Downhill Fast…

Apologies for the delay in updating my blog, I have had loads on over the last few weeks. I have recently had to reduce my hours at my main job at Click Bathrooms due to the recession, and have been offered a job repping for Mosella in the time that’s become free, so I have had loads on getting things sorted.

I will start with the venues I have done best on over the last few weeks and work my way down! I have fished three of the evening matches at Carterhall fisheries since my last post, and the venue has continued to be kind to me. After making the mistake of forgetting my pole as I documented in my last blog, I have been far more careful when I have loaded the car the last two weeks!

I have drawn the same peg on two of my last three visits, and have been lucky enough to win the match on both occasions, although I have caught in different ways each time. Two weeks ago, I decided to fish long up to the island at 16 metres, as I remember Matt Godfrey catching in this way earlier on in the year. There were a lot of ide there, and I ended up catching them shallow, and bringing them back to 13 metres where I managed to catch them fairly quickly. I ended up with 33lb, with Cliff Glover coming second with 25lb.

The week after, the wind was horrendous, and fishing long simply wasn’t an option. Instead, I opted to fish short, and try and catch the ide there. I didn’t really have a choice to be honest!

At first, I was getting pestered by roach and rudd, but after about half an hour the ide started to bully them out of the way. It wasn’t hectic, but I was catching steadily, though I did have to follow the fish out as the dropped and the fish backed off later in the session. At the all out, I didn’t think I had enough to beat young Jake, who looked to be catching well on boss peg 15. It turned out it was enough however with Jakes net going 23-0-0 and mine 31-12-0.

Jake had his revenge last night however. I drew the golden peg, and he beat me into second place by just eight ounces. I was on peg 15, and caught really well for the first hour and half, but then it started chucking it down, and everyone seemed to stop catching, Jake managed three good ide in the last half hour to pip me. He really is gonna squeel like a pig when we get him in that caravan at White Acres.

Fusion

The night matches at Fusion ponds have been altogether more cruel to me however. Again I have drawn the same peg twice, but I believe the one I have been on is the worst on the lake to be honest. The reason for this is that 47 is the shallowest peg on the lake, and the better bream and skimmers just don’t want to live there. They seem to come onto the plateau as the light levels drop in the last half an hour of the match, as both times I and the anglers around me have been plagued by small fish, and then have caught skimmers only in the last half an hour.

Thankfully in between these two near last placings I have managed a second placing when fellow Fishing4fun blogger Stewart Lister was up staying with us. I drew peg 29, which is a much better peg in deeper water, and managed some bream for 13lb, which meant I tied with Stewart! I genuinely believe that the drawbag is more important than it ever has been at Fusion this year, if you don’t draw on fish you don’t catch, there are too many good anglers struggling.

Lindholme

I have also fished two rounds of the UK Pole Champs since my last post, and its going to sound like excuse on top of excuse but again I feel I’ve been a bit unlucky not to pick up. I drew on Laurels in a corner a couple of weeks ago, and was plagues by barbel and little F1’s, while those on the points caught the bigger F1’s, with Matt Pillay winning my section with 83lb. I spoke to a couple of anglers who live on the venue, including Matt Pillay and John Allerton and both told me you need to be on a point to do well on here, and my experience on the lake bears this out as well to be honest. I ended up with 43lb, which was good enough to lick the anglers either side of me but came nowhere near to beating the points.

Last weekend, I ended up on a slightly better peg, Willows 15. Again it is in a bay, but I had loads of room and fancied an extraction shallow. An hour in and all was going according to plan, with around 10 f1s in the net all taken shallow on 6mm pellet. I pushed out to 14.5 metres to try and up my catch rate, as there was a bit of a ripple that bit further out, a further five in quick succession proved that it was a good move, but as the wind picked up I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to present the bait for much longer. I had been catching on just a length of line, but had to put a float as my pole was getting dragged all over. Eventually I could hold it no more, and came back to 13 metres, and caught precisely nothing for the next hour. The wind was getting worse and worse, and with anglers with the wind coming at them more favourably catching well, I knew I would have to pull an ace out of the hat to do any good.

For this reason, I started feeding meat on a short line. A big F1 and 4lb bream were most welcome on my first two puts in, before I hooked into something much bigger. A 7lb ghostie was soon darting around by my keepnet, and in and out of a reed bed to my right. I had a problem though, I couldn’t drag them out of the reed bed to my left as I had a tree to my right! This was to end up costing me three good fish, and I landed three to end with 52lb. 78lb won the section shallow, I was third.

Little John

While Stewart was stopping I also took him to Little John Lakes at Ollerton in the open match. I know from past experience on this lake that it helps if you draw where the wind is, or on one of the islands towards the middle and I drew about as far away from both the middle and the wind as is humanly possible.

I wanted to try and fish maggots shallow, as this catches everything that swims, but after catching 10 or so ide in the first hour, and with Ben Holmes catching well pellets next to me I was ruing my decision. I tried to copy him but it was far slower, which I put down to having bought 6mm pellets instead of 4mms like a numpty.

I caught well down either edge in the last two hours on meat to end with 73lb, but it was a case of too little too late, Kev Parkes won the match with 137lb, Paul Donnelly was second with 108lb, and ben third with 107lb. I didn’t even get any default section money- this was took with an 83lb weight!

Kiveton Waters

It was much the same at Kiveton Waters the day after, I drew a peg I didn’t really fancy in 33, and caught very little. The least said the better. To make it worse, Stewart beat me both days on my home waters! Mind you, he did keep buying me beer in the evenings, a deliberate ploy to make me incapable…

I am not fishing this coming weekend, me and Joe Carass are off up to cheer Adam Richards on in the Fishomania. If we wins, Saturday night could be messy!