Ups and Downs!

Ey up all! I’ve loads to catch up on this week as I’ve been really busy of late and had no chance to do my blog for a while. First thing to catch up on is bank holiday weekend. I spent the full 3 days at The Oaks at Sessay just to make sure I hadn’t lost it when I fished the worm the week before!!!! Anyway on the Saturday there was only 20 on so we had loads of room, and the week before id been moaning that id not drawn up the 60’s arm for a good couple of years, so you can probably guess that I drew it!!!!!

I drew peg 65 with Ian Exley to my left on boss peg 62 so id have my work cut out to beat him, that was until I saw his bait table and he must have had 15 different baits-that’s him beat I thought to myself anyway with Ghandi on peg 45 I knew he would be very hard to beat along with Ian on 32 and Lee Kerry on 24 I reckoned a close match was in store. It was about 20 degrees with a nice light ripple on and I really really fancied my peg as it offers loads of room. I set about plumbing it up and the 2 foot line was awesome, really flat and every sedge offered identical depth, someone told me the best mud line was to my left towards a bit of wood in the peg but I found a much nicer one way down to my right at 15m. It was 10inches deep and the flattest one ive been on yet this was looking promising!

I also made a nice little hole in the weed to my left hand margin and really fancied that late on so at the all in I was really happy with my peg. Rigs where a 0.05gr carpa bully for the mudline on 0.10 and a 16 801 I also was that confident decided to put a bully rig on with 0.12 the same float but a 16 B911 and the stronger green vespe elastic. I also set a 4×12 float up for the 2 foot swim with yellow vespe and a 16 and also a margin line with a Malman Snake 4×12 on 0.12 and yellow vespe again.

Anyway I fed a potfull on the mud and went in front of the sedges and my float never moved in 20 minutes! Oh crap. I could see Ian catching a few fish so felt I needed to make a move. I never saw a single fish on my mudline so wasn’t too optimistic but 10 ide in as many casts soon got me on the right track, they faded out after about 20 fish which wont be far off 30lb and 90mins in the peg was getting stronger and stronger with f1s coming every cast and the odd mirror putting in an appearance. Right now, some people keep saying is the 0.10 and light hollow elastic really necessary when they are feeding so well, I thought this so put the heavier rig on.

Bites were definitely slower and when I did hook one the stronger elastic caused hook pulls, so in my view id rather get more bites but spend more time playing em than waiting for bites and then losing it!!!! Anyway come the last hour and nothing had eased off I was still coming back with fish every cast although it did go a little iffy on me, which led me to feeding another pot and trying the margin but that was too deep and foul hook city so that got binned!

Anyway I went back across and caught a few right to the end and had a nice bonus 6lb ghostie right on time!!!!

I knew I had a big weight but when id heard Ghandi had 116lb I didn’t think I had anywhere near that, after several weighs I ended up weighing 117lb 8oz to win the match! I was dead chuffed to get my Oaks campaign back on track after my recent blip! Roll on Sunday!

Come Sunday and I drew peg 71 which I thought would be ok but after plumbing up I was totally gutted and knew I couldn’t win from here. Its on a bend but the peg towards the island isn’t very big and I simply had one area to fish and the bottom was pants and full of weed and sedge roots that have a habit of grabbing your hook bait!!!!! I decided on a one line mud line day as I felt I wasn’t gonna compete flim flamming around so fished for lumps. I used the same rigs but used a 14 hook to mount up to 8 maggots on tail up to try and pick the better fish up.

I had a really slow start and afte half an hour was struggling but things started happening and the fish where a good stamp too. I had to be really patient and I found instead of regular feeding like normal it was best to feed a cad pot full and wait until a big lad turned up. I had a good 4th hour where I started to motor before my last hour slowed down. I actually admitted to 70lb and weighed 73lb in for 4th which wasn’t a disaster but I felt with the way the weather was it suited my approach and a better peg would have led to another win.

I wasn’t going to fish on the Monday as it was my 21st, but with the national on the horizon I decided to have another go at sessay just for the crack as I had loads of bait left as id just fished one line all weekend!!!! With 20 on we decided to run a bit of a pairs just to keep a bit of interest going and I was well chuffed to draw Tim Moran who does well at the venue and even better was that he was on peg 54 which he always seems to be on. 54 is an out and out barbel peg and regularly throws up a ton of them.

I drew peg 76 which when I saw the wind I really fancied!!!!! but with Ghandi on 32 and his partner drawin well it was going to be close again. Anyway it was a really windy day and the 70’s are normally un fishable in this situation as it’s the longest straight on the lake. I decided to go for a one line attack again as it just felt right for the past two days, I was straight into small f1s, much smaller than the average for the lake but ive always found you just need to keep catching at oaks so I was happy. Bert to my right seeemed to be catching shallow, but I just decided to plod on.

After 2 hours I had 50 fish with not one bonus fish!!!! I even rang Gareth Drury as I’d never caught this amount of the small f1s before but he assured me they seemed to live on that peg, anyway I wasn’t fussed and was loving every minute. With 5 minutes to go I saw a big ghostie swim into my peg 10 minutes later she was in my landing net all 8lb of it!My only bonus fish of the day!!!!

Tim came walking round to say he had struggled, and when I heard Ghandi had 99lb I knew we where doomed! I weighed 98lb 10oz for second in the match but with Tims 42lb we where left 10lb shy of the winning pairs weight!!!! Anyway I’d enjoyed all 3 matches and came away with good results. I decided that my winnings would be best spent on my birthday night out but never bought a drink all night which was a bonus!!!!

Anyway come Thursday and me and Ian were heading down to Somerset to practice on the Huntspill for the Division One national. We decided on arrival at about 7 to head straight for the pub and a good night was had by all!!!! Now one thing someone said to me before joining Barnsley was that you wouldn’t have as many beers with the lads etc coz they take it too seriously. This couldn’t be further from the truth and they are a brilliant set of lads!

Anyway on the Friday it was the annual army teams of 5 match held on the national venue every year. Our team was me, ian, glenn Lawrence, simon fields and tony woods. It was more of a recce though and I drew peg 173. There wasn’t a lot to report as I really struggled for bites and weighed a real measly 1lb 1oz of tiny roach, and I was left worrying that id done something really wrong!!!! (the same peg in the national produced a whopping 500gr so it cant have just been me!) so come the saturday a lot more lads were down and we were to fish the Kings Sedgemoor Drain.

It looked quite nice to be honest and I’d said to Tommy i’d like to try a small fish close in approach near the weeds as the venue was very clear. I kicked off really well and had a pound and a half before it dried up the longer swims where simply shocking and no one except roach god Simon Fields was really catching. I decided to try and get some life into my peg by adding some chopped worms and this worked a treat, Lee Kerry sat with me and he went back to try the method out and he was well pleased with it. So with my team job done I went to sit with Matt, who was catching the odd fish. Matt then asked Simon to have a go and Simon turned his peg into a fish a chuck, much more regular feeding and never leaving your rig in too long seemed the key points but either way Simon was pretty damn brilliant at it!!!!!

I unfortunately had to go home a night early and had an awful 6 hour drive home sat in traffic but it gave me time to think about the venues which I felt gave us a great chance of winning.

Come the day and we had what seemed like days of rain and how the venue wasn’t wrecked I still don’t know but anyway we where all buzzing and after drawing a nice looking small fish peg felt I had a good chance of good points. My peg offered reeds to both sides which on one side of me extended out about 13m so I was sure they would keep the small fish coming all match for good points. So I decided to feed a squatt line to my left against the reeds which I hoped would keep me ticking over all match if needed them. Also a line either side of my net in holes in the weed and a feeder line. I also fed a chopped worm swim for an eel. I lauched 8 huge cage feeders full of gear in ¾ of the way across to cover my self.

My mixes where my usual squatt mix of 50/50 Dynamite Canal and Lake Natural and Roach Natural mixed on the dry side. A feeder mix of Dynamite Bream and Brown Crumb did the trick nicely. I caught small fish straight away and after an hour had probably 30 small fish but I was worried that my reed line was becoming very slow, after 3 hours it was completely devoid of fish!!!! Now looking back I should have just sat on the tip but every runner came past said 2lb would be mega so I tried to catch that from the non existant small fish!!!! I finally came to my senses and fisherd the tip in the last hour and had 3 skimmers on it for probably a pound.

I thought with what the runners where saying I would have awesome points, until it came apparent that there was lots of anglers with one bream that would beat my 1kilo 310 effort. I eventually learned id got 39 points which wasn’t the disaster I thought it was going to be but im still kicking myself at trying make the team plan work instead of using my head and fishing the tip but hey you live and learn. Unfortunately the lack of roach feeding really put paid to our method and we finished 17th which we were all disappointed with. Starlets put in a solid performance and deserved their win.