By Wraggy | No Comments
Last updated: Monday, September 22, 2008

Well, after yet another week where my midweek match calendar was decimated by doctors’ visits and other stuff, one good thing to report is that my rancid knacker-bag is fully healed and back to normal! The tablets have worked their magic and I’m back to firing on all cylinders, if you’ll pardon the expression! No matches, but I did sneak off to Barlborough for a couple of teatime sessions, just to get my elastics and rigs right for the colder times that are creeping up on us. Simply fishing maggot and loose feeding with a catapult I had two really good sessions, both starting with silver fish and ending up with big F1’s, especially Fridays, in all I counted 18 F1’s, a carp about 5lb, and probably 8-10 lb of rudd, roach and skimmers, in just under 3 hours. Just wish I could catch like that in the matches!

What did surprise me was just how big a fish you could land on some really fine tackle, so long as it is balanced and you take your time. I was fishing tiny hooks and lines as I was setting up my winter rigs, and these two short sessions gave me a lot of confidence in them for the coming matches. I know many lads don’t believe there is any need to fine down for winter carp, indeed a lot of the top lads fish the same rigs all through the year, but it’s a personal thing with me, if I came off the bank biteless having fished with strong gear all day I would forever be asking myself ‘what if’, so now I scale down in winter, and I feel it gives me the most chances of bites.
Saturday was the final match in the bankside tackle series, on the Tripp Lake at Messingham. These matches are keenly contested by some of the best anglers in the area, and I’m chuffed to have had such a good run in what is a strong field. I’ve picked up on all the matches so far, with three seconds, a third and a section win to my name, but it didn’t look too good for keeping the run going on Saturday, as I plucked peg 35 from the bag. For those of you who don’t know the venue, it is a rough horseshoe shape, with one side wider than the other, and the two pegs on the crown of the inside are real flyers on their day. These pegs are 33 and 34, and when I parked up behind my peg there was a lot of activity in the margins of both. Uh-oh, I can feel a proper tuning coming on! Sat at my peg my hopes faded even more, what little wind there was on a sweltering hot day was over my head, leaving me with flat calm conditions under a sun filled, cloudless sky.

Odd carp were cruising aimlessly around but didn’t seem to be feeding; maybe they would have a pellet or two though? Martin Codman on peg 34 was rubbing his hands in anticipation of a good day, as carp swirled and porpoised all along the margin to his left, and it was the same for Pat Kelly on 35, this time the fish were to his right. Both good anglers, it was time to write off the top two places, and weigh up my options. In this company you either need to be fortunate at the drawbag or have a degree of luck on your side, both of which have swung for me this year, so it would be wrong of me to start moaning about one bad draw among many good ones, so I decided to aim for an enjoyable days fishing, virtually writing off any hope of a pick up at the end of the day. Omega pellets fed in green Swim Stim at the bottom of the slope 5 sections out would be my main line, that should see me make contact with the abundant skimmer and crucian population, plus pellet fed regularly at 13-14.5m with a catapult might just stop an odd carp or two in its track as they made their lazy way around the lake. I half-heartedly fed a margin line further along the bank, but didn’t hold out much hope of catching there, as this was one of the few pegs on the lake that had no cover in the sides.

Martin was playing his first carp before I had finished feeding the lines, and I couldn’t see Pat but could hear splashing in his general direction. I opened my account with a Gudgeon! A roach soon followed, on a line to hand rig I always set up here to pick off a few small fish close in while the other swims settle, but that was it, onto the 5m line. As usual here, the bites were very slight dips and lifts of the float, typical of crucians, but most of the fish I was catching were skimmers. 20 minutes in and a strike met with heavy resistance as a carp had ventured onto the groundbait line. I was only fishing 0.10 hooklength and a 22 Tubertini 808 so I feared the worst, but it all held, and 10 minutes later a 3lb fish was bundled into the net.

I re-fed the 5m line due to the disturbance the carp had caused, and had a look at 13 where odd carp had been swirling for the pellets I’d been feeding. Straight away I foul-hooked one that shot off and sent the rig back complete with a ‘silver dollar’, and next drop I found myself attached to a heavy fish. The fish here fight really hard, possibly due to the good water quality from the sandy bottom, and even on my normal carp gear it chugged around for a good five minutes before landing in the banjo, very welcome at over 6lbs. This was something of a false dawn however, as I never had another bite on that line all day! Two hours in, i was watching Martin bag a carp every drop, it suddenly dawned on me I only had about ten fish! I sneaked a 2lb chub from the margin, again my only bite, but was going nowhere fast. I decided to try to sort the tiny indications out that I was getting over my groundbait line, and eventually settled on a rig I would use for pinkie or bloodworm fishing in winter, a float with a fibre bristle, teamed with an 0.09 bottom to a Middy T6313 size 22. At least I would know if I couldn’t catch on this gear the fish were either tiny silvers or reluctant to feed properly, in which case I’d got nowt to come anyway. The change was immediate, skimmers up to a pound finding their way to the net, along with some 6-10oz crucians, and all of a sudden I was enjoying the day.

The practise sessions atBarlborough with the light lines were paying off as well! With 40 minutes to go I had a positive bite that I just knew was another carp, and I added sections as it steamed off into the lake. My arse was twitching a bit now I can tell you! Once again though luck was on my side, and it all held firm for the 30-minute battle, as another 3lb-plus fish was added to my total. With all the disturbance I didn’t expect much more action, but right on the whistle I had my last bite of the day, and my second Gudgeon!
Kevin the owner came round with the scales, and I was first to weigh. The carp went 13 lb odd, the silvers a surprising 18lb, giving me a 31lb 6oz total, a lot more than I’d expected. Martin weighed a healthy 64lb, which I’d expected to win, till Pat placed 84lb on the scales, mainly on his trademark paste approach. Barney was in my section and I knew he was close to my weight, but he finished up a couple of fish short having fished a good match, again like me with the distraction of his neighbour bagging! His 29lb was some way in front of the lads round him, but as the scales went further round the weights picked up a little. Stuart Walker weighed 51 lb for third, while Pete Gosney took fourth with 38lb after only catching for the last 90 minutes when the breeze put a bit of ripple on his peg. My weight was enough for a double- defaulted section win behind Pat and Martin, capping a really enjoyable day where I had to work for every bite. Too often you graft for no return in this game, so it was nice to see some return for my efforts.

 Bank End

And it was more of the same on Sunday, as I made my way to peg 4 at Bank End. This end of the lake hadn’t been fishing, actually that’s not right, by Bank End standards it hadn’t been fishing, as you’d ‘only’ needed 45-60lb to win the section I was drawn in! It really is awesome fishing up there, 100lb plus is needed to win every week during the summer months, and with the fish averaging around a pound each, you always have a busy day, even on the ‘bad’ pegs like the one I’d drawn. The good thing about Bank End is that the methods required to win a section during the warmer months don’t really vary too much from the ones used to win overall, you just seem to catch fewer fish on them, so a positive approach is always required, right up my street.

As the weather turns, the venue’s healthy head of Ide can become more of an option if you’re drawn off the main body of the carp, but for now it ‘s all out attack for the stockies. I decided on two methods as I hadn’t been for a few weeks, keeping it simple to feel my way back in. Word had it that the ‘bubble’ method was doing the business, where you use a standard bubble float either full of water to sink with a neutral buoyancy, or put just enough water in to provide casting weight and the fish often hook themselves against it. Pellets fed around the float makes for a simple enough method on paper but it has been shrouded in secrecy of late, leading me to think there may be more to it than meets the eye.

Because of this I decided to stick with the nearest version I knew to it, the floating feeder. I’ve caught well there before on this tactic, so it was something of a banker while I tried to suss out the latest in method. Pellets fished shallow on a 13-14.5m-pole line would provide a back up for later in the match, and they proved invaluable on the day. The match started and the lad on peg 1 was immediately into fish on this bubble job. He was next to his mate and their conversation during the first half of the match provided some interesting information on the technique. It’s funny how the volume control goes up when you’re getting a few isn’t it! Anyway, I had my first fish about ten minutes in on the feeder, then caught in fits and starts until the 45 minute mark, when I had a really good run of one a chuck, and some of them were good fish too, up to the three pound mark.

I felt I’d got in front of the two lads using the bubble at this stage, and was well in front of the lad on peg 5 who was catching on the dreaded floating pole. We all experienced a drastic drop in catch rate then, with only the odd fish showing for the next hour. By this time I’d switched to the pole and was picking odd fish off in ones and twos, never seeming to have a lot of fish in front of me but holding my own. It was uncanny how all the anglers in my area would seem to be playing a fish at the same time, then nothing for a while. Lost fish seemed to be common among the other lads, but I felt I was doing well with only one loss so far, plus a scale from a foul-hooker. On more than one occasion at Bank End lost fish have proved costly and I was beginning to suspect it would be the same today, and my more careful playing approach seemed to be proving the right one on the day. The last 90 minutes proved dire for me, but the lad on peg 5 had set a tip rod up with a small feeder and was throwing it onto the 16m line. ‘That’ll never work’, I thought to myself, surmising that the fish wouldn’t be on the deck in 12 feet of water in the soaring temperatures. I wrote the first couple of fish off as flukes, but by the fifth chuck and fish number five I was starting to get a bit edgy!

He actually only landed three of them, but it was obvious there were a few there, and me sat there without a tip rod! As the minutes ticked by his catch rate slowed a little, but I my lead was rapidly being eaten away, if indeed I was in the lead in the section. I couldn’t see the lads in the early pegs because of a big reed bed, but judging from their banter they weren’t doing too well. The key point came right on the whistle as it turned out. The lad on 5 was playing what would have been his best fish of the day, at almost 3lb, when it spat the hook at the net. As the whistle sounded I was playing my last fish of a pound or so, netting it a minute after the whistle. I was convinced I’d been beaten by now as the lad on 5 had caught 25 fish to my 10 in the last two hours, although my fish did look bigger, but nevertheless I didn’t feel my early catching spree would give me enough of a cushion.

First three weighs went 46lb, 52lb and 16lb, not bad for duff draws eh? My two weighs surprisingly went 60lb 14oz, with the lad on 5 claiming nowhere near that, as his fish were too small. His first net went 18lb 3oz, but the second looked ominously heavy! The scales registered 42lb, and I was getting ready to kick myself at coming so close and getting beat when I’d had the upper hand, when the final call was 42lb 1oz. Totalled up the catch went 60lb 4oz, seeing me through to the section win by just 10 oz! I immediately thought back to a couple of weeks previous when a last minute fish at Barlborough had cost me second place, and realised that luck does come and go, and it will even itself out through time.

That last minute fish for me, coupled with the lad on 5 losing the late lump had swung the balance in my favour by the narrowest of margins. Our little battle for the section out of the way, venue regular Richard Moore made the bubble work handsomely to record a 116lb winning weight, while a shallow pole –caught 92lb was second. The third placed catch of 86lb was taken on paste fished on a short pole line, proving that the venue isn’t dominated by one technique, and best of all, the floating pole seems to have lost some of its effectiveness! Like I’ve said before, I only fish the method as a last resort, preferring to soldier on with my own tactics where possible, but as the colder months draw closer the method does seem to lose some of its dominance. Thank god!
Hopefully there won’t be any dramas this week and I should be able to get to Barlborough for the midweeker, then there again on Saturday. Nowt on at the moment for Sunday because it’s the fish-off for the golden peg money that accrues over the twelve week period of summer matches, and I haven’t fished the required five or more to qualify, so it’s ear to the ground for somewhere to go Sunday! Till next week, tight lines.

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