The Big Debut!

Well I’ve got lots to catch up on this week, firstly I’ll talk about last weeks matches. As I’d won the previous Tuesday at carpvale I thought it only fair to go and have another crack. This time thought there was 20 so fishing, so they would have to put in two lakes which meant putting the oldest lake in, which is called cyprio. This is a lovely looking lake not dissimilar to an estate lake, loads of lillies and overhanging trees and 3 islands to fish to. The fish in here run very big and are notorious for snagging you and regulars use doubled 20 elastic to land them, so as much as I fancied a crack at the lake I would much rather have been on the front lake.

Sure enough I drew peg 8 on cyprio which I was told was a good consistent peg but id need to land every fish I hooked to beat the front lake. As ive not fished the lake for years I didn’t know what to expect. My peg was opposite an island but it was the best part of 50 yards away but it looked really nice, there was a dense reed bed and a bush with a gap about 2 feet wide to land my feeder in, the wind was favourable with it coming off my back but it was still a difficult cast. I also had an inviting bush to my left so set up my margin pole with a short length of 20 elastic in and 0.25 to fish floating bread in the last half an hour for an odd lump.

My mix was the same as last week 40% green swim stim 40% brown swim stim and 20% brown crumb, at the all in I threw 3 pieces of bread into the bush and cast my method into the gap, I really had to punch the feeder low and hard to get under the bush on the island. I noticed the lad to my left try a similar cast but was falling well short so gave it up meaning I had the island to myself!

After 4 casts I had my first fish about 4lb and had 7 after an hour and a half which was easily winning the lake and I was on course for a 70lb weight as they are good fish. Best bait was a banded hard pellet and by now I was getting lots of liners with half an hour left I had 10 fish and noticed an odd ‘slurp’ down the edge so abandoned my feeder swim and concentrated on the bread, for the first ten mins I tore my hair out as the carpvale carp have seen it all before and can take the bread off without getting hooked!!!!! But after a few alterations I managed 5 in 20 mins and felt id fished a really good match, I weighed 62lb and won the lake by nearly 40lb!!!!

I didn’t think I’d be in the top two as Darryl Taylor had drawn the boss peg on the front lake and lee kerry had drawn a good peg albeit a bit deep. Darryl won it with 70lb and I came second with my 62lb and lee 3rd. I really enjoyed it as cyprio is just such a nice lake to fish.

The weekend was to see my last Oaks double header for a while as the team fishing starts next week, so the maggots where to get a real good go as the rumour was that it was finished so I wanted to put people right. Anyway I drew peg 73 which is rubbish! 72 is an out and out flier but is round the bend and 73 offers no cover across as there is no sedges.

I was a bit gutted to tell you the truth and with John Allerton to my right on a better peg I felt my chances of even a section win weren’t great!!!! Anyway I decided to try fishing lots of lines and build a weight instead of relying on my usual 2, I fed my usual 2-3foot line and a mud line at the start plus threw a handful of corn down the edge. I decided to feed a 5m line by hand just for a change and reasoned that I may catch 10lb off it during the day but every little would help. Rigs were a 4×12 malman elvis for the 2-3ft line on 0.10 with a 16 801 and yellow vespe, a 0.05gr dc6 with same hook/line etc for the mud line, a 4×14 malman elvis for 5m on 0.12 and a 4×10 malman snake 4 on 0.12 and 13h hollo for the corn down the side.

I kicked off in 2 ½ foot and was catching really well for 20 minutes before things went iffy, but the fish where a good stamp so I knew id be able to catch them somewhere in my peg, I caught 10 fish on the mud before that died so I decided to just feed it and not fish it till the last hour. All the time I was feeding my 5m swim by hand. I decided to try something different and fish 2 swims in the 2 ½ foot line and alternate between them to try and keep them settled, this worked an absolute treat and I caught faster than I ever could off one line as when I fed and lowered my rig the float would go straight under instead of all the line bite nonsense, they where a nice stamp f1 too.

I couldn’t see John bagging on his usual margin approach but knew he would probably catch a weight.

After 2 ½ hours I noticed a boil at 5m and it gave me the ideal opportunity to rest my across swims I had about 10 fish in as many casts shallow 5 chub(1lb each) 3 ide of a good size and 2 big f1s all in a little 10 min spell so it was well worth doing. Anyway after that it died but I fed it still just incase I needed somewhere to nick an odd fish from. My 2 foot swims where still good but the f1s started getting small, so I tried my margin swim which id been flicking 3 pieces of corn to every 5 minutes or so and it buried straight away I had 7 fish on it and was going into the last hour in a good position because my margin was good and my mud line looked alive with fish!!!!

I rested the margin and had a good 45minute bagging spell on the mud line and then nicked a few down the side in the last 15 minutes.

Id fished a really good match and felt like patting myself on the back!!!!! I weighed 72lb for 3rd and was delighted with that, Gandhi won it with 94lb shallow with Ian Bayley 2nd with 73lb ouch. But I felt id quashed the maggots dead rumours anyway.

The Sunday was a real windy affair so I really fancied been up one of the lakes arms, but wasn’t sure what to make of peg 43 when I drew it, I had the wind off my back but its never been any good and doesn’t have form. Anyway I wasn’t disheartened as there was 50 on so just aimed for 4th which is possible from every peg in my opinion. I also had Bert Poole for company to my right so we’d have some good banter if nothing else. The peg looked really nice and I decided on a similar approach to yesterday, I kicked off across and after 15 minutes tempted a small f1 and had a run of silvers but it didn’t seem right so I sacked that swim and swung right round to my left and started again hoping that’s where the f1s would be hiding, unfortunately it wasn’t and I only managed 3 before it died. And I was amazed id not seen a single bow wave on the mud line, even if its hard you usually see an odd fish there so things where not looking good!!!!

I saw a boil at 5m and caught one immediately but that was it, the extra anglers was certainly affecting the fishing. And after 2 hours I had about 15lb!!!!! Bert next door was steadily catching a few lumps and was well ahead. I decided to sack the 2 foot and 5m swims and start two swims at the base of the far shelf in 5ft of water at about 10m left and right. I thought I might catch some barbel and small f1s, It took 5minutes of heavy feeding but eventually I caught a barbel about 3lb followed by 5 f1s and a few skimmers then a couple more barbel, this was much better and my target was now 45-50lb and just aim for the section win. It wasn’t mega but steady and going into the last hour was on about 30lb, and bert was snaring em on the mud so I thought id give it a go and caught 4 mirrors straight away and probably had 20lb on it in the last hour. I ended up winning the section with 51lb with bert weighing 43lb. I was shocked as I thought he had 60lb!!!!

I was strangely pleased with that result as id done something different and it paid off, the track swim has come to my rescue a lot over the last few months and is excellent on the hard days because them smaller f1s that live down there always feed. Well that’s 16 pick ups in 16 matches and lets hope my run at Sessay continues after my break of team fishing.
The following Saturday I was to make my debut for Barnsley and was really excited but nervous at the same time, it was the first round of the Drennan Super league and was at Tydd Gote drain which is miles away somewhere near Kings Lynn!The lads thought that a good squatt match per man would be a good approach feeding two lines at 4m and 10m, also feeding chopped worms as long as you could fish and also putting some bait in on the feeder swim just to cover ourselves. I drew peg 21 and it all looked the same to me!!!!! There was a nice tinge of colour is so thought it would be a good match.

As id never fished the venue before I set up loads of rigs just to cover my options ranging from light 4×10 styl rigs to .8gr double bulk rigs, I also set a 4×18 carpa chimp on 0.16 straight through for the chopped worm swim and my 11ft powerlite feeder rod with a good sized fox feeder on and a 0.14 hook length and 14hook. My mix for the pole was 1 bag of Dynamite Baits Canal & Lake natural and one bag of Dynamites Natural Roach, this is such a nice mix and very versatile as the canal and lake can be mixed in so many different ways.

For the feeder I opted for a bag of Dynamite Original Bream and a bag of brown crumb. I had half a kilo of worms a pint of squatts, some maggots, some casters and some pinkies along with a tin of dynamites frenzied hemp. I fed 3 balls at 4m 5 at 10m and casted 6 big feeder fulls across full of worms and casters just to cover myself. I also dumped some worm and caster at 14.5m.

I kicked off at 4m and it was solid with small fish but the guy to my left was straight into a bream on the feeder, I thought id keep the blinkers on as I can claw back one bream, then as I was thinking that he was sliding another one over the landing net, I started twitching then! The guy to his left then had one so I had to have a chuck!First cast I had one 2lb then next cast had one 5lb followed by a 1 ½ lb skimmer PRESSURE OFF I thought!!!!!

I conceded the section win as the lad to my left had about 30lb in 6 casts! They were huge bream, interstingly though the guy to his left only caught one and my 3 so they must have been stragglers from the main shoal as after the first hour the tip refused to move. I just settled into a nice squatt match to just keep filling my keepnet to stay ahead of the other two in my section. But also kept having a cast incase they had returned. At the all out the lad to my left won the section and the match with 36lb! Most of that was 6 huge bream. I weighed 11lb for second in the section and 3rd in the match, was delighted and felt my first appearance went well.

Lee did really well winning his section with 7lb odd of squatt fish, Simon fields also winning his with 10lb on the squatt, Ian Bowman did consistent as ever with 2nd in his section. Unfortunately it went downhill from there as the other lads really struggled and the 4 peg sections are really cruel, we slumped to 3rd on the day with Daiwa Trentmen putting a good performance in.

I really enjoyed the venue and can see why they choose it, 75% of the pegs are wooden platforms and park behind your peg jobs so all credit to them.

On the Sunday we where going to practice at Lakeview for the following weeks round at the venue. Ive only been once before and didn’t exactly fall for the place!!!!! I did ok with 58lb but didn’t like the place.

Anyway there was a job to be done and I decided to try my maggot approach, after walking round the complex with Andy Oldham and Lee Kerry, Andy kept mentioning how wind dominated the place was and that Stream and River were very hard lakes. I was delighted then to draw river at the end that was flat calm! And after 2 hours hadn’t had a bite!!!!

Lee Thornton to my left had some ripple and caught from the off, venue expert Steve Haywood was across from me and he was also struggling, I was considering going for a walk when my float finally went under down the track, I had 7 in 7 casts down the middle, all decent mirrors then 4 across on the mud line and that was it!!!!!!! A 30 minute golden spell then back to no bites! I was well relieved at the all out and weighed in out of interest really!!!!

I put 33lb on the scales with Lee weighing 37lb and Luke Bamford 40lb in the windward corner. Neil Machin struggled down that end also. I was pleased to beat Steve Haywood as I thought I must have done something right and ended up 3rd on the lake so not a complete disaster. All the other lads learnt a few things and are well up for next week.

Anyway till next time
Tight lines