Brafferton F1 Lake - 13th May

After doing well off a “bad peg” last week I was hoping to carry on in the same vain and put a few fish in the net. Whilst loading my gear out of the car I was looking out over the lake and it was set to be a hard day as the wind was pushing through and it was forecast to only get worse. Come the time of the draw and Gordon was holding the bag, I drew with about half the pegs left in the bag and drew flyer peg 1. Now it is a flyer, but with the wind being so strong today any peg would be difficult to fish, and with the wind blowing to the other end of the lake, would there be any fish up here still? Tony Haw was next to me on peg 3 and there was a chap on peg 80 on another match opposite me. With peg 1 you have the choice of fishing to the end of the island, down the long margin and plenty of open water, being on the end of the island though, today would be particularly tough with the strong winds coming straight into face. After levelling my box I decided I’d have three main lines today, and island swim, a margin swim and a line at 6m. Our last match on here, I was on peg 25, the complete opposite end of the lake to peg 1 but I’d caught small fish nearly all day at 6m as the wind was horrendous that day too so I was hoping it would work again today. For across to the island I had a homemade 0.2g pencil float on 0.16 with an 0.12 hooklength and a size 16 hook, I’ve started using bigger hooks on here mainly because more often than not, I’ll fish a 6mm pellet rather than 4mm because you get bitted out by gudgeon on the smaller pellet. Elastic was a solid 12.For the margin I had a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.16 with an 0.14 hooklength and a size 16 hook and solid 14 latex elastic. My track rig was a 0.75g BGT Blue on 0.16 mainline to an 0.12 hooklength and size 16 hook, this was finished with a solid 12 latex. I also set up a shallow rig and had the method rod set up to fish to the end of the island if I needed it. For bait I had some 6mm expanders, some micros, some dampened 4mm pellets and some swim stim for the method. Thanks to only person shouting “TIME!!!”, and them being at the other end of the lake, a few of us probably started ten minutes late as no one seemed to filter the call down the rest of the lake! I saw Tony go across straight away whilst I fed my short line and my margin. I decided to start fishing on the short 6m line and see how Tony got on in the wind. As it happened I caught a couple of small stockies straight away and although Tony had only managed one, it looked a lot better stamp to mine. I persevered on this line and started putting a run of fish together, it was far from frantic but I seemed to be faring better than Tony, who by now had also moved onto a short line but with no luck. The bloke opposite had only had a couple so I felt I was doing OK as I had around 15 in the net. The fish seemed to back off a bit from this line and for the rest of the match I chopped and changed and managed to keep a few fish coming to the net be it on the island line, the method or back on the short line. The margin didn’t seem to want to produce though and every time I looked down there I’d only get plagued by gudgeon or roach so I just kept feeding it hoping that the small fish would get bullied out. With all my swims fading away I spent the last twenty minutes down the margin hoping that they’d turned up, which they had! I had size carp in the last 20 minutes, all averaging a pound which was double the size of my average stamp. Just a shame they hadn’t turned up earlier, as time was called before I got chance to empty it! I packed up quickly as I was weighing in again! Tony Koz walked past asking how I’d got on, I reckoned to have at least 25lb but probably nearer 30, he thought I was telling porkies but I’d seen him catching fairly well, though he admitted he was half tempted to pack up early so we’d see! I was first to weigh in and my two nets went 33lb so I was relatively pleased as I had more than I thought, though I wasn’t sure how well everyone else had caught but imagined it wouldn’t be good enough! Tony Haw weighed in 16lb odd, which came as a surprise because I thought we’d caught a similar amount! Taxi Dave then had 43lb odd, Tony Koz 41lb odd, then the bank got stronger as we went along! We got to Gordon’s peg and his first net weighed 24lb odd, I said he’d better not have more than 9lb in his other net or he’d have done me for the quid. His reply was that he only had a few fish in his second net, but he’s been hanging around with Rab for too long and his second net weighed 35lb giving him a total of 59lb odd! I was gobsmacked, someone must have helped him! But credit where its due, I handed the pound over, but only for him to look after until next week!! It’s now 7-3 to me in the quid stakes so I’d best pull my finger out if I’m going to rub any more salt into the wounds!! Cooksy weighed in over 70lb which was good enough to win the match (even if he was on the wrong peg!!) The top 3 looked like this: 1st P. Cooksey – Peg 15 - 73lb 06ozs 2nd S. Stott - Peg 25 - 72lb 15ozs 3rd A. Nattrass – Peg 20 - 66lb 11ozs There’s no club match next week so I’ll decide on where to go depending on what the weather is like!