North West Angle

My match-fishing year is quite structured. December through until Easter we fish the Cudmore Winter League – more of this shortly. After Easter I like to go down to Whiteacres for the Dynamite Baits festival. The summer is looser and the squad tend to do their own thing, other than the build-up to the National where we come together to practice, and for the weekend of the match itself. In September, through until Christmas, we have three teams of five in the Winsford Winter League on the River Weaver. So as a team we tend to fish both natural and commercial waters.

These are the events you will hear about. And I have decided to be honest in this blog, so I better begin by correcting a misleading comment above – we didn’t really practice for last year’s National. Two of the team managed a single practice, but that was it. Most of our anglers had never seen the venue. Miraculously (and mainly because we have good anglers) we won promotion to Division 1. But if we continue that approach in the top flight, we will surely get found out. I’ll keep you posted on how things develop.

There is something else I need to come clean about. I have known Mark Murdoch (see Mark’s Blog) since we were kids. I joined his school as a teenager, had some difficulties adjusting, and after an incident Mark and I got suspended. We couldn’t stay at home because our mothers would have found out, so we had to hang around together for three days. It turned out Mark liked fishing as well…. a friendship was born.

Cudmore Winter League

This is a teams of three format fished over 6 rounds. You are split into 9 peg sections, with a penalty points system ie. the section winner gets 1 point, last in section gets 9. As a team you can drop your worst score after the last round – a ruling that would cost us dearly as it turned out.

There were 23 teams in the league, including three from my squad – Team Last Cast. I was in the Blue team with my brother Pete and Neil Lloyd, and we had Red and Black Teams. The sections are spread across most of the lakes on the complex, including the New Pools (6 parallel strips approx 35 metres wide), Suez and Brewsters (two canals), and Arena (donut shaped).

I was to spend two matches on the new pools, two on Brewsters, and two on Arena. I’ll talk a little about the Arena matches, as if there is any interest in what I’m writing it is likely to focus on Arena as this is the venue for this year’s Fish’o’Mania final.

Arena – Venue for Fish’O’Mania final

This circular lake has an island in the middle which is about a 30 metre chuck from every peg. Technically there are 32 pegs on it, but with only 9 anglers on it, there is plenty of space, with the outside prospect of a few fish down the edge. That said, your main lines are a method feeder to the island (1 metre off), straight lead to about 20 metres, pole to 13 metres, and my little trick – a caster line at 6 metres. This last line is the nearest you will get to any special insight from me.

The previous winter (not the one just gone) whenever I drew on Arena I fed casters at 6 metres and always caught late on it – big chub and barbel. However, this year it hasn’t worked so well, mainly I think because we had lots of cold clear weather on match days, and this trick only seems to work when it is gloomy and windy.

So, back to the first match. My brother Pete did the team draw and pulled out Peg 25 for me on Arena – a reasonable peg. In the car park Darren Mulheir and Jon Davies told me to fish long and to the left, looking for a deeper drop-off. When I got to my peg – it had moved! All the old wooden platforms had been removed and replaced with new concrete platforms, placed approx 2 metres to the left of the old ones. By my reckoning, that would put the deeper drop-off smack in front of me – happy days.

(As an aside, the new concrete platforms are awful. They have a series of ridges that make it very difficult to place your box. Can’t believe they will stick with them for the Fish’O).

Find the feature

Having plumbed up, I set to fish 15m into what appears to be a ‘V’ in the lake bottom. It is certainly deeper than the area immediately surrounding it, but I didn’t have the time to do a full topographic analysis so I set my 4 x 12 rig for dead depth, and then quickly set up a caster rig for 6m. I also set up a straight lead and started on this for 45 minutes (standard practice at Arena) but without a knock.

I elected to fish pellet long, and caster short. After about 10 minutes on the long pole rig – I had a bite – a small roach on 4mm expander. I was feeding micro-pellets, with the odd bigger one through a pot. I then hooked and lost a barbel, followed by a skimmer. It was slow going, but no-one on Arena seemed to be catching, apart from the bloke two pegs down who had a proper carp on the lead. They go big in Arena, up to 15lb, but his was about 5lb.

I persevered with the pellet, but after two hours it wasn’t really happening. I had decided at the start of this Winter League that I was going to do what I felt comfortable doing, rather than what everyone else says to do. So after two hours, I picked up the catapult, and started feeding maggots – a good pouchful every 3 minutes. So often these changes of tactics don’t work, but this time it did. I had a barbel after 10 minutes, and another 8 to win the section with 25lb.

Waggler Ace? Don’t think so!
My second match on Arena was in Round 5 several weeks later. It saw me on Peg 4, not brilliant but better than some of the pegs over the far side which had been hard of late. The problem was I had Jay DeClouet next to me on aerator Peg 1. I started on the groundbait feeder over to the island, and had a couple of early chub with maggot on the hook. Nothing much was being caught so I persevered, regularly feeding my maggot line with dead maggots at 13m. I didn’t bother with a 6 m line as it looked all wrong – very cold, clear and bright.

After a few more chub over, I decided to try the waggler to the island over the feeder swim, but after two chucks it didn’t sit right, so I tried the pole at 13 metres without much success – a few roach and skimmers. Jay on Peg 1 meanwhile had started to catch at 16 metres, and had brought the fish in closer to about 13 metres where he was getting barbel regularly. Back out on the feeder I had another chub of approx 1lb. The wind had shifted a bit, so I again picked up the waggler. I chucked it to the island, it settled, and then buried.

A 1.5lb chub. In the fishing magazines this story would continue with me going on to bag-up and win the match. Unfortunately it didn’t happen – not another bite on the waggler.

Life Saver
To make matters worse, the angler on peg 29 started to catch carp on the tip, and a few others on the lake were catching. I struggled on, eventually tempting a barbel at 13m on double dead red maggot. News came through on the mobile from Pete that he and Neil (my team mates) were catching, which of course made me feel worse. And I was getting a stiff-neck watching Jay catch barbel on the pole. With an hour to go, I decided to hair-rig corn on the tip (again – I had already tried it earlier).

After 10 minutes the rod went round and I picked it up – a proper lump was attached and moved ponderously off to the left. It took me about five minutes to get the net, and after missing it the first time, got it the second. At 7lb+ it was a very welcome mirror carp. I rang Pete back to tell him I was back in the race.

At the scales I weighed 19lb for third in section. Jay battered it with 50lb, framing in the match.

Across the series as a whole, I recorded two section wins, two seconds and two thirds. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? Don’t be kidded. I had some reasonable draws in there, and I’m still getting to grips with the place. If I’ve done anything right it is following my principle of doing what I want to do, not doing what others are catching on. This has mainly involved fishing maggot.

As a team, we were lying third going into the last round. With a strong performance we came second on the last day, meaning that overall we finished….. 5th in the league! I was gutted to end-up first out of the money. How did it happen? Well it is down to the dropped points. All the teams around us had a blow-out to drop, and we had been very consistent, so when this was taken into account they edged ahead of us.

Doesn’t seem that fair but we knew the rules before we entered. Well done to Daiwa Ultima though (Andy May, Keiron Rich, Darren Mulheir) who led from the start and won it comfortably.

Strange submarines

One final point about Arena – the barbel there feed very strangely. They are notorious for getting foul-hooked. It is almost as if they feed by rolling-on their sides amid the clay bottom. I know it sounds mad but it can really do you head-in. The only advice I can give it to not feed too tightly – spread it around a bit once you start to get a few bites.

With that league out of the way, which I really enjoyed, the next stop is the Dynamite Baits festival at Whiteacres. Can’t wait. See you next time.