With a Maver Pairs round to look forward to the following Wednesday, Saturday saw me book on the open match at Lindholme for a practise. The match was to be held on Oasis lake, and I fancied a few fish on worms and casters, though it wasn’t a decision I reached lightly! I had to laugh, I asked four of my angling mentors how they would fish the venue, Joe Carass replied maggots, Matt suggested pellets, Adam Richards said worms, and Andy Geldart said meat! I decided to go for worms and casters however as of all the baits above it seemed the safest bet, catching everything that swims.
I drew well, pulling out peg 66, an end peg in the crook that comes around at the top of the lake. I wanted to just fish one line and try and make it work, as in my experience worms aren’t a bait you can fish half heartedly. The problem was, the depth over the far side- it was 3 and a half feet deep up to the bank!
With that in mind, I set up a line to fish on the deck and a couple of shallow rigs. I kicked off on the deck, and took a few small barbel, and an ide, but things just didn’t seem to be happening for me, and I was getting pestered by small barbel, in the 3-4oz bracket.
With about an hour gone, I started loose feeding heavily with the catapult, with the aim of bringing fish up in the water. It worked a treat, and before I knew it I was getting an ide or F1 every chuck. I was loose feeding quite a large area, probably 3 metres square, and catching fish both off the far bank shallow at 12-13metres, and when this went quiet, by pushing the rig up to the far bank. I found around six inches was the optimum depth to catch at.
I had a quiet spell mid match, but for the last hour the swim was as solid as ever, and I ended up with about 70 fish. I had seen anglers in the early pegs catching well, and with me being last to weigh had no idea how well I had done compared to anybody else. When Neil told me I would need 98lb to make the top three, my heart sank- my 89-15-0 was only good enough for fourth on the match, and no money! Still, I had certainly learnt a few things that would help me come the Maver Pairs at the venue the following Wednesday.
Kiveton Waters
Sunday saw me drop on the open match at Kiveton Waters, and with another decent turnout, it looked like it was going to be a good match. I don’t think I have ever drawn as well at any venue as I am drawing at Kiveton at the moment.
I drew peg 34, end peg in the bowl with a lovely margin to fish down into. I opted to fish pellets in front of me at six metres, a line down the edge at 14.5 metres and a method feeder line throwing into the bowl to my right. My bait table was simple, consisting of 4mm expander pellets and fishery micro pellets.
I wasn’t ready when time was called, so I started off on the thod, and I was pleased to take a 2lb mirror first chuck. No more bites were forthcoming, so I dropped on the six metre line , and had a run of five tench and skimmers straight away. I managed to pick the odd fish up of this line, but it was really slow, and from what I could see not a lot was being caught, apart from Mick Brownell on peg one, who looked to be enjoying a run of fish on the tip.
A look down the edge produced a carp straight away, but no more and I was having to really ring the changes to keep fish going in the net. I had a good run in the last hour, but frustratingly I lost more than I landed. There were a lot of fish down the side, but I think that they were more interested in spawning than feeding.
Once again I was last to weigh in, though this time things went my way, 27lb was winning when the scales got to me, and my 32-0-0 was good enough to win the match. Im having a really good run in the Sunday matches at this venue, I have fished six and had three wins and three seconds. I have to say I am drawing my socks off though, but long may it continue!
Woodlands
We drove straight from Kiveton Waters up to The Vale of York Hotel in Thirsk, as we had a night on the ale planned. It was awesome, we all got rather drunk and had a lovely curry. The funniest event of the night/ morning is when Adam Richards laced Joes tea with Viagra, he quickly tasted the problem, and gave it to Dave Pimlott, who unsuspectingly downed it in one! I bet he had a fun day at Sessay that Monday!
There isn’t really a lot to say about Woodlands, the fish were spawining in the corners of all the lakes, making it fish very peggy. I weighed 60lb, which was good enough only third or fourth in my 10 peg section, the two corner pegs emptied it, with the chap to my right in corner peg 35 on partridge weighing in 197lb! That’s what you call a next peg battering!
The only redeeming thing in my mind was that Adam was on the same peg as me on partridge if you get what I mean, I.e one out of the corner on the same bank as me. He had a similar battering, also weighing 50 odd pound, with Mark Longhurst winning the match from the peg to his right with 207lb!
Maver Pairs
I had a day off on Tuesday to prepare for the Maver Pairs qualifier at Lindholme the following day, we have never taken a match so seriously, I stopped at Matts that night, and we drank tea all night, and never even thought about having a beer!
We were up and off bright eyed and breezy that morning, and after a hearty breakfast we arrived at the venue to join the 36 other pairs in the draw queue. There were some good uns to beat as well, with Steve and Geoff Ringer, Alan Scotthorne and Steve Barraclough, Adam Wakelin and Jason LeBosqeut, Steve Rothery and Johnny Kenning, and Grant Albutt and his partner to name just a few.
We had agreed that I was to fish Oasis and Matt Bonsai. We were chuffed to death with our draws, with Matt pulling peg 69 on Bonsai, and me 35 on Oasis, both can only be described as fliers!
My game plan was to fish chopped worm and caster and have a meat line down my peg, as from what I had heard a lot of bigger fish had been caught on this on the previous Saturday, and Andy Geldart had caught on meat from the peg I was on on the Sunday.
The good thing about my peg was that I had a corner all to myself, but the bad thing was I was facing away from everyone in my section, so I had no idea how I was going on compared to everyone else.
I had a reasonable first couple of hours, catching ide fairly steadily. It was clear that there were nowhere near as many feeding fish in my peg as there had been the previous Saturday, but by keeping the bait trickling in I was managing to tempt the fish that were there into having a munch. I felt I had made the right decision to fish worms as my main line, as not only was the worm more resistant to the venue small barbel attacking it, but also it meant I could feed more keeping bait going through the water knowing it was getting eaten by the smaller fish which were in turn drawing bigger fish into my peg.
In the second half of the match, my lines seemed to quieten off, and to keep bites coming I had to fish three lines and rotate them, but I was still feeding a full kinder pot and wasn’t generally having to wait to long for a bite, even if it was off a microbarbel!
I spoke to Matt halfway through the match, and he told me he was struggling from what he could see, and with me having no idea how I was doing compared to the rest of the people in my section, we knew we just had to keep plugging away and hope for the best.
Mark Rodgers to my left had a good run of fish late on on the meat, and I was praying he wasn’t in my section, especially when Matt rung me up about 10 minutes after the match to tell me he had won Bonsai with 68lb!
The weigh in started at the top end of the lake, and I was relieved to see Mark was the last peg in the first 10 peg section, and I was the first peg in the second. Mark won the early section with 56lb, and I recorded 49-12-0, and so began an agonising walk around the lake watching everyone weigh in and praying they hadn’t beat me.
Fortunately they hadn’t, though Steve Foster on the other end peg 66 ran me close with 39lb. This meant that we tied with Mark Rodgers and Pete Reilly who also had two section wins, but we beat them on weight with 117lb to there 116lb. Phew!!
We were amazed how good the payout was, we picked up £50 each for winning our sections, and £500 for being the winning pair, as well as Matt getting an extra £50 off Neil for beating Steve Barraclough who was on the golden peg, he did him by 4ozs, and if he hadn’t it would have cost Neil £1000! That meant we came out with £325 each, we dropped our tackle off and went straight to the pub, and more than made up for our night tea drinking the night before. I was absolutely shattered at work the next day!
I have got to work Saturday, but am planning on heading back to Lindholme on Sunday for a bash at the pole champs, I will update on how I get on next week.
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Well done Tom a cracking read as always and all the best for the final.
The old blue pill trick cost pimmy about 10lb of fish on the Bank Holiday Monday match, he complained afterwards that he kept bumping fish off cos he kept hitting his “unexplainable” bulge every time he started shipping back !!!!. On a more serious note, dave takes tablets for high blood pressure and its pretty dangerous to take those pills whilst on that medication, I would watch out what you drink in future Joe
i couldnt believe it cos we had just been saying to him about it and i said so do want it and he just necked it lol
Hey up Meatloaf I hope Pimmy didnt piss all over your clothes again
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Stewart
