By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Well after a few slightly disappointing performances over the last few weeks, I am pleased to report that this weekend has seen a couple of better matches for me.

On Saturday I had round nine of the Ranskill Summer League. I had been doing quite well in this, but a disappointing performance off a bad draw on the last round saw me lying in third place, with Nigel Wheatcroft and Les Richmond both in front of me by a point. To be honest, I didn’t hold out much hope of catching them, as with only two rounds left it would take me winning my section and both of them not doing to take a leading position again, and they had both been mega consistent over the last few weeks at the venue.

When Les drew peg 37, which had won the match on the last round and been a good area over the last few weeks I all but wrote off the thought of catching him up. I pulled out peg four, which was in the same section as peg eight which had won the Wednesday open match with 113lb, so I was praying that the carp wouldn’t feed and I would be able to put a decent weight of silver fish together and sneak a section win that way

That said, four was the end peg on the bank, and for this reason I thought there was an outside chance of some lumps showing down the edge late on in the day, so I set my stall out to fish for the silvers in front of me and also put a margin line in for the carp to boost my weight if necessary. In additon to this I set up my usual bomb and pellet attack, which I planned to keep trying at intervals throughout the day.

As it is quite shallow on this bank the fish can have a tendency to spook, so I opted to fish two chopped worm lines at six metres, one at ten O’clock and one at two O’clock and fed with the kinder pot. I had a good first hour catching a few ide on the deck, but then bites got strange, and it was obvious the fish were coming up in the water. I tried a shallow rig about a foot deep and was into fish straight away, though they were a much smaller stamp than the ones I was catching on the bottom. Back on the deck, and I couldn’t get a bite though, so I knew I had to make it work up in the water!

I was getting perhaps five or six small roach and rudd to one decent stamp ide, but word on the bank was that it was fishing quite hard up the top end of the lake, so I decided to stick to my guns. I would fish the line until I run out of worm, then fish bomb and pellet while I chopped a fresh pot up, then go straight back on the worm line, as experience tells me that the tip tends to go round straight if any carp are over your feed.

I did somewhat embarrassingly manage to lose a carp, I took the bail arm off while I went behind my peg for a wee, I came back and line was streaming off. I managed to turn it round and get it back towards me, only for it to snag me up in the rushes to my right. I went wading to try and free it and saw it – it was only about 2lb then the hook pulled and it swam away- gutted!

I stuck with my silver fish line all afternoon, while feeding my margin line. I kept trying it but didn’t give it long as there were know obvious signs of fish there, and all I kept getting on a full dendra was perch! The exception to this was the last ten minutes when there were a few swirls, but I couldn’t seem to get a bite even then!

At the all out, I reckon I had around 30-40lb, and with the chap on peg eight admitting to 40lb I didn’t think I had done enough. I was pleased when my good friend and mentor Dave Tomkinson won Les’s section with 63lb of surface caught carp, leaving Les second with 40 odd pound, but I knew I had to win my section to capitalise on this. The chap on peg eight weighed less than he thought he had, weighing 29-12-0, and luckily my silvers weighed heavier than I thought going 47-2-0, which fortunately was enough to give me the section win I needed. Other league rivals Nigel Wheatcroft and Carl Sweatnam finished fourth and second in there respective sections, so somehow I managed to worm my way back on top!

I am tied with Les on points, but in front on weight, but unfortunately I cannot make the last round. The rules of the league allow you to ‘sub’ someone in to fish for you however, so Matt is going to fish for me, I am confident he will do the business. If not, he will be walking to White Acres when we are due to go in a couple of weeks!

Andrew Morley won the match individually on the day from peg 41, the peg he broke the record off earlier in the year, weighing 135lb on dog biscuits. Tommo ended up second, with Steven Foster taking third with 53lb also on dog biscuits.

Back To Kiveton!

Sunday saw me turn up for another open match at Kiveton Waters, and with the car park slightly fuller than last week it looked like there would be a decent turnout. In went my hand and out came peg 30, in the middle of the back bank with a proper long walk!

Like a dipstick I had left my pellets at home, so had to scrounge some off venue owner Collette and my mate Chris who I had travelled with. I planned to fish two lines at six metres in front of me with pellets, and a couple of margin lines. I did this because I found last week I would catch a couple of fish and then nothing, so wanted to try resting a line while fishing another to see if this would improve my catch rate.

This worked quite well for the early part of the match and I caught steadily, but then things started to slow down as mid day approached. I couldn’t see anybody else catching a deal, except for Brian Edwards who was getting one a chuck from the point of the island. I cut right back on my feed, but it was to no avail, the fish just didn’t seem to want to know.

I tried my margin lines but to no avail, and so decided to be a bit adventurous and try and make something happen. I started putting in a full kinder pot of micros fairly regularly with the aim of drawing a few fish into the peg. It seemed to work, and the peg came to life, first with smallish skimmers then with better tench and carp. I snared about 20 by doing this in the last couple of hours, and ended up putting 44lb on the scales for second in the match.

Bryan Edwards won it as expected with 53lb, I later found out I was on the golden peg, and another 10lb of fish would have won me an extra £120. If only I had been more positive earlier! Gutted!

Tight Lines until next week!

Tom

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