Get Out Of Jail!

Now then! Back to the grindstone with the blogging! I meant to start on Sunday night, while all the week’s trials and tribulations were fresh in my mind, but a mental block computer-wise was something of a hold up! As I’ve said many times, computers are my nemesis, and two weeks away from them saw me virtually starting from scratch again, so there’s a good chance that this piece will never be seen! If that’s the case, who’s reading it now… see what I mean? It’s all too complicated for me!

Despite the fact we had a brilliant holiday (albeit interspersed with a 19 year old who thinks he’s invented farting loud and stinking the cabin out on a twice daily basis!) I was chomping at the bit for a go on the tackle, so after seeing to all my husbandly duties after arriving home Sunday, and Monday morning, I managed to persuade Mandy to let me have a couple of hours at Barlborough in the afternoon. The inclement weather took a bit of getting used to after the balmy climes of the Mediterranean, but with three carp on the first three drops I was happy as a pig in muck snuggled under the brolly! A simple pellet approach was enough to see me drive home a couple of hours later having landed eight in total, with no losses, and feeling back up to speed with the gear in hand.

Barlborough has been fishing strangely in my absence, with bags up to and over 100lb winning, but back up weights falling away dramatically, often 20-25lb being enough to frame behind the runaway leader, much as you would expect on a winter match. Not exactly par for the course in late august though! With this in mind I planned on my usual chop & caster approach that has served me well all summer, if the carp are in my peg they’ve still had the worm, while in less well populated areas the bait has caught me enough silver fish to sneak the odd section or frame place.
Peg 6 on the car park bank graced my palm as I drew my hand out of the bag, not my first choice by a long way. The car park pegs are strange, they are the favourite pegs on three-hour evening matches here, but for some reason don’t seem to throw many fish up on our day events. My disappointment was tempered slightly when I was told local ace Dave Hooper had put almost 40lb of silvers on the scales the previous weekend from the peg for a section win, but knowing Dave fishes maggot exclusively for these silvers, and that he is possibly the best angler in the region on the method, brought me back down to earth a little! My head was spinning now; where in the “100lb weights but no back up” sketch did a 40lb section win fit?

To head off any chance of confusing myself I decided to put all these conflicting reports out of my head and fish my own match. It was my first time out for a while so I’d need time to get back into the swing of things. For company on peg 4 was John Mills Jnr. Who has been the man to beat here all summer, and to my left on noted peg 8 was my pal Steve Owen. He asked me how to tackle the peg, as I’d drawn it a couple of times earlier in the year, so I told him what I knew, stressing that what had worked for me was only really relevant back in February, but the basic contours of the peg would be the same. The thing with peg 8 is that you fish into a corner, but the underwater snags the carp love so much take a bit of finding, it’s not just a case of dropping your plummet in and there they are, so I showed Steve the ropes.

I must mention at this point that Steve is a Wednesday fan, and you would all expect me to work him a bit of a flanker wouldn’t you, but no, he’s a good mate so it’s only right to share the info. Might not have been so obliging on match days though! I started a couple of feet away from the far bank; the slope up to the far side is very slow, leaving a deep margin across tight into the bank. I didn’t want too many fish against the rushes across, the two-foot plus swim looked like a recipe for liners and foul hooked fish, so I started a little away, as I know Dave Hooper does.

One bite, first drop from a 4oz roach didn’t signal the start of things, with 40 minutes on the clock it was still my only bite! Millsy by now had lost two carp tight across, both probably foul-hooked, and Steve had found an early bonus in the shape of a 6lb-plus carp from the corner. I’d decided early on that if I could keep up with John to a certain extent I wouldn’t be too far adrift at the end, but my problem now was getting some bites! Rotating several far bank swims eventually saw me putting the odd roach and skimmer in the net, but all was not going to plan. I decided to try a bit of groundbait down the track, fishing pellet, caster, worm etc. over it to try to grind a few bites out. It’s a tactic that works here in the colder months, and as it was fishing like a winter match I had nothing to lose. Again, odd fish showed, but nothing to make me think I was going to have any sort of purple patch. John by now was also fishing two track swims to either side, and as the clock struck two he had his first carp of the day over the right hand side, indeed it was his first fish of the day, that’s how hard it was!

I felt the writing was on the wall now, with him being on an end peg, and Steve in a noted swim, for me to get a proper fish caking! To add to my woes, I managed to foul-hook a small carp as I was shipping back, which came off and left my rig in an awe-inspiring tangle! As I was re-rigging both John and Steve were playing carp, not good. I steadied myself, remembering just how many time this year my peg had come good late at this and other venues, so decided on the old ‘Sheff United – never surrender’ approach! The rig went back across with renewed faith, which was rewarded with my first carp of the day! Told you us Blades were the chosen people! This fish took me to probably 6lb total weight, and I looked at my watch to see 35 minutes to go. By this time John had stopped catching, but I estimated him to have around 20lb, which on current results was worth a frame place. The final half hour flew by; I couldn’t get the pole across quick enough! Six more F1’s put in an appearance, switched on by some unseen force, leaving me wishing they’d arrived a bit earlier. This feeling was reinforced later at the scales!

As the whistle went, I was netting my last fish while John was playing a fish that looked much bigger than the others. The suspected foul-hooked F1 turned out to be a mirror of 3lb-plus, which boosted his weight to 22lb 8oz. My catch surprisingly swung the dial round to 20lb exactly, and had me cursing that late lump! Not a bad showing though, even if I do say so myself, beaten by a last-gasp bonus fish for the venue’s form angler, on an end peg! It turned out Steve had had a bit of a mare with lost fish in the reeds, the splashing I’d heard from his peg was the carp seeing him off among the ‘Olivers’, and he put 12lb on the scales. A couple more single and low double figure weights were next, before John Mills Snr. on peg 16 put a lovely mixture of bream, skimmers, F1’s, tench, carp and roach in the weigh bag for an easy win with 42lb, again, most of the fish coming to pellet down the middle. More single figure bags saw the scales go over the bridge and onto the island, where regular Pat Bradley had 18lb 6oz, but no more takers saw me finish third, a proper result off the peg in my book!

Swanlands

Saturday saw Ian & me on the next round of the Bankside matches, this time at Swanlands, on the outskirts of Thorne. I’d only fished the venue once before, and came 2nd from peg 17 with 31lb, a real mixed bag of literally everything that swims. Chopped worm did the damage that day, so when I drew 18 on the morning my game plan was pretty much decided for me. However, the last time I fished, the bailiff, who was an old mate from the days when I used to fish the Stainforth & Keadby Canal that runs alongside the venue, had warned me that I’d got out of jail a bit on the day, and that the pegs where you could fish to the island with the feeder would normally beat the open water pegs, his view being reinforced by the lad who’d won on the day coming from one such peg. Word had it that the lake hadn’t been fishing well due to all the rain, so my worm tactics looked the safest bet on the peg. An hour in and all was not well! I was struggling for bites, and by now was trying to make something happen on three separate lines, but all of them were fading fast.

Odd swirls on the surface had me thinking the cold water had sunk to the bottom, pushing the fish high in the water, so a shallow caster rig was hastily assembled. This soon died a death too, the fish seemed to want to be shallow, but were wary of the pole above their heads. A few pegs to my left, Andy Pinder was next to my mate Barney, who for those of you who don’t know him is far from a shrinking violet! You always get a running commentary on the match when Barney is around, and when Andy had a golden 45 minutes out of the blue catching carp and ide, we all knew what was happening and how much of a battering Barney was getting!

The sun had changed position by this time, and I noticed a couple of dark shapes basking in the warmer layers high in the water. I flicked a couple of dog biscuits towards them, they nudged them around a bit, then one slowly slurped on down! Usain Bolt would have had his work cut out getting to the car quicker than I did, to fetch my tip rod! I’d left it in there due to me not having an island chuck. Barney spotted this, and asked me what was going on. Being an honest lad I told him, and on my way back noticed he’d also set a controller rig up! When I got back to my peg the carp were setting about the biscuits I’d fed with gay abandon. “Oh yes, get ready” I said to myself, rigging up with a candle to counter the slight crosswind on my more open swim. My rig consisted of 5lb main line, the candle, and a 0.16 bottom to a size 18 Kamasan Animal eyed hook. I prefer smaller hooks when surface fishing, especially with the biscuit, because I feel it allows the hookbait to behave more naturally, not sinking too far into the surface film.

On venues where the fish have been caught a few times on the surface these little dodges can really pay off, and today was no exception. Several times the carp came right up to the biscuit, often even nudging it, but no takes resulted. They were eating every biscuit bar the one with the hook in, very frustrating. In desperation, I switched to a ridiculously tiny hook, tying up a size 20 B911 eyed to a 0.14 bottom. The result was amazing; the rig had only been in the water for a couple of seconds when the biscuit was slurped down and the candle set off across the surface. This was when my problems started, as what was obviously a big fish decided to put some distance between it and me! Ten tense minutes later, the tiny hook had held for long enough for me to slide the net under a fish that, if it wasn’t a double, would be very near.

There were still some fish taking the freebies, so it was back out with the rig as soon as I’d finished shaking! It seemed that when I chucked long the y would come short, but if I wound back carefully to the closer fish, others would take the baits further out. I reasoned it was just a case of waiting for one to make a mistake, and decided to stick with the small hook set up, & worry about getting them out if I hooked any more. A sudden downpour left me thinking that might be game over, but surprisingly I had a take out of the blue while I was figuring out my next move, in rain so heavy I couldn’t see the candle, never mind my bait! This was a much smaller fish of a couple of pounds or so, but made my mind up to see the final hour and a bit of the match out on the biscuit.

I’d got double figures now, probably enough for a section win at least by the way the bankside grapevine was going, so one more fish could push me right up there. Brilliant sunshine after the rain saw a lot of carp showing on the surface, and the loose fed biscuits were holding in front of me now the wind had died down. My chance came with 20 minutes to go, as another large fish hooked up and set off across the lake. It stopped short of the far side (just!) and let me wind it all the way back to netting range, where it popped up on the surface, almost as if to see which nutter was trying to get it out on such a tiny hook! I couldn’t refuse an offer like that could I?

Straight into the net it went, it then kicked off alarming as it realised what had happened! I had time for one more throw, and a carp did have a close look at the biscuit, but not close enough, and the whistle went to signal the end of proceedings. I was confident I had mid- double figures, not enough to overhaul Andy a few pegs down, but maybe enough for second place. You know how it is, carp look huge in the net when you’ve landed them after a long fight, but when they come to go on the scales that ‘barney rubble’ suddenly weighs seven pounds, so I was playing my cards close to my chest. 14lb was winning when the scales arrived, my catch of 21lb 4oz taking the lead until Andy placed a winning 31lb in the bag soon after. Next door but one 16lb took third, with the last man to weigh registering 12lb.

In Monopoly, it’s handy to have a ‘get out of jail card’, and today I found my ‘get out of jail carp’ very useful too!
Sunday was taken up with helping Mandy on her debut in the annual Hackenthorpe ladies fishing match. From reluctantly agreeing to join a few months ago, she’s now counting down the days till next year! From a really poor draw she did me proud, in fact I was surprised at just how quickly she’s taken to the game. We might have a lady blogger soon! I’ll fill you all in on the day next time though, as I’m running out of space for now. I’m at Barlborough for the midweeker, but next weekend it’s the Angling Star superleague final, at Lindholme on the Bonsai, which should be a cracker. I’ll let you know how I get on, till then, ta-ta for now.