It’s a Funny Old Game

The Sunday open at Gwinear saw me on peg 21 on Phase Three, it’s one of Chris Hancock’s favourite pegs and he was keen to give me some advice on how to fish it. He suggested a serious look down the edge to my left under the bush. It looked like a great margin swim and with a couple of pegs empty I really fancied it for a few. Looking to my left I could still see the wagging finger of Dave Gain who had drawn peg 27, I tried to avoid looking in his direction, just in case! Opposite to my left I had Chris and to my right sat Roger Baker. My tackle consisted of a method rod and a few pole rigs, I felt I couldn’t ignore the method as it had been taking the place apart recently especially on the other two pools with weights approaching the 200lb mark reported in one memorable match.

My pole tackle was to target the margins both left and right; it was slightly deeper to my right which necessitated another rig, never mind it would also do as a spare. The remainder of my rigs were for fishing at 5m on the deck and shallow. I wanted to start on the pole but I was going to watch the others to see if it was going to be a day on the thod. At the all in it was straight out on the 5m line after feeding the margins via pole cup. I expected an early fish but surprisingly no bites came in the opening few minutes. It was quiet on our lake but I could see North East star Andy Dargue’s elastic coming out of his pole on Phase Two as ne netted fish, it looked like he was having a brilliant start to the match!

The method wasn’t producing that much on our lake so I stuck to fishing the deck at 5m at least I was getting the odd carp and a few bites by now. I saw Chris quickly change tactics as he picked up his margin rig and I presumed he saw some activity down the edge. He was soon playing a carp which made me glance down at my edge; I saw a vortex as a carp left a tail pattern in the water. I didn’t really want to go down the edge this early but after Chris had around three and my 5m line wasn’t producing consistently I was forced to give it a try and follow the leader.

Lost fish frustrations

This quickly turned into one of those matches that I wanted to forget as I lost a procession of carp! Some looked like they were hooked properly as well, really frustrating as the hook pulls just before the fish slips into the landing net. I just could not work it out; perhaps there were just too many fish in my swim. The margin is quite shallow and the fish insist on coming very close to the bank despite me not feeding within 18’’ of the grass. I tried fishing well away from my feed but that didn’t improve things. I managed to land the odd fish but the count was definitely in favour of the fish! On one occasion the pole was practically ripped out of my hand, the take was so violent as a fish hooked it’s self, I followed it out as it swam quickly into the main body of the lake, I just could not get any spare sections on and found myself in a top three challenge! My elastic bottomed out and I felt that sickening twang as the fish made good its escape, I saw the elastic shooting back into my pole and noticed that there was no rig attached, Oh man not what you want to see, the Dacron connector had actually detached from my elastic, I was not impressed!

Picking up my spare rig I quickly adjusted the depth and went back down the edge under the tree, I  had another indication straightaway and lifted the pole, as the line was now longer between the pole top and float I ended up stuck fast in the branches, seemingly fishing for squirrels, I really wanted to scream in frustration! I had to get off my box to try and free my rig. You can imagine my surprise as I crawled down the edge and actually found my rig that had twanged off minutes earlier; it was curled up neatly on the bank complete with the Dacron connector attached!  I thought my luck was changing, that was until I went to sit down again and a strong gust of wind blew my fourth section into the lake, aarrrrgh! Never mind, one mustn’t grumble, must we?

The match was drawing to a close and I decided to leave those edge dwellers alone. I went back on the 5m line which fortunately I had fed by hand for the duration and it was solid! I had a really good last 40 minutes catching first on the deck and then much shallower on the same line, it really was an enjoyable end to a very frustrating match. The scales came around and I was surprised to weigh 82lb I actually thought I had around half that as I had lost so many!

Splodging

It was a case of stripping down to the shreddies and paddling around at the end of the match looking for my lost section, which I am pleased to say I managed to find around a metre from the bank, at least it wasn’t an expensive day! Back at the car park I was absolutely astounded when Chris called my name out in third place! Andy Dargue won the match with around 120lb followed by Chris Hancock with 95lb. I just know in my heart that I threw away a winning peg that day, if only I could have worked out how to fish it properly! But I have to say I drove home giggling to myself at some of the things that had happened.

St Mawgan on Tuesday

Tuesday arrived and I was back at Mawgan Porth which was fast becoming the Wayne Panting show, he had won two further matches since my previous visit! I drew peg 37 which I wasn’t unhappy about as there is plenty of room on this peg, it is getting towards the deep water. Having said that, Wayne had drawn peg 16 so he was also in deeper water. My match started steady enough catching carp at top kit plus one on the deck, I was feeding micros via tosspot and also loose feeding as I expected them to come up in the water today. I think I got to around 30 carp for around 45lb when things started to slow down I guess we were around 90 minutes into the match.

I never really got into a steady rhythm for the remainder, the cooler weather and rain of late seemed to be having an effect on the fish. I found myself searching around my swim catching a few before they backed off. Interestingly enough I could not catch well next to the weed, which I had as a bit of a banker. Towards the end of the match I found by fishing at 6m to my left towards the shallower end of the lake I managed another run of carp which was a nice end to the match. It was obvious that the lake had not fished as well as we all expected.  I was winning with around 100lb as the scales disappeared around the other side towards that fish catching machine known as Wayne Panting! Once again he managed to conjure up those extra few carp and won again with around 110lb Brilliant fishing, well done Wayne.

Happy Birthday Carps

I was invited to help Paul Carpenter celebrate his birthday with a match at Milemead fishery and I was really keen to get back to this Devon complex and have a fish, I haven’t managed to get there in what seemed a very long time which is a shame as it’s a fantastic fishery. I had made a few calls and found out that quite a few methods were viable and that included the method, pellet waggler, paste and corn and pellet, as with most commercial fisheries the margins were really important. So no shocks really. It was nice to meet up in the car park and say hello to a few people that I hadn’t seen in awhile, most were engaged in some good humoured banter and no surprises a few  comments were aimed at the birthday boy. Before long and it was down to business and Karen, Pauls much better half got the show on the road by calling everybody to the bag of dreams. There were some really smiling faces leaving the shop after the draw, seemingly all the flyers coming out of the bag early. My dip put me on peg 19 and I was told it was a good peg the same response as everybody else got! I soon found I was next to Paul and we were on a point, Tony Williams the ‘Cornish Yam Yam’ was directly behind me and also next to Paul, so we were in for an interesting match on the banter front!

I had an island which at its nearest point to me was around 17m and extended to around 19m as I looked slightly to my left. There was a gap in the rushes on the island of around a metre and looked very inviting for a method chuck, so that was the first thing that I set up. I also assembled pole rigs to fish at 17m tight to the island and fortunately the same rig was perfect for the margin to my right. The last thing I set up was a 6m line with a 4 x 14 float to fish the pellet. Bait for the method was micro pellet and 6mm and 8mm for the hook. The method caused me a small problem as when I arrived at the venue I found out that hook lengths had to be a minimum of 6’’ and all mine were tied at 4’’ the worst thing was most of my spare nylon was at home as I was getting ready for a festival at Larford. I did have some .18 Cralusso rig line with me so tied some hooks up on the bank.

Great start on the island

At the start I fed some micros and pellets at 6m and cast a method towards the island, I had a carp fairly quickly which is always a nice feeling. But the third carp tore off to the left into some stick ups and snapped me, which is not such a nice feeling! It was obviously slower changing the hook length as I had to tie a new one. After I had done this 6 time or so I was getting a bit fed up with getting snapped, especially as my hook box contained plenty on strong line but they were too short. In the end I rummaged around in my carryall and found an old spool of .22 so tied a hook on this line, that sorted the problem and I was soon taking prisoners with none making good their escape!

It’s all gone quiet on the Yam Yam front!

There was a lot of fish been caught around the lake and my neighbours were doing their bit, towards the end of the match Tony was catching really well, I realised he was catching as he had gone quiet! I had a few fish from my pellet line on the pole but after the first decent skimmer I was plagued by small fish. My edge line didn’t really kick in until the last 20 minutes when it was absolutely solid and could not get in quick enough!

I am getting to like these birthday matches as I managed to weigh 85lb 13oz which was good enough to take the verdict but only just from Mark Cullerton who had 80lb 5oz followed by the Cornish Yam Yam himself who had 76lb. It was a really good days fishing, made all the more pleasant by Karen who did a great job organising the day, she even brought sandwiches to everyone on the bank and put on a buffet afterwards. Everybody stayed on for an hour or so afterwards, I hope Paul enjoyed it as much as I did!

The Pasty Match

The Wednesday evening Gwinear match found Gwinear on top form but personally I found it very frustrating. I drew peg 27 on Phase Three a really nice peg, the evening was fantastic weather wise and when I got to my peg there were fish everywhere! I assembled rigs to fish the margins and at 5m and it was 5m where I started. I hooked a really nice sized Common after about 5 minutes; it was over 5lb which is a very good fish for Gwinear. But just before I slipped the net out under it the hook pulled! Now if that is not bad enough it happened to me on quite a few other occasions. What’s more frustrating is the hook looked to be in the mouth! It happened on different rigs as well so it was not a hook problem. I can accept it when the fish is fouled and lost but when hooked properly it drives me bonkers; there were lots of ‘Oh man’ expressions from the Lister camp that night! I just could not work it out. Steve Gardner told me years ago when I was telling him about losing big Roach that were seemingly hooked in the mouth, ‘that they were having it ‘too well’ and the hook was catching in the soft flesh in the throat and pulling out when that slight extra pressure is applied as the fish comes to the net. I couldn’t help but remember that conversation and wonder if the same is possible with carp? Anyway suffice to say I lost loads that evening but I also caught quite a few from both the margins and the 5m line on the deck and shallow plus some from down the edge.

Arthur ‘The Hat’ Turner is fast becoming the man to beat on these evening matches and once again he triumphed from peg 36 with 104lb 8oz followed by Stato Thomas who had 97lb level I managed third place with 74lb. It really is a great evenings fishing, just a shame that the nights are drawing in.