By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Sunday, February 17, 2008

As I said in my last post there are few times in the match fishing year when the drawbag plays as important an aspect on the outcome of the match as it does when the water turns cold.

Of course this is not altogether a bad thing, if you are on the fish it can be fantastic, you can have one of the best days fishing you have ever had. The problem is, when your not on them there is very little you can do, as the chances are there are few or even no fish in your peg.
The last few weeks has, in that regard been fairly typical of winter fishing, with some really good results offset against some really bad ones. I got the new year off to a reasonable start with two decent results in open matches in the first weekend in January. Along with Keith Higginbottom, I decided to try my hand in one of the open matches on Woodlands Fishery at Barlborough.

I drew what looked to be an average peg on the straight back bank of the venue, with an island at around 14.5 metres. I plumbed up six different lines, at different points around my swim which I hoped would allow me to fully explore my swim, and find out where if anywhere the carp were holding in my swim.

I started the match at around six metres down the track, and had a small skimmer within seconds of my float settling. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly encouraged by this, as experience tells me that usually when there are smaller fish in your peg there aren’t a deal of carp!

A look long to the bottom of the ledge produced nothing, and with just a skimmer and a roach in the net at the end of the first hour I wasn’t exactly optimistic, as Dave Hooper who was pegged second from the end on the island had four carp in the net already. My only option was to keep plugging away and hope I found a few fish late on in the day.

Having tried a few different points in the peg, I decided to have a look to the left of my swim. The float settled, and then buried, and soon after I slipped the net under my first carp of the day. Another carp followed soon after, and it seemed everytime I dropped over that particular part of my swim I would get a bite, if I dropped it anywhere else in the peg, the float wouldn’t budge. There was no shortage of fish either, when I dropped it in the right spot I was coming back with a fish within five minutes.

I won the match with 43lb, with the kid to my left coming second with 23lb- There were obviously a few fish in the area!

The next day, I headed up to Lindholme in the open match, and again had a good day. Wind and torrential rain were pushing down the lake, making it almost impossible to present a bait at any sort of length. For this reason, I opted to fish the pole short at six metres, and though it was hard I managed to put together at 23-0-0 bag of stockies for third in the match and another handy £70.00 pick up.

A couple of weeks later, and I saw the other side of the coin however, I sat biteless for five hours in a peg I must say I fancied for a few lumps, but sadly it just didn’t happen for me.

It was in the Winter League on Lakeside Fisheries, Ranskill and all winter it has proved to be a venue of two halves, in that when the carp have fed certain pegs have dominated, but at harder times, the carp pegs have produced nothing (and I mean nothing, at times there have been up to 15 blanks) while obviously the silver fish pegs produced well.

I don’t feel in retrospect that there is anything I could of done to catch. People either side of me blanked as well, so I guess its just one to mark off as a bad draw.