Decisions

Making the correct decisions is key to success in match fishing and this week I only managed to get it right in one match out of three! Talking to some other anglers at various venues, I find that I am not alone in making the wrong decisions. I can assure you there has been much discussion with my old mate Mr Hindsight, who as we all appreciate is the best angler in the world. I have had three nice matches though and it was great to be finally fishing in a polo shirt rather than under layers of bulky clothing!

Trewaters

Saturday down at the farm was the first out of the three when I got it wrong. I will admit to being a bit tired after a 900 mile round trip that I made  over the few days prior to the match but to be fair my thinking would have probably have been the same. Thirteen turned up for the match which meant I had to peg three pegs in a row rather than two anglers and miss a peg which would have given everybody a spare peg. Steve Bass volunteered to draw for me and he pulled out peg 34 which was the middle of the three in a row, that’s another one sacked from that task! To be honest I was pleased with the draw as the wind was favourable. I really wanted to fish the waggler and I now had the ideal swim.

I had Harry Billing for company on peg 36 so was going to be up against it, a brilliant angler on a very good peg is a hard combination to beat. I also had Wayne ‘Wrong Lake’ on 34 and he was happy as I made sure he was on the right lake today! I set up to fish the pole with my normal rigs of .4gram and .6gram SPRO midwater floats plus a .2 gram that I intended to fish down the edge with. My main line of attack was the waggler and I had a 3AAA waggler for the job. I was using some new Cralusso sinking waggler line which I was keen to put through its paces. Hook was a size 18’s T213 to a.12 hook length shotting was simply a couple of number 9’s down the line. I had put my faith in red maggot for this swim.

Feed for Bream

Now I had noticed that there was some very fishy looking bubbles coming up between Wayne and myself which I had a feeling were skimmers so at the start I fed some YB Green Betaine mixed with around 30% micro pellets to my left hoping to attract them all into my swim! I also fed neat micro to my right in case they didn’t want the GB. Both Wayne and Harry started on the method whilst I cast the wag and lightly sprayed maggots towards the island. Wayne started like he was going to walk the match catching a good few small F1’s whilst Harry and I remained fishless. In fact in that first 30 minutes I think I had a small roach and a missed bite and Harry had a small F1, not what we were hoping for.

Harry went onto the pole and was soon catching plenty of fish at 5m they were small F1’s but they were coming quick and eventually I had no choice but to have a look on the pole line. Going over the GB I never had a bite, which is the first time this has happened to me at Trewaters I normally catch well over the crumb. On the other side I managed to pick up a few skimmers but it was very slow. Harry was sacking! Wayne had slowed down after his good start and was also struggling on his pole lines.

Wag and mag

I went with my initial decision of the waggler convinced in my mind that I could make it work!  It just didn’t happen I managed a few small F1’s but was plagued with small roach and tiny perch I just could not believe that the carp were not there. I eventually changed bait completely to 6mm hard pellet and this worked in as much as I no longer was catching small fish but I was now not getting any bites!

They were down the edge

Fishing the last 90 minutes down the edge I had a great end to the match catching the bulk of my 25lb weight it was made up of quality skimmers and some nice F1’s that took a liking to corn. Oh man why didn’t I try this line earlier?  The match was won by Andy Partridge who had no problem making the decision to fish down the edge finishing with a fantastic 72lb followed by Harry with 56lb; there were several other 40lb weights making it a very good match.

Gwinear

On Sunday I ventured to the Gwinear open match, again there was low turnout but enough to make it an AT Cornish qualifier with a dozen fishing and with plenty of room a good day was expected. I had my dip and found peg 40 in my hand which I wasn’t too disappointed with. My immediate thoughts were a two pronged attack, the bar at around 13m where I planned to fish on the deck in around 5’ of water and shallow anywhere from half depth to really shallow. My other line was going to be the waggler around the middle of the lake again both up and down. Simple I thought, after all I had been catching like this all winter and now we have had some sunny days things could only get better.

I fished exactly as planned dripping pellets onto the bar and pinging them to the middle of the lake. Everything seemed perfect apart from the response from the carp; I just could not get a bite! In fact the opening 30 minutes was slow for everybody with little caught. Mark Lazell started to get the odd one from 36 and surprisingly Andy on peg 38 started to get some on the pole fishing in the deep water. This had not happened all winter and now the water temperature was rising the carp had seemed to move into the deep water, really strange. I was convinced my plan was a good one and persevered falling further and further behind. In fact with over half the match gone I had lost one fish on the waggler which decided to come off at the net.

Oh man, what do you do?

I felt I had two options left and they were an early bath or cast around with a small feeder looking for them. I decided to stay and took a rod out of my holdall; it was already assembled so I was fishing again in no time. Casting around to my left and right resulted in no indications so I decided to go just passed the middle as the halfway rule had been relaxed for this match. Whilst pouring a coffee and scratching the head the rod was nearly dragged off the rest, unbelievably I had my first fish with three hours gone of the match!

After that I caught fish steady until the end of the match finishing with 25lb. They were not going berserk but casting and waiting would inevitably result in a fish. There were no liners or indications just a sudden grab for the rod as a small carp grabbed the bait. What a strange match that one was and again a wrong decision at the start. The lake was won by Andy with 45lb which left me kicking myself again as I know I was 20lb away if I had worked it out earlier it could have been much closer. Phase 1 and 3 fished slightly better with Chris Hancock winning overall from peg 31 on phase 3 fishing the dollop.  Skip McCabe took the verdict with around 40lb from peg 12 on phase 1.

Tsunami at Mawgan Porth!

I had a call from Janet at Mawgan Porth on Monday afternoon telling me that a few had booked on for the Tuesday match and I decided then to have a trip out into the country as the place is fishing really well. There was never going to be loads there as the Milo festival is taking place at the moment but as long as there were 8 or so I didn’t mind. When I came to have my dip I could see from the draw sheet that pegs 41 and 8 were left in the bag, I confidently predicted peg 41 hoping I would draw 8 but I ended up on 41 never mind it is a really good peg but to be honest they all were potential winners.

Early yellow Card

I had Nigel Taylor aka Tourettes fishing opposite me on peg 6 he was asking a few questions about the peg. I told him to be careful plumbing as it was difficult getting a weight through the carp to the bottom on that peg. I received an interesting answer and immediately had to wave a yellow card at him as a lady was sitting next to her husband on the next peg to me. I have to admit that after that he was well behaved, most of the time!

My now normal Mawgan Porth rigs of J3 floats were quickly assembled and I plumbed several areas of my swim, settling on a line in front of me at 3m and back up lines at 4 and 6m. I also had a rig for fishing down the edge to my left. I had plenty of 4mm fishery pellets and garlic micros plus some 6mm hookers and a tin of corn. At the start of the match I went out on the short line in front of me and was quickly up to around 15 fish before it started to slow. I could see the water colouring up down my left margin where I had been feeding so I had a go on that line, a few carp took the bait but it was slow. I stuck with it as they were larger samples. After a further 30 minutes I felt I was waiting too long so started another line at around 4m out and was catching again  but I couldn’t seem to get the fish to settle properly.

Lost Sections

Larger carp were venturing into the margins and they kept drawing me onto that line, the water was fairly clear and the magnification effect made them look bigger than they were but I couldn’t resist having a go for them! I found myself waiting quite awhile for a bite and in reality the match was drifting away but I kept getting the odd one which kept my interest.

I was concentrating on my float and I heard a loud shout of ‘OH NO’ just as I struck into a larger fish and I saw Wayne Wrong Lake standing upon peg 42 waving goodbye to his top four as it was been towed by one of the lake residents! I actually had the impression that he was trying to part the water just like Moses as he held out his hand in horror. He was now frantically trying to make a decision of his own! When the water didn’t part allowing him to walk onto the lake bed and get his sections he decided to jump into the shallow water which caused an almighty tsunami which affected every swim in the lake! It was funny to watch as we all laughed with Wrong Lake. There were quite a few hilarious comments and Tourettes received another warning during the episode. The worst thing about it was that I lost my fish as I was laughing so much!

Correct decision!

After that I made my decision to leave the edge alone, I have long held the belief that if you can see fish in your swim they are difficult to catch so I decided follow my own advice and  start another swim further down my peg. I was hoping the tsunami had moved some fish down to me. This was best decision I made in the match, within 20 minutes the peg was solid and it was literally a carp as soon as I could get back in the water. Towards the end of the match I was catching them shallow which not only speeded things up the size of fish improved as well.

It was a fantastic match and I finished with 111 carp which surprisingly pulled the scales around to 157lb 12oz. Tourettes is on a good run at the moment and his 117lb 13oz was good enough for second Rob Reynolds was third with 114lb 1oz from Eddie Webb who just failed to make the ton on his first visit to the venue.

Until next time I hope you make the correct decisions and enjoy the sport on offer as spring finally arrives.