By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Tuesday, August 5, 2008

After a weekend off fishing I was itching to get back into the fold, and having won at Charnock in the Thursday evening match the week before, come this thursday I was watching the clock all day, and praying for five O’clock to come!

There were a few new faces on the match this week, with ‘Mr Three Times’ (Matt Godfrey), Pete Stanley and Jake Dye all putting in their debut appearance at the venue. To add a bit of extra interest to proceedings we have had a £5 biggest fish pool for the last couple of weeks, and with all eight anglers going in it this was worth £40, the same as winning the match, so I anticipated quite a few anglers fishing for the lumps!

My decision as to how to fish was made a whole lot easier when I stuck my hand in the bag and pulled out peg 14- the same peg I won off last week! To say I was quite chuffed with this draw was an understatement, I really fancied it!

Matt had drawn peg five, and had a fair bit of room but its not been the best of areas in previous matches, but with his current form I knew he would make the best of it!

I decided to stick with my trusty maggot approach, and Matt had picked us up eleven pints between me him and Jake so we had more then enough to go at! I had a worryingly slow start, with Matt putting five fish in the net before I had my first bite, then I hooked and lost a carp and it looked like it was all going pear shaped. Fortunately, things picked up from there, and I reckon it was the carp that had stopped the ide from feeding, and with him out the way I started to catch steadily.

Every time I looked up I saw Matt’s elastic coming out so I knew it was close between us, and with him feeding by big pot and me feeding via a kinder cup he was moving quicker than me, so I had to hope some bigger fish moved in, which they tend to do on the peg to be honest. Sure enough, half way through I had a couple of carp, one about 4lb and one about 2lb, then it was back to business as usual with the ide.

At the end of the match I reckoned I had 25-30lb, and the scales confirmed this, with the fish weighing 30lb dead. My biggest fish went 4-12-0 narrowly pipping the 4-4-0 specimen weighed in by Mark Cooper.

I lead in both fields all the way round the lake, but Matt was the last to weigh so I didn’t want to get my hopes up too early, not that it matters really as we were sharing, but everybody likes individual glory! Luckily for me, Matt’s fish weighed in just short at 28-3-0, which was comfortably good enough for second but not quite enough to pip me! He fished a blinder considering he was in what has been a bad area, and I did draw ‘the peg’ so I can’t take too much credit! We picked up £96 between us, so it was a satisfying three hours work however!

We would have celebrated our clean sweep with a pint but they wouldn’t serve us, which I suppose I should take as a complement, so it was a pint of cheap lemonade and then back off home for a Chinese for tea!

Saturday saw round seven of the Ranskill Summer League at Lakeside Fisheries Ranskill, and after a disappointing second in section last time, I was looking to pull a few points back on league leader Nigel Wheatcroft, who was missing the round with another angler fishing in his place, there was a good turnout of 34 anglers

I drew peg 33, which is one of the few pegs at Ranskill I have never fished, but I had a couple of spare pegs and I could see a few carp moving in the corner so I have to say I fancied it. I decided to fish three lines, a short pole line with the worm which would be my main attack for the silvers, a line on my top four down the side, which can be good for the venues big skimmers, and a bomb and pellet line under the platform of peg 34, which is opposite 33 on the back bank.

I had a reasonable first couple of hours putting around 20lb of mixed silvers in the net while feeding my bomb line, I had an unsuccessful couple of chucks on the line so kept feeding it while keeping some silvers going in the net. With about three hours gone the tip pulled round and I had my first carp, it was around 4lb and I hoped it was the start of good things to come!

There wasn’t a great deal of activity on the bomb line until an hour and a half from the end however, but at this point I was getting more liners and so decided to sit it out on this for the last part of the match. I caught well in the last hour, taking another eight carp, I didn’t seem to be able to get it in quick enough! I ended up with 76-10-0 which was enough to win the match by a couple of pounds, with Gary Brookes finishing second with 74-0-0. I had one last chuck that weighed 3lb, which proved very valuable!

To make matter even better, the lad fishing for Nigel finished last in his section, so I clawed back some valuable points and moved into the lead in the league.

Take Me To The River!

On Sunday it was the practice match for the third round of the Drennan Superleague on the River Aire. Having never seen the place before, I picked the brains of Matt and the other Triana lads and they painted a picture of a very daunting and patchy river, telling me in some pegs you can’t fish seven metres to hand as its too deep!

After driving around half of East Yorkshire trying to find the pub where the draw was to be held, I eventually got there, and pulled out peg 19 on the Wheatsheaf length, fortunately I had Triana’s team captain Brian Hawkes on the next peg to show me where to go, and at least I had someone to talk to if the fishing wasn’t up to much!

The bank was appalling, pretty much ruling out a long pole attack as I had to climb down something of a cliff face to get too my peg, meaning I would have had to unship every section individually if I wanted to fish pole conventionally, for this reason I decided to fish top six to hand in around 18 feet of water. I also set up a feeder rod, which I planned on fishing two thirds of the way across the river with groundbait and maggots.

At the all in I put six babies heads on the pole line, laced with casters and maggots, before kicking off on the feeder. I got bitten off second chuck by what I presume was an eel or a pike, which turned out being the only bite I had on the tip all day.

I went on the pole after around an hour and had a golden spell, where I had a big skimmer, a perch an eel and lost an eel in successive puts in before the swim seemed to die. To cut a long story short, that was my day, I had two more tiny skimmers on the pole later on, but that was all.

Bryan had a similarly tough time, though interestingly he caught all his fish on the tip, while I had all mine on the pole. When the scales came, Brian recorded 880 grams which I thought had done me, but my fish weighed heavier than I thought and pulled the needle round to 920 grams, which put me third in my ten peg section, but sadly not good enough to pick up any coin. A bad day at the office for both of us!

The chap two pegs below me bagged up on the tip, taking 9 kilo odd of big bream and eels, but the kid in between us never had a bite on the tip either, so I couldn’t help but think he had been sat on a shedfull!

In hindsight, I would have made the effort to fish the pole longer, and the feeder shorter, and probably fished a bigger hook and bigger line on the tip with a bigger bait, as you want to land whatever you hook, and looking at some of the monsters that the chap two down from me was landing you need the gear on to get them out!

All in all though, I can only conclude that we weren’t in the best of areas, and who knows what a better draw may have produced. I have to say I really enjoyed it though, and look forward to having another go at fishing it.

Tight Lines!

Tom

Popularity: 19% [?]