By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Friday, March 6, 2009

Saturday saw round Seven of the Ranskill Teams Of Four league at
Lakeside Fishery, and with all to play for in both the team and individual leagues I was raring to go!

I dipped my hand in the bag and out came peg 17, and to be honest I didn’t really fancy it. I did draw it on the first round, and managed a section win with 3-5-0 of
small roach on bloodworm, but conditions were very different then, and with the
warmer weather moving in I expected that the better silverfish pegs
would come into there own, and I knew I would need a couple of carp to
compete.

I thought I had a fair chance of snaring a couple though to be honest,
as the peg has a good margin allowing you to fish long down the edge,
which sometimes produces the odd big fish.

With the warmer weather I didn’t think my usual fishmeal ground bait and
maggot line would be positive enough, as I thought the venues vast head
of big ide might have a munch, so wanted to fish some worms to hopefully
draw a few of these in. I did however put a banker fishmeal line down my peg, just in case things didn’t go to plan.

An hour into the match I was on my ‘banker’ line- things weren’t going according to plan! The better silverfish pegs were all bagging up, and after a couple of fish on the snip and shell things had gone dead for me.

Even peg 18 to my right hand side, which is normally awful for silvers was bagging up, catching chub, which haven’t shown all winter, and I can never remember them ever showing on peg 18! Ranskill never fails to surprise me.

To cut a long story short, my peg never really got any better, and despite spending the last couple of hours looking for a carp I never saw one. The scales arrived, and I put a measly 9-12-0 on the scales, which was good enough only for sixth out of the nine in my section. Peg 13 won the match with a brilliant 30lb of waggler caught ide, and with back up weights in the low 20’s, weights made up entirely of silver fish, its fair to say the venue fished its proverbials off.

Lindholme Winter League

Sunday saw round 10 of the Lindholme Winter League, and after a good result two weeks previous I was looking for decent points again to keep me in the all important top 15, guaranteeing a share on the £10,000 payout.

The day didn’t get off to a brilliant start, after picking Sir Matt up we headed off to Fullers Café in Kiveton, a usual breakfast haunt of ours. That same day however, my local team Woodseats were fishing against Mosborough in the Supercup, and the usual banter had been flying around prior to the match. I went in the café and they were all in there having breakfast. I was well outnumbered! Still, it was all good fun.

It was another good turnout, with a few turning up to practise for the forthcoming Angling Times Semi Final on the venue. In went my hand deep into the bag of destiny and out came peg 9 on Oasis Lake, from the past days form not a great draw, but with the weather warming up I wasn’t to disheartend.
I had a chat to Adam Richards, who advised me to fish pellets down the track and maggots across, which made sense, and I fancied keeping it simple as Oasis is one of those lakes where your options are relatively limited anyway.

I started across on maggots, and took a big F1 pretty much straight away. Ian Bowman on my right then started bagging up at 12 metres on pellets, taking ten fish in as many chucks, while I only managed a couple more roach on maggots, so it was time to try the pellet line.

I was neck to neck with Ian once I came on the pellet line, but was struggling to claw the initial ten fish he caught back.

As the last hour approached, things seemed to slow down for both of us, so I went back on the maggot line and managed to keep a few fish coming, including a better mirror about 4lb. I felt I had pulled a bit back on Ian, but wasn’t sure whether I had done enough to beat him.

I had one of those “Oh No!” moments at the end of the match, there was about two minutes to go, and I noticed a knot in my hook length. I thought sod it, as I didn’t think I would have time to change it. I shipped out lowered my rig in, and the elastic was out. Next thing, everything was slack, and the whistle blew. I will give you two guesses what broke! As I say, I’m only half kicking myself though as I’m not sure if I’d changed it whether I would have been fishing again before the whistle.

So close, and yet so far

When the scales arrived, Ian had just weighed 39-8-0, and when I pulled my net out I knew it would be close. My fish went 38-12-0, and I had heard that Paul Yates on the end peg had caught all day, so reckoned I was looking at best at a third in section. So it proved, Paul net went 41-12 leaving me 3rd. Decent points, but again no coin. Matt had a tough day on Willows, so after yet another week without a brown envelope between us it was off to the pub to drown our sorrows.

We will just have to hope our fortunes improve this weekend.

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