Winter Tactics Required ?

My usual midweek outings were somewhat curtailed by hospital visits again, but they old nuts seem to be behaving themselves now, and the lack of action was getting to me by the end of the week. I’d promised to go over to shoot a feature for the paper at Barnburgh, and with Friday having a decent weather forecast, it was all set up for then.

Before anyone goes and accuses me of getting soft, what with watching the weather forecast, it was the light levels I was worried about, not the rain! A bright and windy day looked good for a few photos, I knew bites wouldn’t be in short supply cos the place is solid, so off I went.

To cut a long story short I sat with what started as a mild breeze in my face, which soon turned into a full-blown gale, with the keepnet blowing back into the side! I soon sorted the keepnet situation out though, by filling it with F1’s! it was literally a bite a chuck, often before I’ve remarked on how F1’s remind me of the Trent roach back in the old days, difficult to fool on most occasions, but very occasionally going absolutely mental and getting themselves caught with ease. Well today was one of the latter days, as I fed them in from 10m at first until I was catching them on a top kit plus one section. I could have probably caught even closer, but with the wind seeing me hook my keepnet more than once I decided to keep them at a top 4 to make everything nice and simple.

A hectic day was called to a halt after three hours or so, I wanted to miss the Friday traffic, and by this time the wind had given me a natural facelift! An estimated 40lb –plus catch was photographed and returned, and I made my way home, hoping for a few more days like that during the winter.
I was looking forward to going on the Derwent on Saturday with the Bankside lads, but decided against it at the last minute due to the big walks involved and my ‘downstairs troubles’, so it was off to Barlborough. I was reasonably pleased with my peg 35 draw, but Barney who had drawn peg 33 put the mockers on it a bit saying the island pegs hadn’t fished for a while, and he was seriously considering not fishing! I thought this was a bit extreme, and I would be proved right at the weigh in, but more of that later.

I decided on a maggot approach across, with meat fed down the track as a back up. Ian and a couple of the other lads had been doing well on this line of late, so perhaps it was time for me to get over my lack of confidence in the bait! An hour in and I was still looking for my first bite, despite the weather having a warm, almost summery feel to it. In fact, the only pegs with any numbers of fish were peg 32 (one of the few that had an empty peg next door) and 28, two pegs that almost face each other, and seemed to be sharing the same shoal.

Eventually I managed to put together a couple of silvers, but the expected carp were conspicuous by their absence, until Barney hooked a huge fish in the fin and eventually landed it after a lengthy fight. I then had ten mad minutes where I foul-hooked and lost two immediately after hooking them, then lifted into another heavy fish, obviously fouled as I hit it on the way up. I commented to the lad next door that it didn’t seem to know it was hooked, and realised why. I’d switched down to my winter F1 rig, using a 22 Tubertini 808 to 0.10 hooklength, together with a light elastic. After much to-ing and fro-ing, and plenty of hairy moments at the net, I panned a fish easily into double figures, not a bad bonus!

When I had a 2lb F1 next drop I thought it was bagging time, but my good spell was short lived, and it was back to rotating the lines, grafting bites out. First drop over the meat line in the middle produced another 2lb F1, but no more bites so at least I’d broken my duck there! A couple more foul-hookers from across only helped to frustrate me even more, and by now Barney had started to filter a few of the fish through from peg 32, but it was looking a long shot as to whether they would make their way down far enough for me to do any damage in time.

Odd silvers kept the catch rate ticking over, but a look down the middle again saw me latch into a heavy, plodding fish that turned out to be a 2lb-plus ide, a welcome addition. One more small carp from across in the dying minutes was my only other significant capture, and I finished the match a bit down, there had been fish passing through the swim all afternoon, but try as I might I couldn’t get them to feed, only experiencing liners and the odd silver.

It turned out that this was par for the course, with only a couple of 18lb weights as the scales came to peg 28. 42lb took top spot, and strangely the same lad was on the same peg last week, and registered under 20lb, despite fishing in exactly the same spot, with the same baits, even the same rig! This for me is the attraction of the venue, you never know where the winner is going to come from, and a duff peg one day can be a flyer the next, so you should never go to your peg with too heavy a heart.

The bridge peg had 15lb or so, then peg 32 hoisted 52 lb onto the scales to win the day, no surprises there with the empty peg though. Barney, the bloke who was in two minds as to whether to bother fishing or not, put 28lb on the scales to easily take third place! Most of his catch had come in the last 90 minutes, with the bonus lump from early on giving him more breathing space.

My 18lb 7oz was enough for a double-default section win, better to be lucky than good! However, to show just how tight these matches can be, 4th place had 18.9, 5th 18.8, and I was 6th overall with 18.7! Typical winter fishing, one or two lads fill their boots on the main shoal, while the less fortunate among us battle it out for the minor placings, with ounces here and there being vital. Don’t you just love it!

Sunday saw me off to Grange Farm, in the village of Fishlake, between Thorne and Doncaster. The venue has a match record of 320lb, and you regularly need over the ton to win, with good backing weights. The draw saw me on peg 30, next door to where I’d had a second place last winter with a solid 78lb, so I was looking forward to another bagging session. Somebody forgot to tell the carp though, and it all went severely pear shaped!

I must admit though, most of the problems were of my own making. I drew next to my mate Dale, nothing new there; we seem to be next to each other on a pretty regular basis! At the last count it was seven times, according to him! I put him right as to where I’d fished the peg the previous year, and I would soon be regretting it, as he quickly pulled away from me, with six carp to my two in the first hour.

Exactly as the day before, I had trouble with foul-hooked fish. I struggled to get my head round the situation, Dale was feeding big pots of bait and hooking fish fairly in the mouth, while I was’ bitting it in’ with a kinder pot but getting liners and foul hookers, very strange! However, it was the same for all the anglers around us too, bow-waves as the fish shot off, spooked by ‘fresh air’ striking, and occasionally getting snagged in fins, tails, and everywhere bar the mouth! There was a good standard of angler on the match, with quite a few regulars to the venue, so I surmised that we couldn’t all be doing it wrong, perhaps it was just one of those days?

Dale was still picking odd fish off though, and I’m not one to sit and let things happen, so I decided to try to force the issue a bit. The big pots Dale was feeding didn’t seem to be doing him any harm, so, against what I normally regard as my standard approach to far bank fishing, I decided to give ‘em some, hoping it might put me back in the running. This turned out to be the biggest mistake since the captain of the Titanic shouted “b*ll*cks to the icebergs, it’s unsinkable, full steam ahead”! A big pot of maggots filled my peg with roach, which at 2-3oz apiece were hard work from 14.5m away! But it didn’t stop there! ‘Another pot will feed ‘em off, and the carp will move up from Dales peg’, is my line of thought.

More roach join the party! It sank in after the FIFTH pot went in that I was just creating a swarm of small roach which by now I was beginning to foul-hook as well, and that the carp were well and truly in winter mode, not wanting to settle over a bed of bait, but simply to drift along and pick off odd pieces of bait. If I’d kept to my original plan I think I would have possibly been in with a chance of overtaking Dale, as his peg went right off during the afternoon, and no matter how many times he fed they just wouldn’t come back.

We’d been lulled into thinking summer style tactics by the warm weather, while the fish are now well and truly into their winter wind-down. I managed to scrape together a couple more carp late in the day, probably due to Dale giving up on his far side line and me fishing as close to his peg as I was allowed. I was also helped by the lad to my right, who concentrated down the middle most of the day then went across late on, only to foul-hook his first two fish and lose them at the net, despite not having fed anything across at all.

He quickly gave up on the far side, saying he didn’t want to have a day like I was having! ‘Suits me’, I thought, and nicked a couple from that side too! All the while, the roach shoal directly across where I’d fed my ‘maggot mountain’ was bubbling and swirling, just to remind me how wrong I’d got it!

The weigh in was full of surprises, the main one being just how badly the venue had fished. I met them a few pegs down and the top weight was just 21lb, with most of the lake weighed in. this went up to 22lb, then noted peg 34 placed an unbeatable 65lb on the scales. I could just see him from my peg, and knew he had a few, but was sure Dale would get the verdict. However, I didn’t think Dale had that much, and so it proved, as he had just shy of 42lb. Plenty to spank my bottom though!

I got a nice surprise at weighing 29lb 10oz, my first couple of fish being well above the average size for the lake, contributing over 10lb to my total. The final surprise was that I’d come third on the day, the end peg that I was sure had more than me taking fourth with 23lb. On the drive home I reflected on the day, and while it all turned out right in the end, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d stuck to my guns with my usual tight and light baiting pattern, whether I would have picked off enough fish during the afternoon slow period to perhaps sneak into second?

I was only 13lb behind, five or six fish maybe? But then again, I did have around 5lb of roach in the net, which I probably wouldn’t have caught without the maggot approach, so you never know! Those roach may have got me third? At least I had learned a bit for when we return in a couple of weeks with the Frecheville lads, and I won’t be making the same mistakes again I can tell you!
Barlborough weds and sat this week, taxi match weds then the open sat, then it’s off to Riverside fishery near Bawtry Sunday. I once held the match record there for a few months with 88lb so it has fond memories for me, but it was badly affected by last years floods, so it remains to be seen as to how well it fishes. Till next week, tight lines.