Monday 2 June 2008

June 1st - Oaktree Leisure, Pond 1

After my slightly better performance on Alders, It was unfortunate that I couldn’t get out again on the bank holiday weekend due to prior commitments. I did however manage to get up to the Oaks, Sessay, I fished on Maple peg 4 with Stu and Rob for company for a few hours after work on the Friday. I managed about 40-50lb of F1’s and small carp on pellet across to the island before it got dark. I was in need of an early night as on the Saturday a couple of friends and I were to walk the Yorkshire Three Peaks. I’d planned this a couple of weeks before and with two of the lads dropping out we started at 9am and completed about 30miles and navigated our way over three mountains in just short of 12.5 hours! So Sunday was pretty much a write off due to no longer being able to walk! The bank holiday Monday saw Me and 23 friends head up to Newcastle for the 3volution music festival, the weather was brilliant as were the bands and to boot the tickets were only £3 each!

Anyway back to this weekend just gone. If you’ve read my past blog entries you’ll see that I haven’t done very well here, not very well at all. After blanking the last match from peg 11 I was in two minds whether to fish or not. But Stu rang me on the Thursday night and persuaded me to fish! Thursday night saw me modelling for a charity fashion show, it was held at Revolution in Harrogate and turned out to be a very good night, although I was modelling a kilt!

With the Saturday being a glorious day and the predicted weather for Sunday was to be similar but with rain due by the end of the match I was a little more optimistic. I slept in and hurriedly packed the car, went to pick up some dinner from the shop and I was on the road by 7:55, I managed to get there for 8:30, load the barrow up and put my waterproofs on, yes you guessed it the weather forecast was wrong and it was teeming down. Due to not agreeing to fish until Thursday my only preparation was pouring two smaller buckets of pellets into a bigger bucket and re-elasticating two tops!

Somehow I ended up right at the front of the queue for the draw and was second to draw out peg 10! Damn next to the peg I blanked on last time, not to worry though as this is meant to be a good side and the last match was a dismal show for everyone.



I arrived at my peg, levelled the box and put the brolly up! I sat on my box for a few minutes to plan my attack for the day. I decided on fishing two lines straight across to the island at 14m, a margin rig to my right where the was a small clump of reeds, and my final line was to be at about 11m where the bottom starts to slope up to the island shelf.

The island rig – this was a BGT shallow float 0.2g on 0.17 Powerline to a size 16 PR36 tied direct with a knotless knot. Elastic was Maver 14 Pure Latex. The rig was set about 2ft deep.

The Margin rig – This was the same rig and elastic as the island rig but set at 3ft deep.

The 11m rig – Due to the consistent shallow depth I was able to use the margin rig here also.

Bait for the day was a big bucket of micros, some 4 and 6mm expanders, a handful of maggots and corn for a change of hookbait.

At the all out I fed my margin line with a big pot of micros and a dozen 4mm expanders. Whilst I was doing this the lad round the corner was already netting his first carp! I quickly shipped out to the island with a kinder pot of micros and a 4mm expander, it took a while to get a proper bite but the first fish was in the net after about half an hour. No one was really doing much that I could see so I plundered on fishing this swim and managed a few more carp up to 4lb.

I tried the 11m line for ¾ of an hour but not even a liner. I was getting plagued with liners and false indications on the island but not hooking that many. Whether the fish were spawning or not I’m not sure but all day there were fins rolling about on the surface and a few trying their best to climb the bank!

I went back out to the island, it was very slow and I was managing a carp every half an hour but this still seemed to be pretty good from what I could see. I foul hooked a few and had the odd scale come back, I only lost one by bullying it a little bit but this was also foul hooked.

By the end of the match I had 12 carp including a grass carp of about 5lb which didn’t half put up a scrap! John just down the bank had had 9. I thought I’d have about 30lb so it would be close. The lad around the corner had managed quite a few in the last hour and one dead on time! ‘Fish on!’

Due to there only being 28 of us on the 50 peg late it was pretty much miss every other peg so I was to be 5th to weigh in, I managed to plonk 42lb 8oz on the scales which was a nice surprise and I also took the lead. Mal to my right had 37lb odd and the lad round the corner managed 43lb dead! I was second so far by 8oz, that fish in the dying seconds had just pushed him ahead of me. Still, he was in the next section so I’d won my section by about 5lb. My first good result and brown envelope ever in a senior match! I was overjoyed but it was about to get even better. My result was good enough for second in the match! I could have felt disheartened by only being 8oz off the mark but I fished a pretty tidy match and landed all the fish I’d hooked in the mouth and my brown envelope was also better than I’d initially thought!

So maybe sleeping in and doing no preparation is the way forward in my angling prowess, however I doubt it!

Or maybe my charity modelling stood me in good stead and it was time that I got a pay off!

‘til next time, tight elastics.