Spring Is In The Air?

With another week of rubbish weather me and the auburn extractor (or Matt Godfrey as he is more commonly known) decided that it wasn’t worth bothering going in a match the weekend before last, and that a night on the beer and a days pleasure fishing would be a far more constructive use of our time than entering the drawbag lottery that our commercials had become after the really cold weather set in.

We set the alarm for nine bells, and by ten we were enjoying a hearty breakfast in Janes Café, with Jim Smith or the Pirate as he is known in these parts. We went to the River Idle pike fishing, and never had a bite between us, but a very nice days fishing and in the afternoon a tour of a few local pubs rounded of our day nicely.

Last weekend it was business as usual however, with round seven of the Ranskill Teams Of Four League, or at least it should have been, except the ice stopped play, and the round proper was cancelled. A few of us die hards decided to have a knockup however, and I prayed for a draw in the deeper water, anything from peg 13 to 27. I pulled out about as far away from where I wanted to be as it is possible to draw, pulling out peg 39.

I knew that my only chance of winning any money was to snare a few lumps from the reed bed to my left, and therefore made that my plan of attack. There were a few fish moving about, so I decided to fish corn shallow and on the deck as far into the reeds as I could get. Shane Crompton or ’Campo’ as he is known on the forums, had turned up but decided not to fish, and had a better bite that morning than I had all day. He came and stood behind me as I proudly showed him around my new box. He took one look at the back of the box before announcing ‘whoever sold you that has had you pants down our kid, the back bar is bent’ ’No its not’ I replied “Its like a banana” Shane retorted, and the debate continued for some time, before he burst out laughing. I had been stitched up good and proper.

After around an hour I had my first fish on, and it went ballistic. Frustratingly, I managed to get it out the reeds and away from a nasty looking tree snag to my left, before it snagged me up in open water, miles from any visible snag.

An hour or so later, and the float slid away again, and a 4lb 12oz common soon lay in the net. As you might guess from my specific knowledge of the weight of that first fish, it was my last. I lost another fish in the snag, but I am convinced it was foul hooked as as soon as it pulled a bit the hook came out. 19lb won the match with 12lb making the frame, so realistically if I had landed everything I had hooked I could have won the match or framed. If I went back I wouldn’t fish any different, I just needed things to go my way and they didn’t.

Weeping on the Willows!

The next day was round nine of the Lindholme Winter League, and after a bad couple of rounds me and Sir Matt contemplated abandoning the match and going pike fishing instead! We stuck to our guns though, and after a hearty breakfast we tipped up at the venue. Sick of being the last to draw, me Matt, Ben Fisk and Adam Richards managed to sneak our way to the front of the queue. I was the first hand in the bag, and out came Willows 43. I didn’t really know what to expect, but when I saw my peg I fancied it, as I had plenty of water to go at.

The only downside was once again I had managed to draw the section of doom, with Alan Scotthorne, Andy Oldham, Paul Yates, John Allerton, and Johnny Howard in my ten peg section, with Alan Scotthorne being on the next peg! No pressure then.

I opted to fish a bomb and corn, a long pole line with pellets and down either edge for the trout. I wanted to make the trout my priority however, as the previous day the lakes had fished really hard and hardly any carp had been caught.

I started out on my trout lines and had a brilliant first half hour, taking five chub and two trout. Frustratingly, I also lost three fish, but from what I could see, I was well in front of everyone, but then my lines just died! To make matters worse, Alan was beginning to extract fairly quickly on the waggler, and my bum was twitching.

Andy Geldart who had drawn at the top end of the lake rung me to tell me of a foul hooked 6lb carp safely in the bottom of the pan, and also that not a lot was being caught up and down the lake.

After half an hour, I still hadn’t had another fish while Alan took another three fish on the waggler, and things were looking desperate. I tried my long pole line with a piece of corn, but to know avail, so I decided to spray maggots on the long pole with the hope of at least slowing Alan down and at best provoking a few fish into having a munch in my peg.

Alan seemed to slow down a bit, but my catch rate wasn’t exactly soaring, the venue was fishing dire. A conversation with Matt revealed that Bonsai was fishing similarly, with him only having 1 fish after three hours.

Going into the last hour, and things improved a bit, which I think could be down to the light levels dropping. I took a further two trout and another chub. Steve Richards was first in our section, and chucked back a couple of small trout, while my fish went 10-0-04. This was enough to pip Alans 8-5-0, but John Allerton put six trout on the scales for 10-14-0 to push me down to second in the section. I was really rueing those lost trout at this stage!

The next best weight after me John and Alan was Johnny Howard with 6-9-0, which shows just how hard the section had fished, and though I was gutted not to have won the section I felt I fished quite well from where I had drawn, and was pleased to have secured good points for the league.

Andy Geldart won the lake and the match from the other side of Willows with a fine net of 22lb, and when we walked into the pub after and there were two pints lined up nicely on the bar for us courtesy of the great man and his winnings. It rounded the day of really nicely.

On the subject of the lost fish, I decided to pick Alans brains, as I had been using B911s and wondered if they were too thick a gauge for the trouts boney mouth. He said he didn’t see a problem, and he used Gamma Pellets which are a similar gauge, so that made me feel a bit better about the situation. As I have said before on these blogs, it strikes me that some days you never lose a fish and sometimes a lot more than average seem to drop off.

Team Mosella!

On a more positive note, I have recently agreed a sponsorship deal with Mosella. I delighted to be on board, as I have been really impressed with their products for a long time now. They strike me as unique in that they are really innovative, with products such as Bandabaits, Magic Bread and F1 Micro Bands being just a few examples of developments that have took the angling world by storm over the last few months.

I just hope I can do them justice by winning a few big matches this year! White Acres in a months time will be my first real chance to shine.

The temperature is rising, and I saw a butterfly this morning. It wont be long before we will catch 30lb and be dissapointed. Roll on the summer!