Nobody Said It Was Easy!

Having missed the first round of the Lindholme Winter League due to being in White Acres I was keen to make up for lost time in the second round on Sunday. With 80 anglers lining the banks it was a good turnout, and though I was a bit rough around the edges from a wedding do on Saturday night, I was well prepared from earlier in the week for whatever the drawbag was to throw at me.

In went the hand and out came peg 23 on strip. I asked venue owner Neil what it was like and he grimaced, so I wasn’t exactly encouraged. I was one off the end peg, with Steve Rothery sat on the end, which is normally a flier. I also had my mate Andy Geldart to beat further up the section on peg 18, as well as venue experts Daz Taylor and Johnny Howard, so all in all I had a job on my hands!

To make matter worse, I had drawn England International Paul Yates in the knockout which is worked put on weight, so I had him to contend with as well!

I decided to fish in front of me at 5m, 9ms and 14.5ms, and was pleased to find that the bottom was like a snooker table, so I could use the same rigs on every line. I wanted to leave my self plenty of space to feed and rest lines, as I expected the fish to be shy and keep backing off. I kicked off on the long pole with corn, feeding just a few micro pellets, and took a big F1 straight away, then that was that!

I tried coming shorter with maggots, and on my seven metre line with pellet, but to no avail, the fish didn’t seem to want to play ball, and it was the same for everyone on the lake. To my surprise, after a couple of hours the chap opposite me started catching shallow with maggots, taking the odd ide and F1. I decided to copy him, which in hindsight seems foolish, attacking ones peg in such a way despite it fishing hard, but there wasn’t a lot else happening so I felt I had to try something.

It didn’t work, and after half an hour struggling to hold the pole and feed in the windy conditions, I could see I wasn’t going anywhere. I must admit, I felt a bit of a dipstick at this point, as I had pretty much exhausted my options and we were only half way through the match!

As I say, there wasn’t a deal being caught however, so I knew it wouldn’t take much to put me back in the game. I got off my box and set a bomb rod up, and decided to have a drop around with a piece of corn on the hook. This went round after 20 minutes with a mirror about 3lb- most welcome.

It was slow progress, but by sitting it out the tip would generally go around every half an hour or so. Sometimes it would be a 6oz F1, sometimes a tench and I had another 3lb mirror late on in the session as well.

I ended up with eight fish (not counting the gudgeon I caught on maggots early), and had six of them in the last half of the match. I weighed 13lb which was good enough for 3rd in my ten peg section, behind section winner Steve Rothery who had 26lb off the end peg, and Daz Taylor who weighed 24lb. There were four other weights over 10lb but less than me so it was very close! I was glad I set the tip up when I did, and I can’t help but wonder if I could have pushed for first or second place had I done it all day.

Luckily for me, Paul Yates drew on the dreaded Loco, which fished exceptionally hard, and chucked back so I am through to round two of the knockout! Any hopes of an easy draw in round two were quashed when I followed the arrows along- I have none other than Tommy Pickering to beat if I want to go any further. As the song goes, nobody said it was easy!

Full Result:

1 Mark Booth peg 31 Beeches caught on caster and pellets for 69lb 6oz of carp on pole (garbolino lindholme)
2 John Kelly peg 65 Laurels caught on pellets and corn for 59lb 4oz of small carp and silvers (garbolino lindholme)
3 Steve Donague peg 16 Laurels caught on pellets for 49lb 6oz of carp at 14mtrs(daiwa dons)
4 Ben Fisk peg 20 Laurels caught on pole at 13 mtrs and pellets for 45lb 3oz (middy)
5 Gavin Hardy peg 54 Laurels caught on pellets for 43lb 11oz (garbolino lindholme)
6 Dan Clarke peg 18 Laurels caught on pellets and caster for 41lb 12oz (spenborough)