Only two matches to report this week guys, but plenty of talking points in them, so here goes. Mandy & me had had a full week of stuff to do and places to be, so come the weekend I was chomping at the bit ready for a days fishing. The Frecheville AC lads who run the weekly open matches on KJS Fisheries canal lake occasionally run open matches on other venues in the area, such as Riverside near Bawtry, and Carter Lodge fishery at Charnock in Sheffield, and this week they had one at the Grange Farm fishery, at an aptly named place called Fishlake, between Doncaster and Thorne.
I’d only fished the place two or three times before but had a good record up there, having recorded two second places and a section win, so I was looking forward to this match. The venue record is a colossal 320lb, and although the pegging is tight on some of the swims, it is all set up for a big weight match. The carp are always willing to feed close in to the bank (indeed the best place to target is often tight into the margins at the end of your keepnet) and the majority of the fish are in the 2-3lb range, not so big that they take an age to land, but handy a weight-building stamp.
I must just mention the time when I recorded the section win up there. The lake has an island in the middle that can only be reached from certain pegs, due to Frecheville rules allowing a maximum pole length of 16 metres. One of these was drawn by a local ‘floating pole expert’ who shall remain nameless, while I sat next door facing an 18 metre stretch to said island due to how the pegs were laid out.
The waggler and feeder were my only options, together with an open water paste line, which I knew would be short lived due to every peg being taken. To cut a long (and painful, ear-bending) story short, the guy absolutely mullered me with 117lb to my section-defaulting 59lb, and he’s never let up about it since! No matter how good you are, or how good a run you may be on, no one is immune from a battering! At some time or another circumstances are going to conspire against you, and even if you fish the match of your life, it can often amount to a damage limitation exercise on the day. Bit much still going on about it two years down the line like, but there you go!
Anyway, onto Saturday, and peg 20 stuck in my hand. I’d hoped for a draw between 27-34, as they had been the form pegs on all my previous visits, so I wasn’t too impressed, until I found out that it was an end peg. This put an entirely different perspective on the day! The pegs mentioned above are in an arm off the main lake, and fish across to the far bank rushes, and peg 20 was on what for these pegs would be this far bank, but a little further down, meaning I had open water to fish into, but the option of a margin attack along towards these rushes. If I could line some fish up around 9 metres along the bank I’d have them all to myself, as they would be out of range of the pegs opposite. Only grey area was that it was early April, would the fish be prepared to feed in the margins in sufficient numbers to catch a big weight?
I started in the open water after cupping in a few pellets and half a dozen grains of corn. I don’t like to go too heavy on the feed in margin pegs at any time of the year really, mainly because I’m too tight to buy the bait, but also I feel you can have too many fish in the peg at times, resulting in liners and foul-hooked fish galore. This situation came up on the day, but I’ll tell you what I did in a bit. Half an hour in front of me on the deck yielded just one 12oz skimmer and loads of liners, as there were obviously lots of fish up in the water.
Out came the catapult ready for a shallow attack, but first I’d have a little look down the margin. At this point a heavy hailstorm descended on us, giving a surreal feel to the day, all the lads shivering under umbrellas but fishing 18” deep rigs more suited to summer, with the surface alive with fish. The world’s gone mad! My world took on an altogether more straightforward look though, as first drop in the margin resulted in a 2lb carp, followed by four more on the consecutive puts in!
With it still being cold I decided to limit my feeding to a few pellets through a tiny pot, and this seemed to be doing the trick, until I hit a spell where I was foul –hooking a lot of fish. In true ‘you’re better to be lucky than good’ form, I was landing a fair proportion of them, but obviously they were taking more time to get out, and seemed to be disturbing the shoal as they bolted out of the peg, hooked in eyeholes, earholes, arseholes, the job lot, so I had to do something, especially as the lads on the favoured pegs were all catching well.
My mate Ian has contacts all over the country, many of which go to Woodlands at Thirsk, and all the lads up there swear by feeding hemp for carp, no matter where they intend to catch them. Even a shallow session is started off with a pot of hemp, they feel it attracts and holds the fish in the swim for much longer. I’d got a tin of Frenzied Hemp in the bag, and reasoned that with it being a heavy bait it might encourage the carp to keep their noses in the silt rather than coming up off the deck to catch the pellets, and giving off liners. There were obviously a lot of fish down there by now and I felt I had nothing to lose by trying it. I gradually upped the ratio of hemp to pellets till I was feeding around 70/30 ratio in favour of the seed, and it worked an absolute treat!
My bites dropped off in frequency a little, but each one was met with a fish hooked fair & square in the mouth. It was almost like being on the bank with one of the top anglers making an article for a magazine, when they make a slight tactical adjustment and their catch rate soars! The rest of the match panned out into a very enjoyable day, and although I was catching well the other lads were still bagging so I had to keep my foot on the gas, rather than sit back all smug at having ‘sorted it out!’
I was first to weigh, something I’m always superstitious about. The scalesman arrived and said he’d been told I would win it quite easily, something else that rattles my cage! It’s funny how we all have these little quirks and superstitions isn’t it? Certain things that happen, words or phrases you hear, everyone has them, but two things that put me off had happened one after the other, and now I was jittery.
To cap it all, the pegs that I knew had got some fish would be the last ones to weigh! My nerves were calmed somewhat by a text message telling me that James Beattie, the Sheffield United striker, had hit a hat-trick in nine minutes in the game against Leicester, so that perked me up no end! I put 121lb on the scales, which was more than I thought I had to be honest.
The scales arrived at the pegs in the arm, and I was still leading, but second place was only 21lb at the time, so it had definitely been a match of two halves. As the scales went along, weights of 69lb, 55lb, 54lb & 38 bumped the average up somewhat, and they reached Martin Dixon, who had been the first bloke to go for a second net from the farmhouse. After four weighs, his net added up to 89lb, and the final lad in the corner took 25lb to the scales, meaning I was the winner!
My first ‘ton’ of the year, the first one from the venue this year, and £70 in the back pocket! Oh, and United went on to win 3-0 as well! Sweet!
Pretty good result to say that it was a match that would pass the day on till Sunday, and the Bank End open came round! Funny how it goes like that anall, the days when you really don’t want to get out of bed, but you drag yourself out and finish up having a great day!
Reports in the café on Sunday morning seemed to point to sport having taken a bit of a nosedive in the week, as the temperatures dropped rapidly from the previous weekend when we’d almost started to think spring had finally arrived! Ian went in the bag before me, and a big smile on his face said it all; peg 12, just down from the house, right in the middle of the most consistent area over the previous weeks.
It hadn’t been so productive the week before though, so he set off in cautious mood. 25 stuck to my mitt, plenty of potential, but again the last match it hadn’t really fished. I’d not fancied the draw on either of the previous two Sundays but had won them both, so I wasn’t about to stand and moan about the draw. 15 minutes in it was obvious that the lake wasn’t it’s usual self, as I’d only seen one fish caught. That was by the angler opposite and two pegs down, so I was at least optimistic of being in the right kind of area. A jab on my tip then resulted in a good pull round, as the Atomic started to work its magic! When it happened again next throw I was beginning to think a hat-trick was on the cards, but a further blank 40 minutes saw me with just two fish in the first hour, dire by Bank End standards.
Two fish, however, was as good as many, and better than most, except for the lad on peg nine, the first one to catch, who by now had a dozen fish and was lined up for pole position. Two more quick fish for me and the anglers either side seemed to signal the start of a good spell, but it just set the tone for the day generally, whereby we’d get one or two fish, then a quiet spell would follow. The lads in the teens around Ian were all getting a few on the pole, and I noticed the angler opposite picking the odd fish up by throwing his feeder short, 18-20 metres out, just past the pole line.
All winter I’ve been aiming to catch just my side of the middle, starting just over a third of the way across and unclipping 10-12 feet at a time as the bites dropped off, chasing the fish into the middle. This seemed to have died a bit of a death today though, and the lad next door had obviously noticed the guy opposite catching, as he had three quick fish off a shorter feeder line. All good things (and methods) come to an end, so it was time for a change, and a look closer in. Second chuck on the shorter line saw the tip dragged round, and this was repeated on the next five throws! The bad news was, someone had obviously lost a feeder in the peg, together with a substantial amount of line, and it was causing me no end of grief.
I’d had a couple of fish come off on the way in from the long line earlier. And put them down to being hooked in the fin or tail, a point proven by me landing a couple like that. However, the strange grating feeling I was experiencing on the line before they were dropping off had puzzled me. The answer came when I started to get e few on the newly opened up shorter swim, the fish would come in as usual but would get to a point and the grating sensation would start. The fish from this line would come in so far, then all would go solid.
I tried slackening off, and they would swim away, but would be stuck fast at the same point when I began winding again. I even managed to get one of the fish on the surface, a pound-plus F1 wallowing just out of reach of the net, with a strong looking length of line wedged in the hook’s bend, which served as a handy disgorger for the fish! Eight or nine fell foul of the snag, but wouldn’t you know it, I never hooked it reeling in without a fish on!
One of the things I’ve noticed at Bank End is that other anglers always seem to have more than they actually weigh in, if that doesn’t sound too daft? On a couple of the matches I’ve won there this winter I’ve been convinced that I was second or third at best, and on one occasion even the lad next door to me said he thought the angler opposite had 20-25lb when he actually weighed in 17, so it always pays to keep plugging away right to the whistle.
A couple of late fish on Sunday, and the chance that maybe the anglers opposite might not have as much as it first seemed, kept me interested as the scales worked their way round. In the back of my mind I’d got a feeling that the fish that had come unstuck on the wayward piece of line would cost me, and so it proved. Richard Moore, the lad who had been two pegs down from opposite me, was top weight as I expected, but had registered 29lb 13oz, when common opinion had him on over 40lb (see what I mean?) and the lads who’d had a decent day on the pole were lying second and fourth with 25 and 22lb, separated by a 23lb feeder caught weight from the early numbers, a true man of the match performance from an un-rated peg.
Young Matt Grove, one of the men to beat on the venue, put 20lb on the scales, and they moved onto our side. The cold face wind had obviously flattened sport for us, as single figure weights became the order of the day, punctuated by another of the top lads from up there, Graham Webster, who put 21 lb on the board. This just pipped one of Sheffield’s top matchmen, Alan Barker, for the section. Alan weighed 20lb on his first visit to the venue, and no doubt will be one of the men to beat over the coming months.
When I worked out how the section would lay out I thought my peg would give me a good chance of the section win, as the results had shown the fish seemed to peter out the lower down you went, but again, the fish are deceiving and I wasn’t sure I’d beaten the lad to my right. He was convinced I had, but I had to be aware of the ‘Bank End Bermuda Triangle Effect’!
When I lifted my net out I’d got more than I thought, and 22lb 3oz not only won me the section, it got me top weight on that bank. My thoughts immediately swung to the lost fish that the trailing piece of line had claimed, and while I doubt it would have bumped me up to top spot, second or more realistically third place would have definitely been up for grabs. You win some; you lose some I suppose, literally in this case!
Since I’ve been writing this blog things have been going really well for me, and Tom’s asked me to outline some of the rigs I’ve been using, in particular the feeder rig I’m employing up at Bank End, so that’s going to be this weeks little story! Another busy week lies ahead as my lad has just moved in with his girlfriend and come up with a long list of jobs for me, so it might be next weekend before I get out again in anger, unless I can sneak a quick practise session in, probably at Bank End. After all, I do qualify for a rent book up there now! And Saturday I’m off to Lodge Farm on the Field Lake, by way of an invitation onto a match from my mate Bob Dunstan.
Mixed nets are the order of the day there, so that should prove interesting. In the meantime I’ll sign off for now, but watch out for the feeder rig, it’s simple and tangle free, and it’s served me well all winter. Tight lines for now.
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