An F1 Stickle-back!!!

Last Sunday saw me down at the local BW Kiveton Waters fishery after a few weeks of good fishing down there. He wind was blowing the same way as usual and the bottom end looked favourable. I drew peg 23, a decent peg, and I fancied it from there.

It was the usual tactics, pellets and pellets, and some pellets for the hook. I set up three rigs. My two pellet rigs were 0.3 gram Crallusso Capri floats, set up identical on 0.13 line straight through to a 16 B911, shotted with a bulk and two droppers. One of these was to fish at 13m, and the other for around 7 sections. I fed a small handful of pellets over both lines at the off, and planned to just keep it going in with a kinder pot or the catty.

I also plumbed up at 4m, with a caster rig, and planned to loosefeed caster here for some silvers to start on.

I had half an hour on the short line, catching probably 3lb of bits, Rudd, Roach and skimmers.I then moved out onto the 7sections line, which was dead!!! Nobody seemed to be catching, except the local Drawbag Daz opposite me, and Paul Massey on peg 1 was getting a few. Around an hour in I had my first small carp on pellet but things were really slow all the way round the lake.

I tried my 13m swim to no avail. I decided to try a small piece of worm over the short line, which brought a run of three fish. I don’t know if it was the worm or just a few fish there. Daz did however put me off and scare me a bit, which could have contributed to the quiet spell, as he shouted across some comment about homosexuality and bums. He’s a bit dodgy in that way.

I tried a few things, but nothing seemed to work, so I decided to catch a few silvers, and then keep having a look for carp for 5 minutes.

I HAD A MASSIVE STICKLE BACK!!! It must have been crossed with an F1. It was huge, and I foul hooked it. I put it im my casters for the rest of the match so I could show it Tom. It put a reyt scrap up on that Number 9 hollow, I’m going to step up to brown hydro for the sticklebacks down there, especially if im foul hooking ‘em!

I kept at this for the rest of the match, using a light 4×10 Tamas Walter float, on 0.12 lines and an 18 hook. It wasn’t fast by any means, bit the Rudd were like 4oz so worth catching on the hard day.

At the weigh in I managed 6 small carp, a tench and my silvers for 17lb 12oz.

I finished up fourth on the match with that, sneaking the section win. That stickleback made all the difference. Paul Massey won the match with 31lb from peg 1, but I still can’t believe Daz didn’t break the world match record of that peg. He did come 2nd though with a high 20lb.
My mission o get my dad back into match fishing is going well too, he won his section with 9lb! If he gets any better im guna start tying knots in his hooklengths. Tom drew a Grueller, peg 18, and was cursing. We all decided to go for a pub meal afterwards too, 5 smelly fishermen, the landlady wasn’t too pleased, but the steak was reyt good!!!