decided to chuck a feeder out and try and snare a few on that. Another side bet was agreed on, but this time it would work on a fish race basis, with everything except roach and perch counting.

The feeder didn’t seem to work for Matt, and I managed to forge a steady lead on the pole, taking a mixture of small carp and tench. After a while, the swim seemed to quiten off however, so I decided to start another one up down towards Matts peg- big mistake! Matt came on the pole and started catching the odd fish, and in order to stem my lead resorted to snide tricks and underhand tactics. The Spro five metre landing handle has its uses- including introducing 4lb tench over the top of a neighbours float! I got my revenge though, two Jaffa sized balls of micro pellets did litle too kick start his sparesly fed paste line!

Casting School

On a serious note though, I did have a lesson in casting off Matt which proved very useful. I am a competent, but by no means brilliant tip angler and it has to be said my casting sometimes lets me down. Matt on the other hand could put a feeder on a dinner plate at sixty yards, and has perfected his casting technique.

I think that the best thing to compare it to is taking a shot at snooker, the dynamics of what you are doing are essentially the same, but the more you think about the movements you are actually making, the better you will be at it.

I decided to ditch the way I had been doing it and concentrate on perfecting ‘matts way’. At first I was all over the place but after a while I got into the swing of it and am now finding I am a lot more accurate.

Return of the pirate!

On Saturday night my mate Jim Smith from Evesham came up, and we went out for a few beers and then fished the match at Kiveton Waters on Sunday. For those who don’t know Jim he’s a real character, and managed to get a few laughs in the car park in the morning!

Me, Jim, Matt and Matt’s grandad Ray all decided to have a £5 sidebet, and disappointingly it didn’t look like we had a good peg between us! Mine sounded particularly bad- peg 8 on the island- peg one is a flier and it gets worse the further up the island you go! To make matters worse every other peg has a decent feeder chuck but mine didn’t look like it had as there was someone fishing the end peg on the bank opposite me, perhaps 18 metres from where I could chuck my feeder!
For this reason I decided to concentrate on two pellet lines, one in front of me and one down the edge. My approach worked fairly well, and though sport wasn’t hectic I was catching quicker than most of the people I could see.

The chap to my left started bagging on the method feeder around half way through however, I tried my feeder line but as expected it didn’t budge, I reckon I was a bit too close to that angler on the far bank, so it was back on the pole.

At the all out I had 8 tench, 5 carp and a few skimmers with my net going 26-10-0. Unfortunately this was no good in my section, the chap to my left weighed 31lb as did Stan on end peg (flier) one. It was enough to take the spoils in the £5 sweep however, and with Matt winning his section with 19lb at least we had a few quid to share out.

Return To Ranskill!

Bank Holiday Monday saw a knockup at Lakeside Fishery at Ranskill, and I had decided to leave my usual worms and casters at home and go with just pellets and meat. I was glad I took this decision when I drew peg 18, probably the worsed silver fish peg on the lake!

I had one of the most boring days fishing I have had this year, the tip refused to budge and I couldn’t get a bite on my meat line. Its one of those pegs where the carp are either there or they are not, and on Monday they weren’t! At the end of the match I weighed in four carp for 16lb- not a good day!

To make matters worse I was beaten by pirate Jim who won our £10 sidebet of flier peg 14 with 22lb. Gutted!

I can only hope things pick up at the weekend, when I have got the penultimate round of the Ranskill summer league, and another open at Kiveton Waters to look forward to!

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