Off Come The Wheels!

Many weeks ago I stated that when the wheels fall off for me they often do so in quite spectacular style. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration on my part to describe this weeks matches, but I’ve certainly come down to earth with something of a bump over the last seven days! Fishing for me has taken on a very wintry feel, despite the nice weather, as each peg I’ve sat on has seemed to be devoid of fish for most of the match!

Back in my younger days there was a record going round called ‘three is the magic number’, I think by a band called De La Soul who, incidentally, although being from The States, were supporters of the finest football team ever to grace turf, Sheffield United FC. Turns out their manager was a mate or relative of our star player of the time, Brian Deane, and he’d got them all into the Blades, and when they gave us a namecheck on Radio 1 one time I was over the moon!

Any way, three might have been the magic number for our red & white rappin’ cousins across the sea, but I’ll tell you what, twelve certainly wasn’t magic in any way for me, cos I drew there twice last week at Barlborough! I have had a second and third from the peg over the last few months, but with absolutely no recent form of late I really didn’t fancy it on Wednesday.

I set up my usual across rigs, 0.12 straight through to an 18 B911, together with a much finer rig ending in a size 20 Tubertini 808 to an 0.10 bottom, aimed at catching some of the more wary F1’s that were possibly wising up to the heavier gear now that the water was clearing slightly. I also set up a nice fine rig to fish for skimmers down the track, hopefully adding a few to the net in the middle part of the match, when it seemed everyone was experiencing the same lull in sport. I started like a house on fire, six carp in the first 45 minutes saw me with around 16lb in the net, and when Ian walked round saying he hadn’t had hardly any bites, and that most of the lads on the wood side were struggling, my mood was taking a dramatic upturn!

Phil Lakin on the next peg had five carp, but they were smaller than mine, and he was admitting to around 8lb, and by Ian’s reckoning we were first and second at that stage. Off he went, stating he was going to empty it in the last hour on meat down the margins.

Things just went from bad to worse for me from then on, I just couldn’t seem to buy a bite, only the very occasional small silver fish showed, and my track line that I had fed religiously from the start threw up three or four skimmers before it too went completely dead. This was where my earlier winter reference came from, those days when you feel you’ve caught all the fish that are prepared to feed in your peg, and you might as well go home!

I steadied myself for the last hour or so, many times this year my peg has come good late on, and boosted me up the field. Today though, all I could muster from the last stages was a small F1, a couple of decent skimmers from tight across (maybe that’s where they were all along!) and a monster of a perch on double maggot that would have gone around 2lbs.

Phil’s 3lb carp on the whistle had me thinking that he’d done me again, he’s a sort of jinx angler for me, often ouncing me out of the frame, and on more than one occasion he’s had a big fish late on to pip me. Not today though! Everyone on the car park bank had tipped back and gone, it had been that hard, so I was first to weigh. My 22lb 8oz beat Phil’s 15lb or so, but it all went downhill from there. Ian had had a good last hour as he’d predicted earlier, and even thought he was in with a chance of winning overall, after seeing how I’d obviously fallen away badly in the afternoon. He hoisted 43lb onto the scales; enough for an easy win on the day. Just prior to Ian weighing, another of our travelling band of merry souls, Steve Owen, had put a solid 28lb to the scales off in-form peg 16. Steve is a real tryer, who doesn’t seem to get the rub of the green very often, so it was good to see him come good at last.

It was just a case of them holding onto their places now! Local legend Gary Dodsworth saw off any remaining hopes I had of sneaking into the frame with a hard earned 26lb-plus weight off peg 29, which is rarely used due to there being hardly anything to fish to across, and the scales set off across the bridge onto the island. Again it had fished hard, with only Chris Garlick on peg 36 with anything of note to weigh. His 30lb net split Ian and Steve, and in a perverse way made me feel a little better, there’s nothing more frustrating than coming first out of the money! Little did I know what was to come later in the week though! So, two of our lads in the frame, but I was a little unsure about how to tackle the venue on Saturdays match, the fish definitely seemed to be getting into winter mode on certain pegs, while on others they saw a keepnet as a welcome holiday!
I couldn’t believe my luck on the Saturday! A lad who’d arrived on his first visit to the venue asked me about his peg 14 draw, and after I’d regaled him with my tales of woe on the Wednesday event, I promptly drew peg 12 again! Far from happy, I trudged off to my peg. Ian was on 6, and we agreed that a default section was all we could hope for at best. Same rigs, same feed pattern same bait, but it was 40 minutes before I even had a bite!

This was a small roach, not a good sign. Ian once again came walking round an hour in, not having had a bite. By this time I was on three roach but even with the fine rig I wasn’t getting any indications. “I’m going back to fill the margins in and catch 30lb in the last hour again” said my mate, and off he went. Danny Glaves had drawn the in-form peg 16 and was making it pay handsomely, his 10 carp in the first two hours giving him a commanding lead.

After spending most of the match scratching around for bites, with only the odd silver to show for my efforts, I noticed a carp cruising along in the sun, which by now was quite warm. When we’d arrived in the car park the temperature gauge in the car had read 7 degrees, by now it was more like 20. Perhaps they would have it shallow? In went the shallow rig, and straight under it went! A foul-hooked 4lb carp gave me a few hairy moments, but made my catch look a bit more respectable. It was a false dawn again though, as my next bite came an hour later, again fouled, but this one came off at the net. I managed to hook and land two more, again hooked outside the mouth, perhaps showing they weren’t really interested in feeding? Time was called, and Ian had once more pulled a rabbit from the hat, from a peg that had gone dry midweek, his bold approach down the edge had paid off again to the tune of 22lb, which blitzed my paltry 9lb and was winning until we got to Danny’s peg, 16. Exactly 50lb took the honours on the day, and Ian got the section by default, edged out of the main frame by a 30lb net from peg 28, another lad on his first visit, and by ‘chop worm Barry’ Gay on island peg 32 who just did him with 26lb, no prizes for guessing what bait he used!

My local venue, one of my favourites and it had been very cruel to me over the week!

A change of venue, with a new outlook to it can often snap you out of a bad time, and my Sunday trip to Barnburgh Lakes between Barnsley and Doncaster had me raring to go, especially after the Turners Arms presentation the previous evening, where I picked up a good number of trophies from my awesome summer of flyers! My mate Dale Clarke videoed club secretary Kev Cardwell and me singing the Tellytubbies song on the karaoke and is threatening to post it on the site, that’s why I don’t drink, I can make myself look a proper knob without being bladdered! Anyway, peg 5 was greeted with screwed up noses by the regulars; here we go again I thought! Apparently all the fish have been coming from the shallower pegs opposite, but I fancied it for a few shallow. I was told it was a none-starter, but with the number of fish showing, and it being a full top 3 deep at six sections, I pressed on, thinking I’d be better doing my own thing first time out at the venue, especially as the peg wasn’t the best, allegedly!

I started on the inside, feeding maggot and pellet, and had bites immediately, tiny little taps typical of F1’s. I hit the third, and the elastic streamed out as fish number one was on the way to the net. A couple of skimmers followed, but by this time the lads either side who’d gone straight out into the deeper water were pulling away from me, with four F1’s each. Time for a look shallow, and same as the day before, I had a fish first drop. When one followed next bung I was fancying it for a few, but again it wasn’t to be, as the bites then dried up. I’d re-fed the inside line, but no more bites came from the swim so I decided to abandon it, reasoning that I’d started too close and the lads either side had probably drawn all the fish by now. My only other option was a feeder chuck to the middle; trouble was it was easily accessible to the anglers across if I started catching well, so I decided to only use it as somewhere to go to rest the shallow swim. I really grafted for the remainder of the match, chopping and changing the shallow rigs to squeeze odd fish here and there, and picking off odd ones on the tip in between. At the end of a really enjoyable match I felt I’d got in front of the lad on peg 4 but peg 6 would just pip me.

The scales said otherwise though, 13lb was winning when they arrived, and with 4 tipping back, my 14lb 9oz went into the lead. Peg 6 surprisingly weighed 13lb too, leaving me harbouring hopes of sneaking the third place. The match was effectively between pegs 10 and 15, both noted pegs with regulars on them, and both had caught pretty much all day. Peg 10 took the lead with 30lb 1oz; the question being would peg 15 have enough. All was looking good until peg 14 lifted his fish out. He’d had a bit of a nightmare all day, one of those where nothing goes right, and the lads on the match had really let him know about it! However, even his bad day proved too much for me, his 16lb 9oz total pushing me out of the frame, with peg 15 indeed having enough with a level 36lb.

I was gutted, I’d worked hard on the day, beating a couple of good regulars either side of me, but was eventually seen off by two adjoining pegs, much the same as your typical winter match!

On the drive home, I reflected on the decent draws I’ve had over the summer, and realised that perhaps a couple of bad days were a little overdue. When I was a young matchman, and taking another defeat badly, one of my mentors who is sadly no longer with us had a word in my ear to put me right. What he said was “you only get what you deserve in this game if you do it wrong”. By that he basically meant if you make a balls-up of a decent peg then you get nothing, but if you fish the match of your life off a duff draw you don’t necessarily get the result your efforts are worthy of. This has come back to me on many, many occasions over the years, usually when I’ve messed up on another flyer! It is right though if you sit and think about it. None of the pegs I’d drawn over the week gave me much of a chance of picking up any money, and with the winter just round the corner, when one peg away can seem like a million miles, I can see the old blog turning into Wraggy’s weekly moan-athon!

Double-header at Barlborough again this week, weds and sat (I know, I’m a glutton for punishment!) then it’s back on Bank End next Sunday for the first of the autumn series of matches. Till then, tight lines.