Steve Lupton Fishing Blog

Maggotdrowners Winter Knock Up - Oaks, Cedar - 15th January

2012-01-25T06:48:00.001-08:00

After a chat with Gordon, we decided to book onto one of the Maggotdrowners knock ups at the Oaks, these have been running for a while now and with the majority of Club matches not beginning again until spring there always seems to be a good turnout. Despite the weather being freezing and the previous days match being won with a low 20lb and 9lb being good enough for third it was good to see 31 anglers brave the banks.

After a hearty breakfast I was set up for the day and was hoping for a decent draw and a few fish. We had the whole 80 peg lake to go out so there would be plenty of room, the straight nearest the woods (pegs 71-80) had been left out apart from peg 72 because although the aerators were on the night before, the previous days match saw this start to freeze over again before the end of the match! The draw began at quarter to nine and we weren’t staring until ten so we had plenty of time to get sorted. I dipped into the bag and came out with 72, I was gutted to say the least, it was going to be a hard day and a cold one at that as these pegs never see any sunshine because of the woods! Still I remained upbeat and thought I’d have to remain positive to get anything from the match.

One thing about this time of year is that you expect to catch very little and it’s a case of keeping disciplined in order to not kill your peg by overfeeding. With 9lb being good enough for third the day before I thought this would be a good target to aim for and would also help me gauge how much to feed.

Gordon was on peg 2 and because there was nobody else on the straight meant that we were actually pegged next door to one and other albeit a gap of ten pegs!

I set up three rigs for the day, knowing it was going to be hard I set up a 4x10 Preston Chianti on 0.12 mainline to an 0.10 hooklength and a size 18 Gama Pellet and Paste hook, this would be for fishing a single grain of corn right across the far bank in about 2.5-3ft of water, this was finished off with a size 8 latex elastic.

I also set up a rig for fishing across with maggot, I was using one of my own home made pencil floats, an alternative version to the one I used the week previous, this was a 0.2g slim pencil body, with a wire stem and a fine plastic tip, this was again on 0.12 to 0.10 but with a size 20 Middy 63:13 and size 6 latex.

For down the track I had an identical rig to the maggot rig but with a 0.4g version of the float and a doubled 5 elastic, this would be my pellet rig and so I used a size 20 Gama pellet and paste hook.

For bait I had some corn, dampened micros, black swim stim, 4mm expanders and last week’s maggots that I’d riddled off.

At the all in I went over with the corn rig and lowered it in on my left hand swim, I had 4 lines along the far bank that I could drop this in. My plan was to fish it in one swim for ten minutes before moving to the next one. I’d try this for the first couple of hours before using my other lines. On my first put in I realised my backshot was a bit too close to my float so I shipped back to move it up an inch or two and whilst I was doing this Steve Hawkins was into his first carp on peg 70 but they soon parted company, probably foul hooked. I went back out and had a bite almost instantly and after a few seconds I had a big F1 in the net at around 2.5lb, good start! I then rotated between the lines with corn for about an hour and a half but no more bites materialised, perhaps I should have come off this earlier as they obviously weren’t there, where as Steve on peg 70 was putting one in the net fairly often. They’d obviously decided to hide around the corner for the day!

I decided to have a look down the track with the pellet rig, I dropped in with a 4mm expander and tipped in half a dozen micros and a fruit shoot of ground bait. Just as the float settled I heard a commotion on the next peg. Steve had landed a fish but his landing net handle came apart, as he went to reach for it he tripped and end up laid in the water edge on top of the reeds! He managed to grab his net, get back on his box and eventually land the fish! I would have asked him if he was alright but I was far too busy laughing! Thankfully he had some spare clothes in his van otherwise it would have made for an even colder afternoon!

The pellet line eventually came good and I managed two more F1’s about a pound each but I was going nowhere fast! Even though Steve decided to go for a swim it didn’t affect his fishing and he carried on putting fish in the net!

I eventually ended up scratching for silver down the track on maggot and managed a few roach half a dozen dumpy perch. Then that was it, the all out called after a very tough match!

Steve ended up winning the match with 40lb, a fantastic result considering the conditions! I scraped a section win with 6lb 3oz, Rab managed his section with around 12lb and Gordon tipped back a lonesome F1!

There’s another knock up arranged for next week which is programmed for Maple if it’s not frozen over!

Team Inbetweeny – Poplars – 8th January

2012-01-20T08:20:00.001-08:00

Today I was joining Gordon, John and Stu for a day on Poplar up at Sessay, Poplars isn’t a lake I fish very often up here but I’ve always done OK on. Robbie told me anywhere around peg 37 in the bay would be a good spot for the day but we were going to do a little rover match between pegs 45 and 39. I managed to draw second pick and plumped for 45 where Pete Whale had done well from during the week. Gordon was on 43, Stu was on 39 and John decided to go on 37, (which wasn’t a peg to choose from).

My main reason for fishing today was to try out a homemade float, if it was successful I could then make a few more, the last thing i wanted to do was to make a whole bunch for them to all be useless! I had two different types to try today, both 0.4g pencil float bodies with 1mm stems, 1.8mm hollow tips and figure of 8 spring eyes. One stem was stainless steel, the other clear glass fibre. I’d been warned about the stainless steel stem being too thick, this was proved when it sank under its own weight!! The glass fibre stem version took six No.8’s, and a No.10 dropper. This wasn’t the ideal float to use today as it was pretty cold, although relatively mild for January, but at least I could get an idea of how it sat in the water, and if it took any water on throughout the day.

I set this float up for fishing down the track at 11m on 0.12 mainline, 0.10 hooklength and a size 18 Gama Pellet and Paste hook, this was finished with a doubled 6 elastic. I also setup another rig for fishing across, this was on the same line, hook and elastic but with a 4x10 Malman Cedar.

Bait for the day was a pint of maggots, some black swim stim, micros and 4mm expanders. At the “all in” everyone was still waiting for me as i’d not shot tested my floats prior to today so was still fiddling about getting it to sit correctly.

I was finally ready and went to 11m to fish down the track armed with a 4mm pellet and a fruit shoot with a down micro’s in and topped off with some black swim stim. First put in I had an indication and struck like Zorro! I missed it but lowered the rig back in this time when the float bobbed I was ready and met it with a gentle lift and it was fish on. The bites were so shy that they float only just pulled under the surface so you could still see it under water. It was fish number one in the net, a small F1 about 10oz. Stu and Gordon seemed to catch one at the exact same time I had done so we were all in lead, with John the only one to not have caught (off the flyer peg).

We were all steadily putting one or two fish into our nets apart from John who was still fishless after the first hour, much to his dismay as everyone that turned up for a chat we’d get to ask John how many he’d had to rub salt into the wound!

After two hours I’d had ten fish down the track and was doing OK but this is where the bites stopped, coincidental that Gordon and Stu had also stopped catching, probably because of all the commotion by our “visitors” and more likely the curse of Dave Wright!!

John had started catching one or two now that we’d all stopped and in the end he was getting a bite every put in and being rewarded with a small carp or F1 every time including some much better bonus fish up to 4 or 5lb.

So all our teasing hadn’t troubled John and he was now sailing away with the lead. We stopped fishing at about 3 as we were all bored (apart from Bagger Livesey on the flyer peg)!!

We did a quick weigh in, my 11 fish went 9lb odd, Gordon DNW’ed, Stu had 6lb odd and John........just shy of 40lb......

So an enjoyable day and it was even more rewarding seeing one of my own floats go under......and beating Mr T for the pound!

Oaks - Cedar Starbeck Club Christmas Match

2012-01-11T05:06:00.003-08:00

The final match of the year came around and with a very cold day! Today was our club Christmas match. With 3 man sections it was all to play for! Also with a giant Christmas feed thrown in at the end of the match it got the numbers up with 29 in attendance, probably the best attendance of the year! It’s amazing what a free lunch can do!

We were fishing on Cedar up at the Oaks and had pegs 18 to 56, this meant we could have the three man section in a row and then a gap before the next section. This wasn’t ideal at this time of year but it seemed the only way to peg it fairly, plus it would mean you could see both your competitors!

As it happened I drew peg 56, which although the end of our match, the next match started on peg 57 and it later materialised that I would be bang in the middle of 5 in a row! Far from what you needed today when it was going to be a grueller! To rub salt into the wounds, this end peg meant I also had to weigh in!

For company I had Terry on 55 and Martin Whit on 54, we soon struck up a three way quid to add to the bragging rights!

I only set up two rigs, one for fishing at the base of the far slope in five and a bit foot of water. The other rig was for fishing in 3ft of water on the sloping shelf. Both these rigs were 0.4g Garbolino DC13H floats, which I don’t particularly like but they’d have to do, these were on 0.12 mainline, 0.10 hooklength’s and size 20 Gamakatsu pellet and paste hooks. The rigs were finished with doubled 5 elastics. Bait was also simple today with some micros, some black swim stim, some 4mm expanders and a few maggots.

The all in was called at 10am and we were only fishing five hours today due to it being dark at 4 o clock nowadays! I expected it to be hard but as the match panned out, it was harder than I’d have expected. The first hour or two were OK, I put a few F1’s and a couple of small Barbel in the net, as well as losing a few fish. At one point it was more like Tel and I were seeing who could lose the most fish rather than catch them! After this initial spell of fish, it went dead, and to spark a response I fed a handful of maggots onto the island to try batter the small fish to build up a weight, I think I had a dozen in the last three hours where as Martin and Tel were catching far more, even though they were only tiny. I need to learn that when it’s cold, dumping in bait to “spark a response” very rarely works, I’d have been better off doing the softly softly approach and feeding a few maggots every put out!

Well the match drew to an end, and I must admit the last few hours were a bit tedious, the only thing that kept my spirits up was the prospect of a hot meal!

I was first to weigh in and managed a not so impressive, 9lb11oz, I was instantly a quid down to Tel when he weighed 13lb odd, Martin cemented my misery when he plonked 16lb odd onto the scales which turned out good enough for 3rd on the day! Jonesy won the match from around peg 50 with 20lb. So it had fished hard but we’d all had a good laugh!

Back in the warmth in the cafe, the Christmas dinner went down a storm, a huge plateful of everything you could imagine! (As well as sampling all three puddings.......and mince pies.....and Christmas cake.....) I only had the one chocolate mint though as I had my tea waiting for me at home....

Thanks must go to Mary for the splendid meal, it was much appreciated by all, shame we don’t do this after every match!

The Oaks - Open 20/11/11

2012-01-11T05:06:00.001-08:00

After last week’s triumph I was ready to tackle the Sunday open at the Oaks again. After a minor personal victory last time around I was ready to right a few wrongs and put some more ideas into practice. There were 23 fishing today, a good turnout for a cold November day! Gordon and Rab had also made the journey so the quid was on once again with Mr T.

All 3 lakes would be used so we would all have plenty of room. I managed to snare Sycamore peg 21. I always prefer being in the middle of these rectangular lakes, similarly to Woodlands, the ends can often be hit or miss. After parking at the wrong end of the lake, two trips saw me eventually get all my gear to my peg. This week I hadn’t had chance to set up my top kits the day before which meant I would be rushing to get a decent amount of time to plumb up.

I only set up two rigs today, one for on the shelf at 13m and one down the track at 11m at the bottom of the slope. I wasn’t too confident in my ability for fishing on the slope so decided to pin my faith in these two lines instead.

There was a thick mist hanging over the whole fishery, this light grey sky would initially prove a nightmare for seeing a float at any distance, thankfully the black marker made a welcome appearance from the bottom of my box! I had the same rigs as two weeks previous, but this time I used a doubled 5 latex for the shelf and a solid 8 for down the track.

Bait wise I had half a pint of white maggots, some black swim stim, some micros, some 4millies, and 4 & 6mm expanders.

At the all in I went onto the deep line where I was expecting to catch most of my fish today. It probably took 15 minutes before I hooked into my first fish after a few tentative nibbles. The chap opposite on his debut on the lakes had already caught about 4 I think! I could also see Chappy, Ghandi and Josh Newton putting a few in the net. I stuck with this line and in the first hour managed 12 fish. The second hour slowed somewhat and I only managed 8, though because I was still doing OK in the grand scheme of things I stuck with it for the third hour and managed a further 10 to take my total to 30 fish in the first three hours. It didn’t quite feel right and the fish weren’t of a great average stamp so I fed a fruit shoot of bait on the shelf and left it for ten minutes before going over it. This turned out to be a bad move, I stuck at it for an hour which was far too long, I only managed 4 fish and so decided to go back down the track. Looking back I should have stuck at it down here or had a go on the slope as a practice as I was far from contention.

The change to the deep line proved a good one and in the last ninety minutes I had a further 16 fish taking my tally to 50 for the match so I’d beaten my fish quantity since the last time by 11 fish so I couldn’t grumble at that, though I knew my weight would be less. The average fish size I was getting was far less than on Beech!

At the weigh in I managed 36lb dead, Chappy won our lake and the match with 62lb. Rab had 42 fish for 40lb from the last peg on Sycamore, a much better stamp than I was getting? I did however beat Mr Thackwray for another pound!

An interesting point on average fish size though. Phil Sellars on Beech 7 where I fished a couple of weeks ago had 48 fish for 56lb, this works out at 1lb3oz per fish, this tally’s with my 39 fish for 45lb8oz, again 1lb 3oz. Whereas my 50 fish today averaged only 12oz! If my 50 fish had have averaged that 1lb 3oz I’d have had a weight of 62lb!! I’ll have to have a think on why I only managed to attract smaller fish into my peg, too much feed? Too little feed? Wrong type of feed? All good questions, questions I’ll hopefully answer next time I’m on the bank!

The top 4 looked like this

John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 62-14-0, carp to 2 lb on 14 m pole and pellet, Sycamore 5
Phil Sellars (Garbolino Elton) 56-10-0
James Woods (Oaks) 56-1-0
Chris Hall (Oaks) 54-2-0.

Brafferton F1 Lake - 13/11/11

2011-11-19T09:59:00.001-08:00

Seeing as we the cafe at Brafferton is now closed we met at the Oaks and did the draw from there. The draw got underway early for a change and I managed to draw 72, which is about half way down the right hand side looking from the car park. This is in the middle of an island, the ends of the islands often fish better as you’ve a bit more water to go at and you have the potential to draw fish from the other side of the island. I had Gordon to my right on peg 70 so I’d be able to keep an eye on my quid for the day. I also had Bri Gascoigne to my left on 74. I set up 3 rigs in total, two rigs were the same, a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.14 Ultima Power match to an 0.12 hooklength of the same material, one had a size 18 Gamakatsu Pellet and Paste, the other a size 14. These were finished with 12 and 14 latex elastics. The smaller hook and elastic was for fishing to the island at 14m in two swims, the larger hook and heavier elastic was for down my right hand side in the marginal reeds. My final rig was a 0.4g BGT shallow long float for fishing 6.5ft down the track, this was for lines at 5m and 11m, this was again 0.14 to 0.12 with a size 18 hook, 14 elastic.

For bait today, I had 4mm expanders and dampened micros for across and down the track. I also had a bag of black swim stim mixed up for cutting down the feed across and down the track but primarily for dumping down the edge. Finally I had my pint of maggots from the week previous, I’d riddled off all the dead ones and the casters but they were turning to casters gradually through the match! These would only be used as a get out of jail anyway so I wasn’t too bothered.

The all in was called at 10:15 and we were away, I initially went out with a fruit shoot to 11m and tipped in some micros before feeding a big pot of loose groundbait down the edge. By the time I’d baited my deep rig both John and Stu behind were catching from their island swims! I planned on fishing in the deeps for an hour or so before going across into the shallow water. It took 20 minutes or so before I got my first real bite after twitching the float every 15 seconds or so. The float gently slid away, I struck and it was all go, after a brief tussle I had my first carp in the net, all 5lb of it, this was a great start as I knew that John and Stu were both catching relatively small fish up to a pound. I dropped back in but only managed a couple of gudgeon and a small F1 the size of my hand. I’d started thinking that the first lump was a bit of a fluke and that there wasn’t much else down in the deeps although Bri was catching the odd F1 on the same line.

I read an article by Steve Ringer in the Angling Times and he said one key thing to his success is decision making, e.g. making the switch to a different swim when you think it’s right and not waiting half an hour catching nothing on your current line before making the switch. This is something I’ve taken on board over the last few weeks and it makes a lot of sense. I switched onto the island lines, first looking on the left swim into the sedges, literally in the sedges (according to Gordon, watching me fishing to this feature was better than television!). After freeing myself from the sedge three or four times I finally got the rig where I wanted it and tipped some micros in over the top. It wasn’t long before I was into a fish, another carp of about 3lb, this put up a good scrap on the soft 12 elastic but it was soon in the net. I decided to try my right hand line on the next put out but after 5 minutes and no indications I dropped back in on the left and was again rewarded with another carp, this time only about a pound. I constantly swapped between the two island lines and managed two more decent carp at 4lb a piece and although I wasn’t catching a great number of fish, they were all a much better stamp than everyone else, though rumours of Terry having a ten pounder were doing the rounds.

With an hour to go the bites had dried up on all my lines so decided to pot in half a big pot of maggots on the 5m line. Throughout the rest of the match I managed another 2 small carp, 2 tiny barbel and a few bits of this line swapping between maggot and caster on the hook so it turned out to be a worthwhile move.

The match was drawn to a close at 3:30 to the joy of everyone as it had fished very hard. I had 7 carp including 4 decent ones, Bri must have had 15 or so but they were all around a pound from what I could see. Gordon caught well towards the end and I thought it’d be close between the three of us. Bri reckoned he had 18lb, I thought I might have 22. Stu was first to weigh in and his 12 carp went 10lb odd so they must have all been small, just to prove he is human after all! Honest John managed a section win with 14lb from the next peg up from Stu. Onto my section and there were a few better weights, but only slightly with Gordon winning the match with 16lb odd. I was next with 25lb 14oz, so my quid was safe! Bri was next and I was keen to see what he weighed as I thought it would be close, his 22lb however fell short of the mark! So I was still winning the match and with Terry rumoured to have 30lb it would be interesting, he weighed 19lb, his 10lber was also probably about 7lb, rumours eh!! Tony Koz was last to weigh and put a slightly bigger 19lb on the scales than Terry to win the section. So I’d done it, it’s taken all year but I’ve finally won a match. This also means that I’ve picked up three times in my last 5 matches and also narrowly missed out on a payout on an open, things are looking up!

I’m back on the open at the Oaks next weekend, hopefully the weights will surpass those of this week!

The Oaks - Open 06/11/11

2011-11-19T09:57:00.001-08:00

This would be my first open match in a long time and having only fished the new “Squares” up at the Oaks once before I was looking forward to it. The weights on the previous few weeks matches were more than convincing for me to have a go. The week prior, the lowest weight on the match was 43lb, so perhaps I’d even be able to achieve my own personal goal of 40lb from the Oaks! After getting some welcome advice off Chappy and a good chat with Rob the day before I felt ready for what would hopefully be a decent match.

I set my rigs up on top kits at home so I’d have plenty of time to plumb up and to minimize rushing about. I had three rigs set up. The first was for the shelf at 13 plus meters, this was a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.12 Ultima Power Match main line to an 0.10 hooklength of the same material, a size 18 Gamakatsu Pellet & Paste Hook, this was finished with a doubled 5 Preston Original Slip. The next two rigs were for fishing at 4ft deep on the slope and at the bottom of the slope at 5ft ish. Both these rigs were the same line and hooks as the shelf rig but with a 0.4g Garbolino DC13H and doubled 6 Preston Fluoro Slip.

At the draw I managed peg 7 on Beech, this didn’t mean anything to me as such, although when I got to my peg I had 7 spare pegs! Yes 7! You can look at this in two ways, you can draw fish in from all the other surrounding pegs but the fish can also back off to these safe pegs where they know they won’t get caught, we’d have to wait and see!

For bait I had a pint of white maggots, some dampened micro’s, some 4mm feed pellets and some 4&6mm expanders for the hook. The main aim was to fish with a 4mm expander and feed micros but I had the opportunity of a change bait with the 6mm hookers and the 4mm feed pellets would hopefully help to pin the fish to the deck if I was suffering liners and foul hookers. I would only use maggots if I wasn’t catching to try get in amongst the Ide and other silver fish.

I plumbed up 3 lines, one at 11.5m in the deeps, 12.5m on the slope and 13.5m on the shelf.

For company I had Bert Poole opposite, Bob the Builder, Ghandi, Robbie, Whaley and A.N.Other.

The all in was called at 10am and we were away! First put in on the deep water line the float bobbed and I was in, unfortunately we parted after a few seconds! Next put in I had a couple of liners before getting a proper bite. This time I put a fish in the net, an F1 of about a pound. I carried on in the same vain feeding half a fruit shoot of micros after every fish to keep bait going in but to not over do it, if I didn’t feed I’d only wait longer for a bite so thought it better to keep something going in. At the end of the first hour I’d managed 10 fish, going into the second hour I went onto the slope and managed a couple more fish before pushing on top of the shelf. The second hour passed by similarly to the first with 9 fish although I’d lost a couple of foul hookers too.

I kept on rotating the lines starting deep and working shallower and repeating for the remainder of the match. The third hour resulted in 6 fish, fourth hour 5 fish, fifth hour 6 fish and the final thirty minutes I managed three. In this time I’d started feeding more four mil pellets to try get the fish to stay on the bottom but still suffered from foul hookers and in total I probably lost a dozen fish during the match! Changing to a 6mm pellet did bring more bites in the latter parts of the match those this may have been coincidental.

So in total I managed 39 fish, and from looking round I’d done fairly well on my lake (apart from Ghandi who’d caught most of the day), Bert and I were near enough fish for fish although I think I pipped him at the end. Whaley had caught less than me but had caught some decent fish and Robbie complained all day that there weren’t any fish in his swim!

By the weigh in though, Ghandi managed 72lb, Bert was just off 40lb and I thought it would be close between us. Whaley managed 42lb including an F1 over 4lb! Robbie managed 48lb, even though there were no fish in his peg! Bob didn’t weigh in and I managed 45lb 8oz, I’d finally beaten the Oaks demons! This was good enough for the third on the lake, however there were some better weights over 50lb on the other lake.

The final six (including myself) looked like this,

Chris Hall (Oaks) 72-12-0, carp to 3 lb on 14 m pole and pellet, Beech 15
Ray Singh (Garbolino Elton) 66-6-0
Phil Sellars (Garbolino Elton) 59-13-0
John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 56-8-0.
Rob Minikin (Sonubaits) 48-0-0
Steve Lupton 45-8-0

I’d only narrowly missed out on my section and the lost fish could have catapulted me into the top three! I think the main reason for lost fish was the new elastic, the double 5 I was using was fine as I’ve been using this for a few weeks now, the double 6’s were brand new for this match and proved a little too stiff, hopefully these will be bedded in for the next match! Still, I was more than pleased with 6th on a match with some very good consistent anglers who fish there a few times a week!

We’ve got an inbetweeny club match next week at Brafferton so I’ll hopefully catch a few for once, Brafferton is a venue I’ve never had much real look with so I’m looking forward to giving it a good go!

The Oaks - Cedar, 30/10/11

2011-11-15T03:12:00.001-08:00

This would be our last scheduled Club match of the year and after two pickups on my last two matches I was eager to finish the season on a high.

With the weather cooling off a bit (although it’s still surprisingly mild for this time of year), I wasn’t sure how effective pellet would be as my bait today and so decided to have a day on the maggot to try and keep bites coming all day, something I repeatedly fail to do when fishing pellet on Cedar.

There were 23 of us on today which is a fantastic turnout in comparison to the previous couple of weeks. We ended up with pegs 6 to 42 so we could peg it two in miss one to give everyone a little bit of room. At the draw there were two pegs left, in here were 8 and 27, 8 would be an end peg in our match and 27 is on a corner, 27 looks a good peg but I know Owen fished it in the Northern Intersite match a couple of years back and didn’t have too good a day. So as you can imagine I drew 27 and Stu “The end peg kid” got peg 8.

I arrived at my peg and had Butch on 26, Bri Gascoigne on 29, Jonesy on 30 and Woody on 32. This peg is quite good for keeping an eye on everyone else as you look down the whole of the back straight.

After messing about riddling my maggots off I could finally get my rigs ready. Perhaps something I need to invest in for next season is a large maggot riddle, doing 4 pints of maggots through a bait tub riddle takes an eternity! I set up 4 rigs in total, two rigs were for fishing maggot, which were Malman Cedars in 4x10 and 4x12 both on 0.12 mainline with an 0.10 hooklength to a size 18 Middy 63:13. These were finished off with size doubled up 5 elastic on the 4x12 and an 8 on the 4x10. The 4x10 rig would be for seeking out anything and everything during the match with a strung bulk where as the 4x12 rig had a bulk of shot just above the hooklength as a more positive rig. I set up a 0.4g BGT shallow long float for the margin at 11m where I had a rather woeful looking autumnal bush. This was on 0.14 mainline to an 0.12 hooklength and size 18 Gamakatsu pellet and paste hook. Elastic was size 12 latex. My final rig was a shallow rig for fishing open water to my right.

The match got underway and I shipped out with a big pot of maggots onto the sedge line and then went straight over the top with the 4x12 rig and double maggot hook bait. Usually when introducing this amount of bait it can take 20 minutes or so for the fish to settle and start feeding properly, today however I was getting bites from the off, but from nuisance roach and gudgeon. I persevered with this line for an hour before dumping another big pot and having a look down the side.

First put in down the edge and I was getting indications, I managed to hook my first fish down there, a small carp or about 12oz. A few more of these before it went quiet and I decided to big pot some pellets down there and give them an hour to find it.

Back out on the sedge line I managed a couple of better Ide before it slowed again. I figured out that it took a big pot to catch three decent Ide before you had to repeat to avoid catching the small fish. At this rate I’d need a gallon to put any sort of weight together, Jonesy offered me his left over maggots to bulk out my quantity of bait but I felt I was too far behind him and Woody to catch up so didn’t bother.

I ended up switching between the two line catching the odd fish but wasn’t putting any real runs of fish together and never any of a decent size.

Time was called and I’d enjoyed it though there were just too many small fish, and after talking to a few of the regulars afterwards I perhaps shouldn’t have fished maggot!

The scales came round and for the second week on the trot I’d weighed 25lb12oz. Jonesy and Woody both weighed in 35lb ish, perhaps I should have pinched those maggots after all!!

Super Stu won the match again, making it 11 this year with 60 odd pound from in form peg 8.

Woodlands - Mallard - 23/10/11

2011-10-28T06:27:00.001-07:00

This week we were on Mallard up at Woodlands. Mallard is one of the older match lakes at up at Woodlands and is rarely used as an open match lake but more for club matches and pleasure anglers. The last few times I’ve fished any of these older lakes they’ve fished very poorly, this is put down to a rumour of a big fish kill last winter during the deep freeze. The lakes have subsequently been stocked with small carp to boost the abundant roach and skimmer population. It was probably down to these reasons that there were only 10 of us booked on today. With 1st and 2nd prizes and a section a bank it was well worth putting in a decent performance as there was a 40% chance of picking up a brown envelope! Success would probably ride on the draw though, with the corner pegs generally out fishing the rest of the lake, especially at this time of year.

Prior to the match I’d decided on targeting the skimmers on a couple of lines and trying to get my head down for the day as it would be a race to catch as many as possible! The draw ensued and the last 3 pegs left in the bag were 1,10 and 19, all corner pegs. John drew 10, Stu drew 19 which left me with 1. So the plan would need to be revised somewhat as there would be a potential of catching from the side bank at the end of the lake.

I set up three rigs in total, one for fishing to a small bunch of sedges on the right hand bank at 15m, this was a 0.2g BGT shallow long float on 0.14 Ultima Power Match mainline and an 0.12 hooklength with a size 18 B911, this was complemented with a size 12 latex elastic. My next rig was my skimmer rig for fishing at 11m with a swim at 11 o’ clock and 1 o’ clock. This was a 0.3g Preston silver on 0.12 mainline and an 0.10 hooklength, this was finished off with a double 5 latex elastic. My final rig was the same as the skimmer rig but for fishing shallow, the only differences were the float which was a 4x10 Preston PB2 and the elastic was an 8 latex.

For bait today, I had a pint of whites, half or reds, some green swim stim groundbait, this was mixed on the dry side so it would only just hold its shape after a good squeeze. I also had an array of expander pellets for the hook from 4-8mm, and feed pellets were soaked 4mm hard pellets. The skimmer lines would be a maggot and groundbait approach with the odd 4mm used on the hook as a change and hopefully to pick off the better fish. I would fish either 6 or 8mm hooker on the carp line towards the sedges and feed 4mm rather than micros so to not get plagued by nuisance small fish, 15metres is a long way to go when your only bringing roach back!

The match kicked off at 10 o’clock and I shipped out to my first 11m skimmer line with a pot of groundbait and a dozen maggots, I repeated this on the second line before feeding the long line with 20 4mm’s.

First put out onto the right hand 11m swim and the float dipped and it was roach number one in the swim, I repeatedly swapped between the two lines before catching 2 fish off the right swim and one off the left as the bites were quicker on the right swim. After maybe a dozen roach I had my first skimmer of about 3oz, closely followed by a lull in bites of a minute or two and then two small stocky carp of 8oz a piece. Both swims then went quiet so I decided to re-feed the same again and have a look on the long line as Stu opposite was catching some sizeable fish off the aerator.

I went across armed with a 6mm hooker and half a dozen feed pellets and straight away the float was dancing all over the place, soon enough though I hooked a decent fish, up on getting to the net I saw it was around 2lb and then hook pulled! Marvellous! I put it to the back of my mind and went straight back across. I managed a run of maybe 10 fish before it went quiet again, they were all between 8oz and a pound so I wasn’t putting a huge weight together but I was easily winning my bank from what I could see although I knew Stu and John were catching fairly well too.

I re-fed the long line and fished for skimmers again for half an hour but wasn’t really getting anywhere, I was having to wait far too long between bites and the fish weren’t of any size. By now Stu was well in the lead and I’d heard John had caught quite a few so it was a case of getting my head down to push for second place and at least cement the section prize.

I went back over to the long line and managed another 7 or 8 carp in about 90 minutes, so it was fairly slow but they were all about pound each so worth having.

It went really iffy again and with only half an hour left I thought I’d try bag up on a few silvers to add those vital ounces! I’d been throwing half a handful of maggots to 4m in front of me and there’d been the odd swirl from small fish so thought it worth a go shallow. I went out with the shallow rig, slapped it in, fed and managed a roach of 2 ounce before repeating, I ended up putting a long lash on and essentially fished my top kit like a whip, I managed over 20 roach and rudd in fifteen minutes for nearly 2lb before I saw a big swirl on my long line. I dropped the “whip” and went straight onto it and managed 3 further carp for about 5lb in the last 15 minutes, which was a much welcome bonus including one on time!

The match had fished odd, I’d have expected more results from the skimmer lines but they dies as quickly as they started, with catching in spells and catching a lot of small fish I was unsure as to what I had but I’d hopefully won my bank.

I packed up quickly and due to being on peg one I was weighing in. I weighed 25lb 12oz and was fairly chuffed, I must have had 70-80 fish in total! Perhaps I was catching in longer spells than I thought! Mick Ayre on the next peg didn’t weigh in, we had a guest on the next peg who had a lovely net of silvers for just shy of 10lb. Rab was next with 12lb ish I think and last but not least Cooksey had 15lb off the other end peg. So I’d definitely won my section but was awaiting the other banks results. Honest John weighed over 36lb so I’d have to settle for the section, Stu romped the match with 91lb (this was nearly as much as everyone else’s weights combined!!!). Gordon ended up winning their bank by double default with 13lb, which meant I’d taken another quid from his pension!

So two sections on my last two matches are showing that things might be getting better, with our last scheduled match next weekend up at the Oaks can I make it 3 pickups in a row?

Top three looked like this.

1st – Stu “Superstar” Stott – 91lb
2nd – Honest John – 36lb
3rd – Steve Lupton – 25lb 12oz

Carp Vale - Cyprio + Front pool 25th September, Woodlands - Skylark 2nd October, Oaks - Maple 9th October

2011-10-11T09:37:00.001-07:00

After being on holiday for a couple of weeks we were at Carp Vale for hopefully a good days fishing, though I was a bit dubious with the last match fishing terribly.

My holiday saw me travel around Tuscany for a week, squeezing in a bit of fishing (of course). One of the campsites we stopped at backed on Lake Biguglia, a vast water that didn’t show up any information regarding fishing on a quick Google search, so myself and a couple of the lads rigged up simple waggler tactics on telescopic rods with a tin of corn for hook bait. We sat ourselves at the edge of a little harbour right next to the tents and on watching the locals, they were swinging in the odd roach which was encouraging although they were no more than an ounce or two. We cast in, sparked a fag, opened a beer and sat back in the evening sun and anticipated the roach sport! To our surprise when one of our floats did go under we were greeted with a fair bit of resistance, this was no roach! No it was a small common carp of about 2lb. In total we managed 30 between us whilst the locals caught about a dozen roach at best! This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a European Championship, so thankfully I can reflect positively that we’d done England proud!

Back to the Carp Vale match. There were 15 of us on today with 7 on Cyprio and 8 on the Front Pool. I was undecided as to which lake I’d prefer today with the apparent lack of bites of both lakes on our previous visit. The draw bag decided my fate and peg 61 would be my home for the day. Tony Koz won the lake off this peg last time, and Stu had also won a knock up off this peg. Tony advised me that if I got my head down I could win the match off that peg today. No pressure then

You’ve probably already guessed the end to this story. The lake fished appalling again, in fact both lakes did. Six out of the eight of us on front pool didn’t weigh in as we’d either blanked or only caught a couple of bits. Stef Armitage ended up fishing corn long in the last couple of hours and had over 60lb, a credit to him for correctly judging the conditions! Cyprio was won with 37lb which is miles off the fisheries general pace but good enough on the day. I didn’t bother challenging the scales with my two roach..................

The next match up on the calendar was Woodlands, this time fishing on Skylark, and to my knowledge I don’t think I’ve ever fished this lake? I’ve fished countless club matches and opens at Woodlands yet never drawn this lake.

There were 15 of us in attendance again and we’d have 8 on the front bank and 7 on the back bank. Normally with so few in attendance we’d have a lake 1st and 2nd with a section per bank. However the middle pegs had apparently been out fishing the ends so the sections would work where the end two pegs on both sides would form a section of 8 and the remaining 7 in the middle would form the other.

Cometh the draw, cometh.....peg 25, this is in the middle so I could hope for a better day than the end pegs, have a smaller section and a better view of how everyone else was doing!

I arrived at my peg and noticed the margins had been cut quite far back which made them look very tempting. Prior to the match I’d thought to just ignore the margins as I concentrate so much of my time feeding it throughout the match to never catch from them that it’s just a waste of time. However these margins looked so tempting that I’d set a rig up and feed it anyway, however, if no fish materialised like normal then I’d know to knock it on the head completely in future!

My main plan was to fish shallow at 13m and chase them out a section if I needed to. I’d also fish a top2+2 line straight in front of me that I could feed by hand. I also had a couple of rods set up, one with a method and 4inch hook length, the other a running half ounce bomb with an 18inch hook length.

Bait for the day, I had 2 pints of micros for the method, 4 pints of 6mm for my pole lines, 2 pints of 8mm for the rod rigs and 2 tin's of corn for the edge. I didn’t anticipate on using even half of this but depending on how the fish wanted it, I was at least prepared.

For company I had Stu on 27 and Bob on 23. Opposite I had Cooksey to my right and venue expert Les Bolton to my left.

At the all in I took the pole out to 13m just to use as a marker for cattying bait in. I fired some pellets in and then shipped back and slung the method out to 25 yards and pinged some 8mm pellets over the top. I persevered with this for about 40 minutes, constantly firing a few pellets over the method, half a dozen pellets on the shallow line and a handful at top2+2 every 15 minutes or so.

After the first hour I was still without a fish. So decided to try the shallow line. I got a couple of indications which was either small fish or perhaps fish a bit deeper trying to suck the suspended bait in. I added a couple of inches to my depth and managed to put 2 in the net both of around 4lb a piece.

It then went quiet again but Cooksey was catching on the bomb so I decided to flick a bomb out to 25 yards and managed to put a couple of fish in the net. It was then a case of switching between lines and hopefully picking up fish. I ended up fishing two bomb lines, one in front and one to my right and eventually put a run of 4 fish together although it was slow going.

At the all in I had 12 carp, which is slow going for the duration of a match! Stu had done similarly to myself. Cooksey had caught relatively well on the bomb for most of the day. Les had bagged up, though I expected that!

Come the weigh in Stu weighed 49lb12oz. I was up next and thought it would be close. My 12 fish went 51lb12oz so I’d beaten Stu, I’d also beaten Bob but forget his weight? I ended up coming second on the bank with Mick Ayre putting 97lb on the scales from the corner peg. Mick’s weight was good enough for second in the match with only Les’s 130lb beating him. Typically this would mean I’d have won the section but with it being swapped about meant I had to wait for another week to try!! Sods law was the fact that the opposite bank fished miles better than our bank, so it would have been fairer to do a section a bank!

My last match was up at the Oaks, it seems an age since I’ve fished up here and subsequently I wasn’t sure how to approach it. We were on Maple and after having a look through my past blogs, we fished here in the middle of October in 2008 and I fished a maggot match and won my section. The conditions for the day were forecast very similar too so that was my mind made up. A day on the maggot! With this I bought half a gallon from the shop on Saturday afternoon and filled up my maggot hook length box in the afternoon.

We were on pegs 30 to 68 and with an eventual 19 anglers booked on it was perfect for peg one miss one. I wasn’t too fussed where I drew as I think that when fishing maggot you’re targeting every fish and not just the odd pockets of carp through the match. I hung back at the draw and with 4 or 5 left to pick from I got peg 55. This is a lovely corner peg that contains some lumps on its day although it’s not an ideal maggot peg! D’oh!

With half a gallon of maggots sat in my bucket with no other chance to use them it was still going to be a maggot day. This would include a line in 3ft of water to the edge of the island at 14.5m, the same rig could also be used for fishing my top 5 down the edge. This would be a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.14 mainline to an 0.12 hook length and size 16 Gamma Black hook, this was all complemented by a 12 latex elastic. I also set up a rig for fishing the same swim to the island with 0.12 mainline, 0.10 hook length and a size 20 Middy 63-13 finished with a doubled 5 elastic. This was only if the going was tough or there were a lot of small fish in the swim. I also set up a paste rig to fish 15m to the bush to my right, this was 0.18 mainline, 0.16 hook length to a size 12 PR24 and 14 latex elastic, my float for this was a self cocking Preston paste float.

Due to not planning on fishing anything but maggot, the only other bait I had with me was half a bag of Crazy Bait Green Gold, which would have to do for my paste. It mixes too far on the sticky side and is far from an ideal paste consistency in my opinion but it would have to do.

For company I had Cooksey on 53, Stef on 51 and Stu on 49. We were starting a bit later today due to the massive queue in the cafe so the all in was called at 10:30.

On the all in I shipped out to the island with 100ml of maggots. What I tend to do is use my big 250ml cup and use my smaller cups to measure the bait into the big cup. This way I know how much I’m feeding and it also makes a damn site easier shipping out with a cup that’s half full rather than filling a small cup up to the brim and spilling them everywhere! I also fed a further 100ml of maggots down my right hand edge and finally cupped in half a big pot of 4mm pellets and a few lumps of paste out towards the bush.

First put in on the island line and I wasn’t getting any indications, I expected it might take 15-20 minutes for the fish to settle and rightly so. After twenty minutes the float dipped and I struck into my first fish, a roach of about 2-3oz. Next put in I managed an Ide of about 6oz. I decided to double kinder a pot of maggots in and this resulted in two F1’s both of about 2lb a piece. Another Ide pushing a pound and the line was quickly fading. Normally, or at least on any other peg, I’d have pushed into the mud line to try and snaffle a few more but this peg doesn’t allow you that privilege!

I decided to big pot the island swim again and have a look down the edge. After a couple of shy indication I managed a couple of small roach before deciding it was probably worth big potting here too and wait for some better stamp fish to turn up. With this I went out onto the paste line, as usual the bites are all over the place and so was my striking at sail away bites. Throughout the match I only managed 3 carp and a tench off this line though had enough bites to warrant 500lb of fish!

No one was really catching that I could see so I was constantly swapping between fishing and feeding the edge and the island as the paste line had beaten me! The island threw up the odd fish as did the edge but the wind was proving difficult fishing to the island. I decided I’d persevere with it though whilst heavily feeding the edge.

With twenty minutes to go I reckon I had about 18lb. I decided to go for it down the edge for the rest of the match as it was only small roach and Ide showing on the island line. The last twenty minutes proved fruitful with two small barbel, a small ghosty, an F1, two chunky Ide and a Perch of about a pound and a half which in total would add around 10lb to my final weight!

The matched ended at half four and although it had been hard I’d enjoyed it. The weigh in ensued and Stu put 45lb on the scale, Stef 30lb, Cooksey DNW’d and my fish went to 29lb 4oz. On speaking to Mr Thackwray I’d beaten him by 4oz for the sacred pound! Back in the cafe and it had been a better day than I thought. Stu had won the match, Bob the Builder was second with 38lb, Rab was third with 31lb and Gordon, Stef and Myself had picked up the section prizes. This is my first pick up the year which is more than welcome!

The final 6 looked like this

1st – Stu “Superstar” Stott – 45lb
2nd – Bob The Builder – 38lb-12oz
3rd – Rab – 31lb-8oz
4th – Stef Armitage – 30lb-8oz
5th – Steve Lupton – 29lb-4oz
6th – Gorgeous Gordy – 29lb (must try harder)

I’m playing a gig in London next week so will miss the Brafferton match and the next match is on the old lakes at Woodlands which the last few times I’ve fished them, they’ve been naff! So we’ll see about that one!

Woodlands - Partridge 14th August

2011-08-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

After a week of bad weather I was massively unsure of how this match would fish. I had a little think the week previous and thought that I tend to plan my match in my head before I get to a venue and don’t take into account the day itself. So this week I decided to make my plan once I’d got to the venue and tailor my approach to the conditions.

I arrived a full café at half eight and paid on. By the time my sandwich order came through at five to nine I decided to get it take out and eat at my peg. I popped to the shop and got some fishery pellets before loading my barrow. I was making my way back to the café and the draw had nearly finished. With only four pegs left in the bag I drew peg 5. Dependant on the day, depends whether any of the pegs will fish or not so I was still unsure what to make of it, although Andy Nattrass had over a ton off I think this peg, on a previous match.

For company I had Martin Dodsworth on peg 2 and John “I’ve only got 8” Livesey on peg 7. On sitting down at my peg, it was evident that someone had been there recently as all the bushes in the left margin were nicely hacked back and there were what looked like a lot of soggy 8mm pellets littered around the platform. I levelled my box and sat down for a few minutes assessing what my days attack would be. I finally decided to concentrate my main swim fishing shallow at 13m, with it being warm but overcast and a gentle breeze blowing through causing a nice little ripple I fancied it for a few shallow. I would also plumb up a deep line at 13m to fish paste when the shallow line died off. Whilst i was prepping the 13m swim I would fish a line slightly to the left at 6m where I’d hopefully mug a few fish. I also plumbed up down the left margin for the last hour as the fish can really come onto the feed late on and they tend to be big, not that I ever seem to catch them! Finally I had my method rod set up to fish into open water should I need to, although I’d change this to a running bomb if I had time.

I plumbed up all my swims to dead depth and marked my top kits in case of any breakages or tangles, this way I could adjust my float back to the mark and be sure that I was fishing at the correct depth again. This is something I used to do all the time in matches and pleasure sessions but I seem to have not bothered over the last few months, when I wish I had!

My bait for the day was 4 pints of 6mm pellets, 2 pints of 8mm, a big bag of corn and a tub full of green swim stim paste. I also had a few 6 and 8mm expanders for the hook if the going was tough.

The all in was called at 10am and we were away, I went out to the 13m line and big potted some 6mm pellets in from a reasonable height to cause a bit of a disturbance. I also big potted corn down my edge but sneaked this in with my pot under the surface. I went out onto the 6m line with a 6mm expander and tipped in a dozen hard pellets and a few bits of corn. I started pinging a few pellets over the long line to begin my shallow approach and everything was falling into place. In the first half an hour I was half heartedly fishing my 6m line whilst prepping the long line. First put in on the 6m line, my float had barely settled before the float buried and elastic was pouring out, I’m assuming it was foul hooked as it snapped my 0.16 hooklength somewhere in the middle of the lake. I put a new hooklength on, re-measured my depth and we were back in business. I only managed 4 small skimmers in the first half an hour before deciding to have a look on the shallow line.

I baited up my shallow rig with an 8mm hard pellet, the rig was set at about 20 inches, with a 10 inch lash so I had plenty of scope for altering the depth up and down if I needed too. I shipped out, fired some feed out before slapping the rig half a dozen times and finally letting it settle amongst the feed. I repeated this every 30 seconds or so and after five minutes the tip of the pole buried under the surface and it was fish on. I fired a few more pellets about after guiding it out of the feed area and shipped down to my top five, normally I’d ship down to the top kit but with limited space behind I had to break down twice. When I’d got it back to the top five, I trapped it between my knees and fed again before attempting a go at landing the fish. After a fairly big tussle I had a mirror of about 8lb in the net. I re-fed before unhooking it and slipped it into the net. I decided to tighten my elastic up a couple of turns on the bung just to make sure they didn’t snag me on the margin boards. I repeated this again and although not frantic, at the half way point of the match I had 10 fish for an estimated 65lb. This was far beyond my expectations and I had my first Starbeck ton set firmly in my sights! Honest John had moved shallow too but wasn’t getting many indications on the pole and was now on the pellet waggler and was admitting to a dozen. I couldn’t see many other people bagging but everyone was catching a few.

Rab walked past and asked how I was getting on, this essentially killed my swim, I only managed 2 more carp, a tench and a couple of smaller carp for the remainder of the match, this was by switching between shallow, paste and the margin. Looking back I should have fished bomb in the last couple of hours but because my rod was set up with a method I dismissed it as I couldn’t be bothered to change it (which would have taken all of a couple of minutes!). I was so set on making my shallow line work for the rest of the match that I had the blinkers on to make anything else work, even when watching Paul and Tony catching opposite on the bomb!

Come the weigh in, Martin was first off peg 2 and weighed 76lb odd. It would be close between the two of us again as I was admitting to 75lb. Two weighs later and I recorded 79lb11oz, this is my new Starbeck PB so all wasn’t lost! Honest John was up next and his 18 carp went 113lb! All the weights on the remainder of our bank beat me with a couple of 80’s and another ton.

The top 3 looked like this:

Stu “Superstar” Stott – 132lb odd
Stu Turner – 116lb odd
Honest John – 113lb odd

The match on the whole had fished very well, out of 14 anglers, my 79lb was only good enough for 7th, Rab managed 103lb or so and didn’t even win his section!

We’ve not got a match next week so I’m not sure where to go, I’m off on holiday the following week though so I’ll have to cram somewhere in!

The Oaks, Cedar - 7th August

2011-08-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

This week we were up at The Oaks and we were fishing on Cedar. After doing a bit of reading through old magazines and trawling through the internet I’d decided to finally fish maggot for a full match. The method seems to work pretty well up there as you’re catching Ide, Barbel F1’s and anything that swims. After a quick chat with Ghandi though, he said if you fish maggot now you’ll just get bitted out by small Roach, something I didn’t fancy, so once again I’d be trying my hardest at fishing pellet whilst trying to meet my target of 40lb! Today was predicted to be hard, the winds were forecast strong with gusts up to 31mph, there had also been a lot of rain over night which followed a week of muggy overcast weather.

We were on pegs 50 to 80 this week, I’ve never been anywhere near these pegs on Club or Open matches so it would hopefully make a nice change!

Come the draw I took the last peg out of the bag and peg 61 was to be by home for the day. For company I had James on 59, Honest John on 62, Martin Dodsworth on 64, Cooksy on 65, Acko and Stu were also on the point on the late 60’s.

I already had my rigs set up on top kits, 2 method rods set up and all of my hook baits prepared so I had enough time for a decent plumb about. The wind was very strong blowing from left to right and it would prove difficult to fish the pole all day if it were to stay like this. I plumbed up one line in front of the sedges in two and a half foot water, I was able to fish this rig in front of 3 or 4 patches of sedges due to the depth being fairly consistent. I also had as rig set up for fishing tight against the bank, although this was much deeper than I was expecting, usually I look for 10-12 inches but I was getting over eighteen inches! I set up a paste line for down the track but didn’t really want to use it. I had a shallow rig that I could fish over the paste line too, just in case. Finally a rig to fish down each margin should the fish come over the feed towards the end of the match. A quick chuck of the method feeder to set my clip and I was ready, although only just, good job I had all my rigs already set up, plumbing all those rigs proved to take longer than I thought!

At the all in I fed both margins with a small handful of corn and would aim to keep feeding with a pinch of corn every ten minutes or so. I shipped out with the sedge rig, with a 4mm expander and some micros and we were away, the float bobbed before a little lift, I struck and was rewarded with a small skimmer. I repeated this a few more times until I had 4 skimmers in the net before finally getting my first proper fish, an F1 of about a pound and a half. The wind was very strong by now so I decided to come off the sedge line and try fish it with method instead. I was straight hooking a 4mm expander and hiding it in the green swim stim feed. I managed a couple more F1’s and small carp before I was waiting far too long between bites, looking back I should have maybe searched my swim with this as I got the feeling the fish weren’t in the settling mood.

John on 62 had managed to hook 3 shallow at 8m and put 2 out of the 3 in his net, this was a good invitation for me to have a go seeing as I wasn’t fairing any better on my other lines. I pinged out a few 4mm pellets to 8m, shipped out and slapped the rig a few times before letting it settle. The float dipped and as I struck I felt a bump signalling it was more than likely a liner. I slapped the rig again and this time was rewarded with a 2lb mirror. I carried on for another 15 minutes but no more bites materialised.

At the half way point I reckoned I had about 13lb and from what I could see and hear, no one was bagging anywhere. I had a quick look down the edge on the off chance and managed another small mirror on the first put in but this again was a lonely fish.

I decided to pile the bait in down the edge and try and force them to feed. Every half an hour for second half of the match I cupped in a big pot of corn on each line and eventually started cupping half pots of 4mm pellets in too to get there heads down.

I switched between all the lines for the remainder of the match but didn’t really get going on any of them, although I did manage a couple more F1’s.

The last hour arrived and I decided to stick to switching between the margin swims, depending if any bites were on the cards. I managed 5 fish in the last hour, 4 small mirrors and one big common at about 5lb.

The final horn sounded and I got the feeling everyone was glad that the match was over, as it had been gruelling! Mainly due to the wind!

The weigh in began and the first section, if I remember correctly didn’t have a weight over 20lb! James weighed a mid 20lb, I managed to stick 31lb 12oz on the scales, John weighed 25 ish, Martin weighed weighed 31lb 14oz, although I wasn’t sure if we were in the same section? Acko plonked a stand out weight of 60lb on the scale after feeding half the tackle shop down the edge and Stu managed 35lb.

Although I’d not done my 0lb target I was still fairly chuffed with the outcome although as it turned out, Martin had beaten to the section by 2oz! Overall I came 5th which is the best I’ve done since returning to fishing this year so I can take a positive from that at least. Oh and Gordon handed me a shiny pound coin too, which was nice of him!

The top 6 looked like this:

1st Mick Atkinson – 60lb odd
2nd Stef Armitage – 37lb odd
3rd Stu Stott – 35lb odd
4th Martin Dodsworth – 31lb 14oz
5th Steve Lupton 31lb 12oz
6th Rab – 30lb odd

River Wharfe - 29th July, Carp Vale 31st July

2011-08-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

With the weather being kind all week, I decided I’d have another go down on the River Wharfe at Pool. I headed down there after I’d finished work and was probably fishing by 5 o’ clock. I cast out a maggot feeder into a slightly deeper looking pool, about two thirds across the river with a maggot feeder and a 12 inch hooklength with 4 maggots on the hook. I was hoping that by putting 4 maggots on the hook the minnows might be put off. I was wrong, the tip never sat still with the minnows shaking the maggots off one by one. Another big problem was the amount of weed in the river, I ended up putting a new hooklength on with a hair rigged cork ball and maggots on the hook, just to keep the bait out of the weed, this did no good either though. I persevered with the swim for a couple of hours, even free lining a big black slug didn’t show any signs! I moved to a little gravel bed just downstream of the weir but the minnows were still proving a nuisance, although I didn’t have any problem with weed there. So in short, not a very productive evening but there’s not many nicer places to have a doze than down by the river!

Sunday arrived, and feeling a little ropey from the night before I made my way to Carp Vale with a bottle of Lucozade, this was probably the ideal time for a big breakfast, unfortunately its one of the few venues without a café, I’ve since realised an apple is not an adequate substitute for a big breakfast!

After the disappointments last year by the majority of people who fished the match lake, this season, Cyprio and Front Pool were to be used in the matches, not necessarily making it fairer as it’s treated like two separate matches anyway but at least everyone should have a good days fishing.

I received a lovely polished pound off Mr Thackwray from last week but gave it straight back to him for the football card, which again, I didn’t win. There were 16 of us in attendance today which meant we’d have 8 on each lake so we’d have plenty of room.

We drew at 9am and I managed peg 66, this is on the front pool and from what I could remember, this would be a good method peg. So much for a lot of room though, Kev was on p67, Gordon was on p66 and Andy was on 64. Granted I don’t fish here that often and these might all be good pegs on their own but when they’re all in? We’d have to see. Making up the numbers on my lake, Honest John was on the easiest peg on the lake with an island in pole distance, Bob the Builder and the two Tony’s were all on the opposite bank.

Once I’d plonked all the gear down and got my box sorted, I set about setting my clip for the method. After a quick chat with Kev, we decided he could have the clump of reeds between us and I’d fish the other side of the island. I clipped up to fish just in front of the reeds off the point of the island, and with fish cruising and crashing all over the lake I was fairly confident of a good day, especially after the last I fished here I had over 70lb. I set up a paste rig which would cater for a swim at 13m in front and 6m to my right. Finally I had a shallow rig to fish at 13m over my paste line.

I made sure that everything was just right before the match started, as last time; I missed out on a payout, mainly due to messing about during the match and losing fish. The all in sounded at 10am and we were away. I big potted some 6mm pellets and a few bits of paste on both lines and then fired the method out to the reeds. Five minutes past and I was already worried, no one had had a signal yet, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, nothing? I stuck with the method for 45 minutes and managed a couple of lines but these were by fish in the middle of the lake as I saw them boil on the surface at the exact moment I got a liner.

I dropped onto the 13m paste line and standard with paste I was getting a thousand and one indications but not connecting with any fish. I eventually put a carp in the net of about 3lb; I swapped onto the short paste line and managed another carp straight away of a similar size. I kept swapping between these two lines and put a “skimmer” that was probably a bream due to it being a dark bronze and about 3lb! I also put a nice crucian in the net that would’ve been about a pound and a half.

At the halfway point I was sitting on about 11lb with 4 fish, not brilliant! Although everyone else was struggling too, Andy had had a few on the tip, Gordon was fairing similarly to me on the tip, Kev had had a few silvers and lost a carp. The opposite side of the lake weren’t doing any better either. In fact it was only John on the easy peg and Tony Koz who were putting many fish in the net although they were both losing more than they were catching through foul hookers and snags.

I swapped between all my lines for the rest of the match and managed 2 more carp and a tench. I reckoned I might just scrape 20lb! So a poor day, but at least it was crap for everyone.

The weigh in ensued, Andy weighed 26lb odd, Gordon 25lb 4oz, Kev DNW’ed, then I was next, it was closer than I thought for the quid with Gordon, I weighed in 25lb dead, though that I feel may have been generous! Tony Koz weighed 52lb odd, Tony Minikin 25lb odd, Bob DNW’ed and John weighed 48lb. So all in all it was very close on our lake apart from Tony and John, both of them could fish to an island with the pole, granted they both lost a lot of fish but at least there were fish there for the taking!

The other lake had fished equally poor with Martin Dodsworth coming second with 36lb and Stu “Superstar – needs banning next season” Stott weighing in 91lb!

Next week its Cedar up at the Oaks, one of my aims this year was to catch over 40lb on a match at the Oaks, this is something I cant seem to do but always come close with big 30lb weights but always not quite there! Wish me luck!

Brafferton F1 Lake - 24th July

2011-07-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

I’ve not been fishing in a long while due to busy weekends with the band and finally completing my degree! After 7 years of further learning it’s finally finished, I can now hopefully get out on the bank a bit more often!

This week we were returning to Brafferton on the F1 Lake. I was at Fish O’ Mania the week before (not competing!) and managed to grab a couple of bargains so wanted to test out some of my new gear!

I arrived at the fishery at just after 8 o’ clock and before I got chance to order my breakfast, Gordon robbed me of all my change for the football card, nice to see things don’t change! There were 20 of us booked on today and all the pegging was down the central arm of the lake. I’ve only fished here 3 times, on the two end pegs, 63 and 64 and also mid way down the right hand bank on 56. I’ve never excelled here so fancied giving it a real good go today, especially after not fishing for a few weeks.

Come the time of the draw I managed to snaffle peg 54. For company I had Acko on my right on 52, Martin Dodsworth on 55, and behind me I had Gordon, Paul Jones and Bad Santa.

The wind was blowing through fairly strongly so first things first I got the method rod out and clipped up to fish in a little hole on the far bank. I also set up a rig to fish in 18 inches of water at 13m, a metre off the bank. My final two rigs were to fish paste at 5m in six and a half feet of water and margin rig to my right where I had a spare peg.

At the all in I fed my paste line with a potful of 6mm pellets and a few blobs of paste. I also cupped in a big pot of corner down the edge. Whilst these lines were resting I cast the method out to the gap in the island. 2 minutes later the line went slack as the fish backed away from the island, I struck and frantically wound in until I got some resistance, I played the fish for a few second before we parted company, not the start I was hoping for! I recast to the same spot (well, within about 10 yards!). The tip slammed round again and this time I was in, after a brief tussle I had my first fish in the net, an F1 of perhaps 12oz. I carried on in this vain for the first half an hour and put 4 further fish in the net, all of a similar size to the first. After recasting and waiting with no response, I had a final cast which again proved fruitless, so decided to have a look on the paste line, and big pot some more corn in down the edge.

First indication on the paste line was from a small barbel or about 5-6oz, hopefully there were a few bigger ones there! Thankfully there were, I put another half a dozen fish in the net before again it went iffy. I was trying a new tact with the paste rig today, I remembered reading a while back to use a sliding olivette as the bulk shot, this way when you ship out you get far less tangles as all the line is tight against the weight of the olivette. It worked well however I’ve a feeling the “jerk” it creates when hitting the stop shot down line may not be the way to go if using really sloppy paste?

I spent the rest of the match switching between lines, continually feeding the edge hoping it would come good in the last hour! I only put a few more fish in the net in these few hours, Acko was also having a nightmare and Martin was only putting the odd fish in his net too.

The final hour turned up and I probably had less than 15lb in my net, I desperately needed to catch some down the edge and thankfully this happened, it wasn’t manic but I put 4 fish in the net, all of a much better stamp. I probably had 15-16lb with these 4 fish including one that would have been pushing 7lb. this was nothing though, Bad Santa behind me had 3 fish for 40lb, including one that went 17lb 12oz!

Come the weigh in and I managed to put 32lb 8oz on the scales, not brilliant, but the last hour probably doubled my final bag. Gordon weighed in 17lb, but disappeared before he could give me his quid, I expect it to be sparkling by next week!

Top 3 looked like this:

- Woody – 103lb
- Bad Santa – 100lb 8oz
- Stu – 99lb 12oz

I’m presuming Woody and Stu fished pellet against the island; Stu remarked he was fishing a distance off it in about 14 inches of water. Bad Santa fished cat food all match and reportedly fed 12 tins! Food for thought for the next time we're at Brafferton!

September 12th - Oaks, Cedar

2010-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve missed the last couple of matches due to holidays, weddings and performing at Lodestar Festival in Cambridge, I had however managed a trip up to the Oaks to fish Maple on the bank holiday Monday where I managed a few fish by switching between, pellet on the sedge, paste on the slope and corn down the edge.

Seeing as this season hasn’t been going too well for me I’ve started preparing for next season already, essentially I’ve compiled a list of hooklengths that I’ll need for any eventuality and there’s plenty to keep me busy once the cold nights draw in! With this however, means that I’m also just using what I’ve got for the rest of this season. I had plenty of rigs and hooklengths tied up but felt they were a bit light for fishing Maple (the fixture list had changed without me knowing) but I was just going to make do and have a days fishing.

By the time of the draw (still thinking we were fishing Maple) Owen had struck a quid and was drawn on 58 and I was to be on 40 for the day. Now on Maple I’d have rather been on 58 as I like it down that end.

Owen said “You were on 40 for the Intersite weren’t you?
“No” I replied, “but we’re on Maple today aren’t we?
“No, the fixture list was changed ages ago!”

Good job Owen filled me in on this vital information otherwise I’d have arrived at my peg and tried to kick some pleasure angler off their peg!

So as it turned out my rigs would be more than adequate for the day as they’re not as big in Cedar as they are in Maple.

I go to my peg and had Jonesy for company on 41, Martin Dodsworth on 43, Kev Armitage on 45, Bob the Builder on 37 and Tupperware on 35 to make up my section. So my first thought was why I was on 40 and not 39 to make it peg one miss one, but hey ho!

The wind was getting up as we were all setting up and knowing what Cedar is like when it’s windy I made sure to get the method rod set up mainly to protect the pole from any breakages. The sedges on peg 40 aren’t as good as I’d have hoped, there’s a decent patch on the right hand side but then there is a long mud line before a cut back stretch of sedges. Not wanting to fish long if I could help it, I set up a sedge rig for the right hand sedge at each end of it. I also set up another rig for fishing to the mud although I wasn’t too confident in it today with the wind being so strong. I’d imagine the fish would back off from the strong ripples in the shallow water (so with this in mind you’d think I’d set up a line down the track where it gave the fish some shelter and it would also be easier to control a rig, erm no, don’t know why I didn’t set one up here? Out of practice perhaps!). My final rig was to fish both margins with a corn attack seeing as it had paid off the last time on Cedar and also on Maple a couple of weeks ago.

At the all in I swung the cupping kit down each side to act as a marker and threw a couple of grains of corn down either side. It was then across to the sedge armed with a 4mm pellet and a fruit shoot half full of micros. I lowered the rig in slowly which was difficult against the wind and the tow and eventually tapped my bait in over the top. The wind was proving difficult even with an 18 inch lash and two bulked number 8’s as a backshot. Eventually I started getting a couple of indications, and after 20 minutes I put a gudgeon in the net followed by a skimmer, nect I had my first F1 at just over a pound, another skimmer and a further F1 were the ripe old pickings before the gudgeon moved in. this is where I’d have normally pushed into the shallower water but I was less confident catching there today due to the weather. I had a quick look down either edge and to my surprise I managed a lonely F1 off the left sedge. After a further five minutes down either edge I decided to big pot a handful of corn down either side and then go out on the method.

Even though I’d had a few practice cast to get the clip set the wind and added weight of the feed were making it not quite go to plan, perhaps I need to clip up with a heavier lead to compensate for the weight of the feed, the added weight obviously arcs the rod further round on the cast making it go a bit further than expected? However after my first couple of naff chucks I’d got the clip set to drop it in between the front of the sedges and the mud. After ten minutes the rod was tapping round and another F1 was in the net, I carried on in the same vain but to no avail.

So at the half way stage I had 5 F1’s of no particular size and a few bits, not quite going to plan, Jonesy was now catching well heavily feeding maggot down the edge and rumours of Bob catching well the other side of me so I was getting battered!

The second half of the match was pretty much the same as the first, a further two F1’s off the sedge, two little mirrors on the tip and another little mirror from the right hand edge. So six hours and only ten proper fish! Although I got the opinion that no one had caught particularly well so planned on weighing in to see if I’d won any of the quids.

Me and Jonesy were the only ones to weigh in on our section as the rumours about Bob catching were simply that, rumours!

The weigh in ensued and Gordon shouted “I hope you’ve got more than 20lb” hmmmm not quite I thought to myself, weighing in 12lb dead I had a look at the board and I’d done it, Gordon holding up the rear with 11lb 7oz! Jonesy then weighed 50lb odd to cement my battering! Ian Bailey who decided to join us for the day comfortably won the match fishing maggot to amass over 90lb.

Back at the café and it was a quid to Acko and a quid to Owen and just as I was finishing my tea and thinking what a crap days fishing it had been I was awarded our section prize! With me and Jonesy being the only ones to weigh in and Jonesy’s weight being good enough for second meant I got the section by default! I almost felt embarrassed winning the section with 12lb but as its my first pick up of the year I couldn’t care less, its not always about picking up in style now is it!

July 25th - Brafferton F1 Lake, 1st August - Woodlands Curlew and 8th August - Woodlands Wagtail, 14th August - Northern Intersite (Cedar)

2010-08-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Having only fished the F1 Lake on one previous occasion (and not doing too well) I was more looking for a days fishing than a push for prizes. Come the draw I handed myself peg 64, this meant nothing to me until I got to my peg, I’d fished 63 on the previous match and with them both being on the end of the point, they’re essentially a mirror image of one another.

I set up a few lines to experiment with throughout the day, first of all was the method feeder, for a small chuck into a hole in the island. I then set up to fish the pole at 15m, to a couple of spots a foot or two away from the island, with the water being so shallow tight up. I then set up 2 shallow rigs, one to fish between a foot and 2 feet and the other to fish between a foot and a couple of inches. Finally I had a margin rig, set up to fish 4m to either side, there was a tempting bush to my left and the right was more open with the odd tuft of grass.

For company, I had Stu on 67, Woody on 69, Bri Gascoigne on 63 and Owen on 60. At the sound of the lacklustre hooter I set about feeding my margin lines each with a big pot of cat food. I then set about my pole line at 15m. Seeing as I’d seen Stu go straight over whilst I was feeding and caught two roach, seemingly on pellet, I decided to band a 6mm hard pellet instead to keep the roach at bay. I waited maybe half an hour before a proper bite but eventually snared 4 F1’s all around the 1.5lb mark. The swim died long after this run of fish and there were no swirls, tails or boils like there had been previous so I decided to have a quick look down the either edge, but after 5 minutes on either side I was just getting bitted out by small fish so I re-fed another big pot of cat food in both swims.

Due to the sun beating down and a healthy ripple on the surface it was time to have a go shallow. I fired out half a dozen pellets at 13m to my right, wind milled the rig a few times and let it settle for 20 seconds before repeating the process, it was hard work but eventually I started to put a run of fish together, much to my surprise as I often struggle to get them going shallow. I managed 8 in 8 chucks before the cloud came over and it got noticeably cooler, which probably sent them down a bit further, but with trying the deeper shallow rig I still wasn’t rewarded with any more fish.

A quick try on the method tight up to the island proved a worthy effort as I managed probably half a dozen before this also went dead, the trouble was keeping a run of fish together. I caught the odd fish rotating lines throughout the rest of the match and after going down the edge in the last hour I managed a total of 23 fish, which was far from off the pace as i didn’t have enough quantity or quality fish. I ended up with 23 fish for 37lb 8oz. Owen weighed 41lb odd, so that was once quid down. Stu next door had 70 odd, including some good fish down the edge from piling corn in, tip for the future! Acko won the match with 104lb 12oz so another quid down. Mr Thackwray hadn’t let me down though weighing in 27lb!

The following week we were up at Woodlands, I’ve not fished here this year yet so was looking forward to it, not that I do particularly well here but I at least tend to have a days fishing. We were to be split over Kestrel and Curlew, with 15 on Kestrel and 8 on Curlew. Stu gave the run down of the prizes which confused people more than anything and we were all under the impression that wherever you finished you’d get a payout! Come the draw I managed to snare peg 51, which worked out to be peg 11 on Curlew. Now peg 11 is one up from the corner peg 12, and with no one on 12 it meant I would have the corner to fish. I must admit I’m not a massive fan of fishing the corners as they tend to be feast or famine pegs. With Woodlands, it is good as you can see nearly everyone so you know how well you’re doing. I had Owen next door on peg 8, Gordon on peg 5, Vince on peg 2, opposite me was Cooksy on 14, Stu on 17, Les Bolton on 20 and finally Woody on 23.

Rig wise, I had the method set up for fishing the boards, I had a margin rig for either side and a line at 13m, with a rig for the deck and also a shallow rig should the conditions suit. When setting my clip for the method, I was on maybe my 3rd practice cast, when I foul hooked a decent carp with a bare hook! I played the fish for 5 minutes before we parted company, thankfully I didn’t get in netting distance as I’d not set my landing net up! It must have been solid I thought, however, the doubt was also in my mind that that little episode would have scared them all off, perhaps I’d have been better landing it?

At the all in I fed both margins with a potful of corn and some pellets out to the 13m line. I then cast the method to the boards and fired a couple of 8mm pellets over the top. To cut a very long story short, I didn’t have a fish or even a proper bite in 5 hours! Thankfully on the stroke of the last hour I swapped the method for the straight lead and managed my first fish, an F1 around a pound and a half! After this first fish I eventually managed 9 fish off the tip in 20 minutes, but as soon as they arrived, they disappeared! Two skimmers off the margin and I was done!

So I had 9 fish which totalled 23lb, Gordon had a dozen fish for 50lb and Owen next door had 12 also for 74lb! Why can’t I catch the bigger ones eh? Cooksy opposite had caught all day, similar fish to mine and weighed a big 50 I think. Les managed 123lb, I was sick off listening to his baitrunner by the end of the match, and Woody managed 109lb! So a crap day, and another £2 down!

The 8th of August saw me return to Woodlands again, upon getting out of the car, I was greeted by Acko and Andy, who informed me that Nige thought I’d joined Territorial Army? This was later explained that putting “Ta, Steve” at the end of a text was perhaps a little confusing, although everyone else seemed to be aware it purely meant thanks?!

The match was split over Wagtail and Curlew and my home for the day was to be Wagtail, I can’t remember the peg number, but it was in a corner, on the Kestrel side bank of the lake and the opposite end of the lake to Curlew. After my rather disastrous match the week previous I had slightly revised my plan of attack in the hope that I could snare a few more fish!

I had a rig for my right hand edge as I couldn’t comfortably the left hand side, I trimmed back as much foliage as I could without falling in and it turned out to be a lovely little spot just under an overhanging bush at a top 2 plus 2. I had another line at 14m for fishing pellet both on the deck and shallow. To finish I had the bomb set up for fishing tight to the boards and also straight out in front. Bait for the day I had a couple of tins of corn as a change bait, six pints of 6mm pellets for the pole lines and 2 pints of 8mm for the bomb. I’d also borrowed a bait drill off Uncle Les to try quickstops as an alternative to banding the pellet on the bomb.

At the all in I fed the margin as well as my open water line and then pursued the open water bomb line, flicking a couple of 8mm pellets over the top every few minutes. I was feeding the same amount towards the boards as an alternative cast. It was a slow start but after half an hour I managed to hook my first fish, a carp of about 1.5lb. I carried on with this line picking off the odd fish but it wasn’t happening quick enough and the fish weren’t big enough. I decided to have a go on the open water pole line but after 20 minutes of not even a liner I decided to re-feed and have a quick look down the edge. The same happened here so it was another re-feed and back out on the bomb. This is how it went on for the rest of the match however I did manage to land a carp of 5lb which was my biggest fish of the day, although it took me the best part of 5 hours and 4 pints of pellets to tempt it down the edge! I understand when people say “sometimes, they just aint there”, but its every week they’re not there for me!

Anyway, my lake was won with 69lb by Les, I weighed 44lb odd and forfeited a quid to Acko however gained one back off Mr Thackwray! Rab won the other lake and the match outright with 121lb, all caught down the edge, it must have been solid!

On to my final match of this blog, after 12 months of anticipation the Northern Intersite match was back again up at Sessay. This year with 9 teams and a total of 62 anglers it was all prepped to be a good event. After the painstaking process of gathering monies and sorting the teams out we could then anticipate the number of anglers in attendance to get the match pegged out. We had Alders and Cedar this year, so put 40 on Cedar, every other peg, and then did Alders peg two miss one. So there were a few pegs left at the end but it was the only way to do it. Once everything was sorted the team captains came to draw their teams pegs, it was amazing how some captains managed to draw nearly all cedar or all Alders rather than a more even split. Talk Angling were to draw last and with only five of our 6 man minimum team we were behind before we started! I managed to snare peg 19, which is a couple up from the outside corner on 21. I had Tim “Ringer” Moran on 15 so had my work cut out, I also recognised a couple of faces from previous years also.

We had an age to set up so there was no excuses for not being prepared today. With this in mind I got cracking with getting more stuff together than I needed but it would hopefully pay off! I had a little Preston method set up on a 10ft Shakespeare Mach1 XT teamed with a Shimano Catana Reel loaded with 5.5lb Preston Direct Mono.

I had a 3 inch hooklink of 0.16 Ultima Power Match with a hair rigged micro band and a size 18 PR36.

Rig wise, I had one set up for in front of the sedges. I had two mud lines on this peg so I was hoping to switch between them to keep the fish coming. I plumbed up in front of all the sedges and found that there was only an inch difference max. For this line I set up a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.12 Ultima Power match to a hooklink of 0.11 Powerline to a size 16 Gamakatsu Pellet hook.

My second pole rig was for fishing further up the slope. Although there wasn’t the change in grade I was hoping for, it was nice and flat. This rig was the same as the sedge rig apart from a 4x10 Malman Cedar. Both Rigs were teamed with 12 latex.

My final rig was for down my left hand edge, this would hopefully only be used as a backup! This was again a 4x12 Malman Cedar, this time on 0.14 Ultima Power Match, to a hooklink of 0.12 of the same material to a size 14 B911.

For bait today, I had some Fin Perfect Micros which I’d left to soak for an hour so they were nice and springy, I had some 4mm Ringers expanders for the pole lines across and some hard 6mm pellets for the method. For down the edge I had catfood and corn. I like to mix a bit of water with my catfood to get a nice soup, this way it dissipates in the water a bit quicker and doesn’t just sit as a clump on the bottom, the corn was to be used as a loosefeed over the top, as its quite difficult to loosefeed catmeat!

The all in sounded at 11am and the match was underway, I fed a pot of catmeat down the edge and then it was onto the sedge line. The action was far from instant and I didn’t have my first fish in the net until 15 minutes in, and this was a gudgeon! After a couple more gudgeon, roach and skimmers I went onto the other sedge and was instantly rewarded with my first carp, be it a stocky of about 6oz. I put a few more in the net and ended alternating between both sedges. After the action had died down a bit I decided to change rig and search a bit further up the mud for them. This worked a treat but only until the wind came howling through. Rather than persevere and get annoyed with myself, I switched straight over to the method and bounced it off the mud into the shallows. The method was a lot slower but I was managing the odd fish, although still only small stuff.

Towards the middle of the match the far bank lines had all but faded and the action was very slow. With this in mind I had a go down the edge. Baited up with single corn I dropped in and got a good F1 at over a pound. A few grains of corn flicked in whilst I was playing it and it was plain sailing, I think I managed another 3 or 4 before the bites dried up again.

I ended up switching between the far bank and the margin picking off 3 or 4 fish before resting it and this worked a treat right to the end of the match. None of the fish were of any size but I was always putting something in the net. Come the last hour after catching on and off and not really keeping my mind on how much I had I thought I’d start using my second net, I knew I had no way near 50lb but thought it might be interesting to see how much I could catch in the last hour now I got into a bit of a rhythm!

The match was brought to an end at 4pm and I’d really enjoyed it, i’d caught plenty of fish even if I didn’t have a massive weight to show for it. I ended up weighing in 39lb13oz which turned out to be 4oz less than section winner BudNudd, the odd dropped skimmer to blame there perhaps! I’d also beaten Owen for the first time this I think as he weighed in 20 odd. Woody managed a section win and a 7lb grass carp for the big fish award off Alders too.

Overall it was a very good day and Talk Angling didn’t come last even though we were a man short, well done team! Congratulations to Total Fishing for winning overall.

Roll on next year!

Maple 6th June, Cedar 13th June, Maple 27th June, Weeton 11th July, Maple 18th July

2010-07-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Maple 6th June – Regrettably I didn’t have time for a blog last week, so here is a quick recap, I drew peg 21, with a spare peg to my right, and what I thought to be a couple of spare pegs to my left, until an overslept Nige turned up on peg 19.

I had my usual rigs set up for fishing in about 12 inches of water as well as a deeper rig for in front of the sedges. I also had a paste rig set up for 13m which put me on a nice flat spot on the shelf.

To cut a long story short, as always on Maple and Cedar, I caught a few fish from the off but couldn’t keep them coming into the second hour, this is where I hoped my paste line would come good, although I put a few fish in the net from the paste line, it was difficult watching Nige bagging up next to me, I spent more time watching Nige’s float than my own, trying to glean some tips for me to use in future sessions. I ended up weighing in 31lb 4oz, Nige weighed 111lb. This was by far the runaway weight; I think Stu and Bob came 2nd and 3rd with 55lb and 54lb.

Oh and I lost another quid to Owen….fortunately Acko and Gordy weren’t in attendance so that inevitably spared my blushes!

On to Cedar 13th June, due to me being the generous bloke that I am, I’d lent the girlfriend my car for the weekend as hers is, shall we say, buggared. So thankfully Mr Thackwray had agreed to pick me up. I must admit, waking up at 7 o clock was an absolute nightmare, a full day on the pop for Knaresborough Bed Race had taken place on the Saturday so I was feeling more than a little sorry for myself, so much so I had a bottle of Lucozade for my breakfast when we got to the Café and declined the normal big brekkie!

Come the draw I wasn’t too fussed where I drew and as normal hung back to let everyone else decide my fate, much to Gordon’s displeasure as he wanted to be off, he’d drawn peg 11 and peg 12 had won it the day before.

When I got to my peg I set up 2 rigs which would hopefully cover all my options. I had a pellet rig for 18 inches of water which could be fished in 3 or 4 swims on the far bank. After the “paste”ing I got off Nige the other week I decided to set up a paste line again midway up the far shelf.

At the all in I went across and managed to snare 6 small F1’s in as many chucks and after the first half an hour I was probably on 8lb or so. When this swim dried up I alternated between swims but only picked up the odd fish. A lot of these fish I could swing in so I wasn’t building a weight very quickly!

Throughout the middle of the match it was a case of catch a couple and then weight whilst alternating swims, nothing much was doing however! Whether on the pellet or getting frustrated by the lack of hitting bites on the paste. I felt I’d started to get to grips with paste on venues last year, be it in deeper water and bigger fish however.

Come the final hour I started putting a few fish into the net again and Owen said I must have had 40lb now, however I was more of the opinion I wouldn’t have even had 25lb, the last 30 minutes proved fruitful and I put a few more in the net before time was called.

Come the weigh in and our section was very close in deed, Cromie on peg 1 weighed 39lb 12oz, Woody on peg 2 weighed 36lb 12oz, Stu Whit on peg 4 36lb dead, myself 36lb 12oz, until Owen raised the bar with 41lb. Owen ended up with a default section as Nige had again sacked up with 62lb off peg 10 to claim another victory, Gordon on 11 had weighed in just over 40lb so that was me now £2 down. The pressure was on Acko now who unfortunately for him, weighed in a dismal 34lb, must try harder eh?! One quid back!

Overall it was a very tight match with only a couple of weights breaking away from the pack.

Onto Maple 27th June, and again it proved rather fruitless in more ways than one (including England’s dismal display against the Germans which could be heard on fivelive around the entire complex!) two weeks previous I had drawn peg 21, well this week, I was on 20. With only 2 pegs left in the bag I drew this instead of 43, which I’d have preferred in all honesty.

I already had my rigs set up, one for in front of the sedges, one for 12 inches and a paste rig. Once the all in kicked off I managed to foul hook and lose 3 decent fish off the front of the sedges, which essentially scuppered that plan so was forced onto the paste line earlier than expected. I managed to put a few fish in the net but was again getting pestered by bits even after switching to a harder paste. Rotating back through the pellet lines just added to my annoyance, shipping out 15m so often to just bring back a gudgeon or knocked off pellet was taking its toll!

The main problem was the state of my pellets, I’d kept them in the shade all day but they were crispy to say the least mid way through the match. Rather than carry on with them I pumped a new batch which were the other way, to soggy. I just couldn’t get them right on the day, maybe I need to try new hooker pellets? Currently I use the Ringers and Dynamite Bait Betaine’s but after the weekend I’ve lost faith in both of them. I could do with knowing how to keep pellets in good condition throughout a match too if anyone has any ideas?

By the end of the match I weighed in a dismal 19lb 8oz, another quid lost to Owen and Acko and a thorough beating from either side!

Rab came 3rd with 67lb off peg 49 ish, Robbie came 2nd with 84lb off peg 51 ish and Honest John managed a match win of 89lb from peg 1.

I definitely need to have a rethink before the next match I’m available to fish, which coincidentally is again on Maple, so far this year, when I have been able to get out its always been at the Oaks, you’d have thought I’d be getting to grips with the place by now!

With no club match on the weekend of 10/11 July I decided to go down to Weeton for some silver bagging and hopefully a few carp too! In tow were my mate Joe and also my dad who hasn’t fished in around 8 years. We got to the lake at about 8:30 and with it being a small fishery and a few people already there I decided to get us all set up on 3 pegs in a row so I could be on hand if either of them needed any help. I set my dad up on peg 2 with a feeder, I would be on peg one and Joe on the end peg (not sure what number).

With the feeder already set up my dad was fishing within 5 minutes and then I could concentrate on getting Joe set up to fish for Ide at about 7m. I was to do the same but fishing at 10m. We were both in the resident Ide from 4oz up to 2lb where as my dad was struggling for any indications on the tip. After a good mornings sport with the silver fish, Joe and I fed the margins with some pellets and went and had a spot of lunch behind my dad, who by now had caught a skimmer a carp or two. I’d given him a catty to spray a few pellets over the top which seemed to do the trick in luring a few fish in, that and an improvement in casting throughout the day eventually started to put some fish in the net.

After a quick bite to eat it was back to fishing down the margins for some carp. I had a carp of about a pound first put in before a few skimmers, a proper bream and then my first decent carp of about 3lb. Joe wasn’t getting any signs down his edge so a couple of nuggets of pellets down to the other side and he was also soon into fish. I managed to snare a couple of better carp, one about 5-6lb and my biggest fish of the day of nearly 8lb. I managed to get snapped 4 times throughout the day, which makes it interesting when your fishing and you don’t know if you’re striking into a skimmer or a double figure steam train!

We packed up around 4:30 and seeing as my scales only go up to 25lb I decided we’d guesstimate the weight of the nets as weighing in would have been a pain and just weigh our biggest fish. My dads keepnet came out first and he’ll have had a good 30-35lb made up around 11-12 fish with a biggest fish of 5lb8oz. I was next with about 60lb, 50/50 silvers to carp with a biggest fish of 7lb 12oz, finally Joe, who had 35-40lb and a biggest fish of 5lb 8oz also.

So a cracking days sport for all and a nice change to pleasure fish and catch a decent bag of fish for once!

Back up to Maple on the 18th July, after catching a few the week before I was in two minds on how to approach Maple this week, I’d even said to Owen in the café that I was tempted to fish maggot, in fewer words he told me not to bother and get on the mud line with pellet. Come the draw I managed to snare peg 58 which I was pretty pleased with, I had a section win off here with 38lb last year so had a bit of confidence going to my peg. I decided to sack the paste line off this week and concentrate on the pellet and try to make it work rather than constantly switching between lines. I had Bob the Builder on peg 56 and Mick Ayre on 60 for company.

So with in mind, I soaked some micro’s and prepared some hooker pellets. I set up a rig 2.5ft deep with a Malman Cedar 4x12 and a 4x10 of the same float for up in the mud, where I also had a mound of soil that had collapsed from the banking. Both rigs were on 0.14 Ultima power match mainline with an 0.12 hooklength of the same material, hooks were size 16 Preston PR21’s or 24’s perhaps, whichever the spade end ones are?!

As usual Gordon had waited for Bob to leave his box before blowing the hooter, I told Bob he had to give me a 2 fish head start, which to start with went “well”, I had a gudgeon first put in before losing 3 foul hookers, I finally managed to hook my first carp and second fish, coincidentally Bob was also into his first fish. I managed to put 10 or 11 carp in the net in the first hour along with a few roach, the only downside being that all my carp were 10-12oz, so I’d need a few more to build any sort of weight. Over the rest of the match I alternated between 4 sedge lines and picked up the odd fish but into the last hour I was miles off the pace and needed a couple of bonus fish, purely for morale rather than any prizes. I put a good handful of pellets in on the mudline and within ten minutes tails were wagging all over the place! I shipped across into the shallow water and after five minutes hooked and landed a good size mirror of about 6lb, after it thrashing in the net and snapping my rig, I put a hefty rig on of 0.18 and an 0.16 hooklength to hopefully guide a few more out from the far bank. I managed a few liners and a foul hooker before a 4lb ghostie on time.

So another relatively disappointing day on Maple, and not being able to keep a run of fish going. Nige won once again with 114lb, again on paste, Jim Atkinson had bagged 70lb off peg 54 also with paste, there were a few 50’s and also some single figure weights to mix things up a bit! Owen weighed 53lb, Acko had 40 odd I think which meant my 32-13 was far from the pace and was therefore £2 down. Thankfully Superstar Thackwray could only manage 18lb, however he buggared off before giving me yet another trophy pound! Never mind, I’ll just have two off him next week!

18th April - The Oaks Lakes, Cedar

2010-04-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Well, where to start, after the terrible winter we've had, exams and uni work stacking up along with real work and gigging i've not had any spare time to fish and so this would be my first trip since November last year!

After playing a gig in Leeds the night before the 7am start i had planned turned into hear half past but i still arrived at the fishery in time for a good breakfast!

Aftr paying on, paying my subs and throwing a quid in honest Johns pocket (sorry I mean th football card) the draw was near enough underway.

I hung back and managed peg 46, a peg i've fished before and i've also fished 47 and 48 a few times so was hpoing i'd catch a few.

I set up three rigs that were as follows. A mud line rig in 12-18 nches of water tight against the bank, a sedge rig at 2.5ft which would also double as my margin rig were both 12 latex elastic with 0.14 Ultima Power Match mainline, 0.12 hooklengths of the same material with size 18 B911 as my choice of hook. My final rig was for 11m at the base of the far shelf for fishing mea if it was tough, this was set at 5ft deep with a 0.4g BGT shallow long float.

I was surrounded by the Stu's today, Stott to my left on 44 and Whitaker on 48, Bri Gascoigne on 50, Howard on 44 and Tony Koz on 42 completed the 6 man section, so i'd have to work pretty hard today!

Bait wise i had some maggots, a tins worth of 4mm meat, and plenty of pellets.

Before the all in Bob the Baliff checked my fishing licnese, a new intorduction for the Starbeck Club which can't be complained at. My proper license hadnt come through the post but fortunately i had my reciept printed out!

On the whistle i cupped in a small handful of meat at 11m, threw some more down the left margin and then it was time for the pellet on the sedge line.

I shipped over with a 4mm expander and a pinch of micros, from not fishing for so long i wasnt sure how much they'd want so erred on the cautious side.

After the first hour i wasnt doing too bad, i was putting a few fish in the net but they were all around 6oz with the odd bigger one of a pound. Once my left sedge had died i had a quick look at 11m but nothing showed so i re-fed and then tried the right sedges instead. Again i put a few fish in the net, but it was far from frantic. It carried on like this for the rest of the match and it never really seemed to be buzzing anyway. Mart Whitwas catching good Ide on caster and Stu was getting the odd one up in the water but no one was in bagging mode as far as i could see.

I saw Bri catch a few down the edge so after feeding drips of meat all day I had a look and caught probablies 6-7lb of fish in 4 or 5 put ins before it went quiet again. I re-fed whilst fishing acros again. Furtunately i managed a few fish in the last half hour but the biggest being only 12oz. By the end of the match i felt i might just have 30lb but we'd see.

Tony put 38 on the scales and he said nhe only caught in the latter part of the match, Stu had 44lb so that was me well beaten, i managed 34lb 10oz so more than i thought i had but stil off the pace. Mart Whit managed 46lb odd to take the section, made up mostly of good Ide on his caster line, something to remember for the future, though i suppose this is what happens when you dont go fishing for 6 months!

I bumped in Acko on my way back to the Caf and yes you guessed it, i owed him a quid, Acko managed 43lb odd. Now it was fingers crossed that Mr Thackwray had balls it up? not one to break a tradition Gordon weighed in 13lb so i was evens on the quid front for my first week back!

I wont be fishing for a few weeks again whilts i finish off my uni work for yet another year but wil hopefully be back on the bank my mid may!

Catch up - Morndyke and the NIdd

2009-12-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

Well i've not been for a couple of weeks, plans, uni work and weather have hindered my appearance for a few weeks but hopefully i'll be on the bank this weekend if all goes well.

I have however managed to get down to the Nidd at Little Ribston again. This trip wasn't so fruitful however, the massive influx of rain 'dampened' my spirits as well as the fishing, I manage to improve my casting technique ten fold on the stick and although I didn't have any signs of fish I was pleased to improve my casting.

The following day was a day out with team inbetweeny at Morndyke. I thankfully drew boss peg 3 and managed to snare 11 carp through the day all on the method with micros and either a 4mm expander or a bunch of dead red maggots as a hook bait. this was also good enough to win our little match and take home a few quid!

As I say, all being well I should be fishing this weekend! Wish me luck!

Woodlands - Partridge October 24th - the Oaks - Maple - 31st October - The Nidd - 8th November

2009-10-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

After a fairly poor match catching bits at Brafferton last week, I was looking forward to catching some proper fish at Woodlands this week!

After a breakfast (of sorts) it was onto the draw!

I drew late and managed to snare peg 24. I would have preferred to have been a bit closer to the middle but this was still better than other draws as far as i was concerned. We were also informed there was a bait check that was going to take place at some point.

For company I had Tel on 23, Mr Thackwray on 22 and Howard on 21. My plan today was to fish a small method and build up a swim but also have a corn line at 14m as a back up.

In short it fished pretty pants, you either bagged up or caught a handful, I bet you can guess which I was!

I had 6 fish for 20lb, Gordons 5 fish were all a better stamp and so the quid went his way for the first time in a very long time!

A week later we were on Maple and I informed Mr Thackwray that I was winning in the quid steaks but only by a margin of one so it would either be a draw or i'd take the victory. We also drew next to each other to spice things up further!

I caught a few fish through the match but none of any decent stamp, unlike Mr Thackwray who took another quid off me! Mr Atkinson also took a quid off me again and that was that! The end of our club season!

This Sunday just gone I fancied a change to the norm and decided to get down on the River Nidd at Little Ribston, its only a 5 minute drive so ideal for a few hours fishing. After moving out of my flat back to the old mans the previous weekend I was desperate to get on the bank and I was eagerly anticipating my first trip to a river in over 6 years!

I got there at around 8 o clock and was greeted by a mate of mines dad and one of his mate who were both in search of a few fish too.

I had a walk with my gear and settled on a deep looking spot on the outside of a bend, i ran a 2bb Drennan big stick through a fe times and kept adding the depth but never seemed to be tripping bottom and i was running out of rod to cast it out! I persevered for a while but eventually moved to the otherside of the field along a fast flowing straight that turned out to be about 4ft deep and after a few runs through was rewarded with a small grayling and shortly after his twin brother! The excitement was short lived as i had to pack up but I might just head down there again this weekend now i've picked up some tips about how to fish a stick properly!

After speaking to a very excited Rab ealrier I think I know what i'm going to get Mr Thackwray for Xmas, he's not having much look with pole sections of late so I might get him a lucky rabbits foot!

Brafferton F1 Lake - 11th October 2009

2009-10-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

After my maggot approach the previous week on Poplars which ‘luckily’ resulted in a top 3 placing I was confident that it would work again this time round at Brafferton. I fished on the very odd occasion here before but never on the F1 Lake.

I arrived up at the fishery at 8:30 and went for a sandwich before unloading all my gear onto the barrow. Seeing as I was fannying about getting all my gear ready I missed the draw and was drawn peg 63, on the end of the peninsula so I had plenty of water to go at, as did everyone else in fairness, on an 80 peg lake there was only 17 of us!

With Gordon on his 83rd holiday of the year, Owen not in attendance and Acko down at Whiteacres I was already three quid down before the match had started! ;o)

After finally trudging my gear to my peg I was about ready for a kip! The culmination of the long grass and an overloaded barrow with a flat tyre didn’t make for an enjoyable walk!

Tony Koz was on 61 and I warned him that we weren’t in for a quiet day as Rab was to be joining us on the opposite of the point on 64! I had a quick look at my peg and decided on a line to the island at 13.5m and after a quick plumb up a line at both 4m and 10m at the base of the near and far shelf. There are no real shelves on this lake, its more like a bowl so I plumbed all my rigs to dead depth then added on 2 inches to make sure I was always fishing on the deck.

I set up a deep rig for 4 and 10m on 0.16, to an 0.14 hook length and a size 16 B911. Float choice was a 0.4g BGT Shallow long and elastic was 14 latex. My island rig was a 4x10 Malman Cedar on 0.14 to an 0.12 hook length, 12 latex and a size 18 B611 hook.

At the all in I potted some pellets on both the deep rigs which were both quite deep at about 6ft and then went over with a half a big pot of maggots onto the island. I started off on the island and it took me over half an hour to get my first indication, meanwhile Tony had put 3 or 4 carp into his net fishing at around 11m. My bites increased however and after a few silvers I managed 4 F1’s to take my tally to about 7lb for the first hour. I then went half an hour without a bite so it was time to try the deep lines. I started off at 9.5m before coming onto the short line. I tried both lines for a good 20 minutes but no signals of any fish!

The wind had by now picked up considerably so I went to the car for my tip rod and first chuck out once I got back with a 6mm banded pellet and a pellet full of micros I was into a small F1 from open water but a further 45 minutes and no more fish followed.

I’d decided that I’d rather be catching bits than nothing at all and so went back over to the far side with maggot. I was into small, I mean very small roach but I was bumping a few off due to my 12 elastic so I changed to the lightest I had in my armoury, a latex 10, this was helping a bit but I was still losing a lot of fish. I changed down to a hooklength of 0.10 and a size 22 (is winter here?) and I was putting 9 out of 10 fish into my net. I also put a 2ft lash on as the wind by now was horrendous but at least it kept me getting bites even if I was striking like Zorro to connect! I fished this way for the rest of the match and managed quite a few roach, skimmers and even the odd chublet but nothing to build any weight however I did manage to hook another 4 F1’s, I played them carefully and landed them all bar one, would this cost me?

At the all out Rab was admitting to one carp and 5 gudgeon, but he’s a liar and went to weigh in 17lb odd. I weighed 18lb 10oz and Tony Koz put 19lb 12oz on the scales so that F1 might just have cost me! The weights were all pretty poor although Stu Turner managed 50 odd pounds which was only bettered by Honest John who snared an 8lber just before time to take the match.

We’re back at Woodlands next week on Partridge, it’ll either be a day on the paste or a day on the tip; we’ll have to wait till the day to decide though where i'll probably fish something completely different!

The Oaks - Poplars - October 4th

2009-10-13T10:07:00.001-07:00

Well, the previous week I got my wish to fish on Match pool at Carp Vale and right some wrongs, but as you may have guessed it didn’t go to plan and I weighed in 16lb 8oz for no where but still managed another quid off Mr Thackwray!

With Poplars this week I was in a quandary on how to approach it. I’ve never done terribly well on the lake and wanted to put that right today. We were on pegs 14-54 and with 21 fishing this meant it was just about peg one miss a peg. Owen initiated another three way quid between us two and Acko as they both wanted a chance of winning them back from the match on Maple, I duly obliged!

By the time of the draw Stu announced that the top 3 would get a pay out as well as three sections of seven. I held the draw bag and was greeted with the odd smile but the more occasional frown as the pegs were being lifted out. This left three pegs in the bag, Nige was drawn peg 25 as he was running a little late and this left Stu with 20 and me with 14. I was pretty pleased with this as peg 13 and 15 weren’t in so I had plenty of room and some pots to fish to on peg 13.

I bought a couple of pints of maggots and as I was walking to my peg Stu revealed that Minty and I were on scale duty! I’m sure I’ve done it half a dozen times this season, I don’t mind doing the weigh in to be fair but it takes me long enough to pack up as it is!

I got round to my peg, Minty was on 16, Wrighty was on 18 and Stu was on 20, that was as far as I could see. I got all the kit out of the car and had a sit down to assess where I’d be attacking today. With the pots in front of 13, this would be my main line of attack with maggot. I would also fish the same rig to the tree on my left, again with maggot. With no real cover straight in front I set up a pellet line to fish tight to the far bank. I also set up a line at the base of the far shelf at 11m to fish meat; this was more a token gesture if no where else was working!

My maggot rig was a Malman Cedar 4x10 on 0.12 Ultima to a 6inch hooklength of the same material and a size 16 B911, I’m aware this seems a bit big for maggot fishing but I wanted to fish 4 or 5 maggots at a time to target the better Ide, a lesson I’d learnt from fishing on Alders. Elastic was soft set 12 latex. My pellet rig was the same float but on 0.16 Ultima Power Match to an 0.14 hooklength and a size 18 B911 complemented by a 16 latex. My meat rig was a 0.4g BGT shallow long float on 0.16 straight through to a size 16 PR36 with size 14 latex.

For bait I had 2 pints of maggots, half red half white. Plenty of hooker pellets, some micros and some meat but I was concentrating on the maggot and would only deviate to other baits if it was hard going. At the all in I potted some meat in down the track at 11m, and half a big Drennan pot of maggots to the pots on my right hand side. As with Maple a couple of weeks previous I thought I’d target the carp for the first 15 minutes or so as you often get them early on and they’re not worth missing out on. Anyway a biteless 20 minutes ensued and I sacked off the pellet line and went over the maggot line which by now would have hopefully settled.

I shipped out and double kinder potted over the tope of my float, by lifting and dropping my rig back into the feed zone soon sparked a response and Ide number one was in the net, with it being about a pound it was a good start. I caught another fish of a similar size before deciding to change down to a 10 elastic, as I was shipping back at angle it made it easier to ship back quickly without fear of losing the fish. I repeated this until I had 6 in the net all of a similar size and on the stroke of the first hour disappearing I struck like Zorro and managed to catch my float on a loner branch and although I had a hooklength on this wouldn’t do me any good as it was the mainline that was snagged. After pulling for a break I came back with a fraction of the rig I had shipped out, the loop on the connector to be precise! I chucked another rig on and seeing as I’d marked my top kit with tip-ex it was a quick process and I was back in the swim in no time. I only managed 2 more fish before I had to re-feed another big pot. I switched to the meat line whilst this pot of maggots settled but had nothing to show from it. By the end of the second hour I had 10 fish for probably 8lb.

Minty went for a walk and when he came back probably after a good half an hour I still only had the 8lb in the net. While he was gone I potted on the tree on the left hand side and by the time I went over it I caught another Ide straight away before repeating the process. I shipped out again and before I had time to feed I had hooked a fish on the drop. I tipped the feed in before playing the fish to the net, my first carp, a stocky of about 8oz.

It then died as soon as it started so to spark a response I changed to a hooklength of 0.10 and a size 20 B611. Going into the last hour I’d put the odd Ide into the net but nothing much was happening. I big potted onto both lines and then just switched between them until I got indications. It turned out to be my most fruitful hour with a couple of Ide and 4 proper carp to take my tally to around 25lb before the hooter sounded to signal the end of the match. Remarkably all the carp came to the net without much fuss, I thought I’d have to be careful with the light hook length and light laccy but they came up near enough straight way!

Minty had started packing up before the match had finished so I had a rush on to get packed up and off to do the weigh in. Seeing as I was on the first peg I put a marker down for everyone, I weighed in 25lb 10oz, Wrighty remarked that would be a good weight today but I knew he had caught, Stu had caught and apparently Rab and Howard had both caught well on 53 and 54 respectively. Minty didn’t weigh in which meant Wrighty was up next, he pushed me close but not close enough with 22lb odd. Stu then shattered my dreams by putting 34lb in the sling. The rest of the weights in our section were all in the high teens but no more above 20lb. Round to Acko’s peg and seeing as he wasn’t there Rab did the honours and 13lb 10oz was recorded. Acko shouted across the lake asking what he’d weighed, I replied ‘’a quid less than me!’’ Gordon weighed in 17lb ish so another quid was claimed. Tel took the section with a weight not much more than Gordon’s. Jonesy weighed 19lb odd which was good enough for the section and Owens weight wasn’t up to scratch meaning I’d be taking another Quid! Three quid’s out of three can’t be bad!

Up until this point I was still in second place behind Stu, with only Rab and Howard left who I knew would have more than me it meant I was guaranteed my section. Howard put 26lb 4oz in the sling; I’d been pipped by 10oz!

Now onto Rab who was last to weigh in, out came his first net and into the sling. He had a similar amount in the other net and it was going to be close between him and Stu to take the match. Rab pulled out his second net grabbed the bottom ring and started to feed them through to the top whilst keeping the middle of the net in the water, nothing wrong there you’d think, and you’d be right. Until Rab dropped the top of his net back into the drink and as he was still holding the bottom ring the inevitable happened! All his fish made a dash out the net and by the time the keepnet had been rescued there was nothing left to show for his days work! Now Rab isn’t one to take the micky out of anyone (and if you believe that then you need your head checking) so to say everyone erupted with laughter would be an under statement! A look of dismay crept into his face as his now single net weighed 17lb 12oz which meant he didn’t even win the section.

This however was good news for me and Wrighty as I crept into third spot meaning Dave took the section by default! So not a bad day at the office in the end! On reflection it wasn’t a bad match, I don’t think I missed a bite, although they were all fairly positive, I didn’t foul hook or lose any fish and the only thing I can think of that would have pushed me into second was the nightmare of getting my rig caught and having to put a new rig on. Apart from that I don’t think there was much more I could have done.

We’re at Brafferton on the F1 Lake next week, I’ve never fished here before but if the weather carries on being up and down then it might be another maggot approach. Its also now officially winter, I had to wear my jumper through the whole match this week and I’ve also been considering putting the heating on on a night! Considering not actioning, I’m not Rockefeller!

The Oaks - Maple 20th September

2009-09-25T10:51:00.001-07:00

Well after a disastrous week at Woodlands the week previous which really wasn’t worth the write up! I was taking a couple of my mates down to Weeton, one of my old haunts where I’ve had some good bags of Carp before the lake was trimmed down and it was all about bagging F1’s I’d now been told it was full of Ide too so the lads had a great opportunity to catch some good fish and not have the struggle! Some of the Ide go 2lb in there and because they don’t fight they are relatively easy to land for a beginner! Well I set my mate Pick up on the waggler and he was soon into his first fish, a 3oz perch, at least he’d not blanked! Then I set Joe up on my old pole fishing at 5m with maggot. I told them both to keep the bait going in little and often and they’d soon put some fish in the net. I swapped between them helping them out before fishing myself. By the end of the day Pick had managed just over 3lb of bits, feeding on the waggler just isn’t the same as on the pole and I think this was the downfall. Joe however managed 19lb 10oz and a PB Mirror carp of 4lb 7oz. I myself managed about 20lb of Ide and I only fished for a couple of hours, what a place! I’m thinking this might be a good place to go in winter for some Ide bagging!

On to this weeks club match we were back on Maple again and seeing as I’ve blown out the last two times I’ve fished it a change of tactics was in order as once I stop catching on pellet I never had a plan B, or at least a Plan B that worked!

I got to the fishery at 8:20 and had a leisurely breakfast and a chat with a few of the lads about my previous days fishing. Come the draw and most of the lads were asking why Minty was Nige’s trousers? The sections were announced to be two 5’s and two 6’s as there were 22 in attendance today. Everyone piled around the bag as usual and rather than pushing with everyone else I hung back for a change and by the time I drew I could only feel three pegs still in the bag. In went my left hand and out came peg 58, I was pretty pleased with this as its an area of the lake I never seem to be on and hopefully I’d be in for a good days fishing! When I arrived at my peg, I had Andy Nattrass for company on 56, Owen on 60, Acko on 62 and Nige on 62a. A three way quid was struck between Owen, Acko and I to add bragging rights to the day.

My plan this week was to fish meat at the bottom of the far shelf and on the mud line when this line petered out. I would also start on pellet in normal fashion in front of the sedges. In the past I tend to get half a dozen very early on before having to have a rethink and I didn’t want to miss out on these early fish whilst I was waiting for the meat lines to settle.

I had three rigs set up, a Malman Cedar 4x10 for in front of the sedges 2.5ft of water and the same rig but for the mud line. Both rigs were on 0.14 Ultima Power Match to a 6 inch hooklength of 0.12, again Ultima Power Match. On the sedge (pellet) rig I had a size 18 B911 and a size 16 for the mud (meat) line. Elastics were 12 latex for pellet and 14 latex for the meat. My track rig was the same as the mud line regarding line hooks and elastic but set at 5ft deep with a 0.4g BGT shallow long float. This rig would be fished an inch or two over depth. All my rigs were back shotted with no.8 Stotz, there was no ripple whatsoever but the tow seemed quite strong.

For bait I had two tins of meat cubed into 4mm pieces and also some 6mm pellets of meat I punched out of the left over slices. I also had a handful of 4mm Ringers expanders and some soaked micro pellets.

The all in was shouted at 10:15 and the match was underway. I went out with the cupping kit to 11m and tipped in a good handful of meat. Then it was onto my left hand sedge armed with an expander and a fruit shoot of micros. Instantly I took 3 small carp about 12oz a piece before switching to the right sedge to repeat the process. I caught a further three fish off this sedge although I did foul hook a carp of about 6lb that came up tail first I couldn’t reach it with my net, I pulled some laccy out of the pull bung, applied a bit more pressure and we parted company! Unfortunately my expletives had got the attention of Mr Atkinson and he was far from sympathetic! So I was sitting on 6 fish for about 5lb after the first half an hour. Owen had managed one or two at a slightly better stamp and Nige by all accounts was into bagging mode on boss peg 62a.

Both my sedge lines had died as expected and it was now onto the meat line. I had two kinder pots on so that I was able to feed at 11m with one pot and also feed at 14m on the mud every time I went out. I soon managed to catch a few fish and by the end of the third hour I had managed 14 fish. My initial 6 fish, 6 from 11m and two off the mud. By my reckoning I had 14 fish for 14lb. This wasn’t going to be good enough at this rate but nothing could be done. I fished the next two hours and only managed 2 further fish to take my tally to 16 for 16lb, these came from switching between lines and hoping to pick off the odd fish.

The last hour had arrived and I desperately needed to catch. Nige was easily winning our section and probably the match so the default section was all that was up for the taking as far as I was concerned. I went out to my right sedge armed with pellet again and the fish had arrived, not in great numbers but I did put 9 further fish in my net to take my tally to 25 for approx 25lb by the call of time.

Acko and Owen were interested to know what I’d caught and they both thought I was telling porkies or to quote Acko ‘’you lying little c**t!’’ At max I thought I would have 30lb but 25 fish for 25lb seemed about right in my head.

After watching Stu weigh in 57lb and Paul Jones with 40lb it was confirmed that the battle for the section was on. Jim also put a big 30 on the scales. We were soon round to my peg and my two nets went 38-08, perhaps I had underestimated a little, or by 50%! If only I’d have managed that big fish I lost at the start, that would have seen me sail into 3rd place overall! Owen weighed 29lb so that was one quid safe, Acko then weighed 35lb so both scalps had been captured! Nige weighed around 90lb I think from 3 weighs and won the match comfortably. Tel and Martin had had hard days on 64 and 66 respectively so I’d also won my section! My first pick up since January this year, about bloomin’ time!

We’re at Carp Vale again next week on Cyprio and Match Pool, I’m actually swaying more to fishing on Match Pool having now fished it and learnt a few lessons, I wouldn’t mind a day righting a few wrongs from a few weeks ago! However the fate of the draw bag will probably put me on Cyprio now!

Northern Intersite 29th August Oaks (Maple and Poplars)

2009-09-12T12:33:00.001-07:00

Well the big day had finally arrived! Hopefully all of Simon’s hard graft would pay off and the day would run without a hitch. We were running a £10 optional which would pay the top four and also there would be prizes for the top two teams. Section prizes of £20 per 5 men made up the rest of the prizes.

Due to the differing squad sizes it would be an impossible task to fairly peg out equal team sections and award points at the end so it was an open draw and the top 6 weights in each team would make up the final team results.

In total there were 123 pegs for us to have a go at and with all 59 individuals turning up it was great to see that no one had let the side down! Tom kindly pegged the lakes for us and put 61 pegs in, generally peg one miss one to give everyone plenty of room!

After cutting out all the individual peg numbers and folding them up they were chucked into the draw bag and we were underway! Rob Hitchens got the draw underway and started picking out his team members pegs, duly managing to pull out 7 pegs on Maple and 1 on Poplars. By the time it got to Talk Anglings draw we presumed that all the Maple pegs had gone, fortunately we had a near enough even split; and my home for the day, Maple 32. I wasn’t too down heartened as apparently there had been a few fish showing recently in this area, I’d fished peg 31 a couple of weeks previous and although catching a few fish I was blown away (quite literally) by the gale force winds! And in truth it looked like this was going to be the same story today!

My main aim today was to beat Mr Hitchens who was round on peg 36! As well as getting a good weight for the team score!

I set up numerous lines, one in the margins to my left where Woody had informed me there was a slightly deeper spot from when they were clearing the reeds out! I then had a sedge rig, a mud rig and paste rig to fish at the bottom of the slope in about 3ft of water.

Bait today I had I had 4 and 6mm expanders, some dampened micros, a plethora of hard pellets and some cat sh*t.

The all in was called at 10:30, it was nice to have a bit longer to set up! I threw a handful of hard 6mm pellets down the edge and then shipped over to my sedge line. As usual by tipping in a few micros and armed with a 4mm expander I started to get little knocks before my first fish was in the net, a small carp of maybe 10oz.

I’d love to say I went back out and repeated the process for the rest of the day but that would be lying! By swapping between lines I managed to put the very odd fish in the net but the going was extremely slow and the wind was horrendous!

I tried the paste line a few times during the match, one time just as I dropped the paste in my elastic shot out as a fish had taken it on the drop, bit peculiar I thought but landed the fish to realise I’d hooked its eye, lovely!

The wind got so strong at one point that I got my method rod out of the car, first put out and I landed it butt up against the mud, perfect! The tip slammed round and I came back with a scale! How do you foul hook on the method!?

After scrapping every possible method about 3 times the match was brought to a close! Thank you lord! I must have lost more than I caught, for no known reason! I still can’t think now why I lost so many fish?

Anyway I quickly packed up and went and weighed in Poplars where some good and also some not so good weights came out. On my return I discovered what I myself had weighed for the day……11lb 11oz, I was actually pleasantly surprised by this as I didn’t think I had 10lb!

Back to the café and a quick maths lesson gave us the results for the day:

Poplars Lake

Peg Name Team Weight
1 Musselman YF 11-0
5 The Indian YMA 27-14
7 DAZ YF 21-08
9 R Edwards TA 8-2
11 Roger Gardom TF 37-4
13 Chris Shaw TF 25-12
15 John Iddon Big Bash 4-15
17 Steve Guy Big Bash 10-13
19 Botham YMA 18-6
21 Andy Fieldhouse TA 16-10
23 Hammy YF 0-3
25 Budd Nudd YMA 38-14
26 M Bates YMA 11-7
29 S Kelly Big Bash 30-10
31 Ben Rowbotham Big Bash 2-8
33 Johnny Mac TF 26-2
35 Steph YF 47-12
37 Simon Short TA 24-2
39 Oscar YF 8-8
42 DNW
44 John O'Driscoll TF 27-12
46 Malcom YF 4-9
49 Juzzy Big Bash 15-3
50 Nodrog TF 32-4
52 Nicky Dodds TA 21-4

Maple

1 M Hill YF 2-3
3 Steve Riley TA 43-03
5 Nigel Cook TA 18-15
8 Steve YF 6-10
10 Roger Young TA 8-10
12 Barney Big Bash 14-11
14 Mich Herrington TF 19-03
16 Jonathan Broadbent TA 24-12
20 Mike Hammond Big Bash 22-08
22 Kev Allen Big Bash 16-15
24 Mick Davison YF 1-11
26 Ian Gillies TF 12-3
28 Dan Hickman YMA 16-11
30 Dean Marsh Big Bash 18-07
32 Steve L TA 11-11
34 Chris Kendall YMA 28-06
36 Rob Hitchen Big Bash 7-6
38 Ricky Roberts Big Bash 12-10
40 Paul Atton Big Bash 13-04
42 Rob Walston Big Bash 2-08
44 Ricky Barker TF 8-08
46 W Mountain Big Bash 13-6
48 Matt Bailey YMA 20-4
50 Tom Gibson YF 0-3
52 Phil Sanderson YF 0-13
54 Steve Knowles TF 17-12
56 Lee Simpson TF 28-12
58 Noddicus YMA 15-05
60 Craig Melling TA 16-10
62 Art Hilmi Big Bash 32-10
62a Steve Gerrard TF 64-0-0
64 Tony Nottger TF 29-10
65 Simon Young TA 16-10

Teams - top six weights

TF Red - 186lb 10oz
Yorkshire Match Anglers - 147lb 6oz
TF Blue - 143lb 2oz
Talk Angling Red - 117lb 14oz
Big Bash 2 - 116lb 8oz
Talk Angling Blue - 92lb 9oz
Big Bash 1 - 91lb 15oz
Yorkshire Fishing A - 64lb 4oz
Yorkshire Fishing B - 58lb 15oz

Individuals

1st Steve Gerrard 64-0
2nd Steph Armitidge 47-12
3rd Steve Riley 43-3
4th Budd Nudd 38-14

Overall a very enjoyable day in great company, just a shame the fishing was so terrible! I’m sure next year will prove to be more fruitful, although I did beat Mr Hitchens!!

Carp Vale - Cyprio & Match pool August 23rd

2009-08-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

After missing the previous match at Woodlands I was eager to get fishing this weekend and Carp Vale was in store once again. Unfortunately we weren’t on front pool which I’d taken a good weight from a few weeks previous but Cyprio would certainly do the business although I was dreading a draw on Match Pool seeing as the weights were so low in comparison last time around.

Stu and Nige weren’t in attendance this week so Honest John was running the match. As there were 18 of us in attendance it was decided to have three sections of six. With six anglers on match pool and 12 on Cyprio the weights would hopefully be a bit higher on the match pool as everyone would have plenty of room.

So come the draw I wanted any number lower than 21, this would guarantee a peg on Cyprio. So typically I drew 31 and would have to spend the day on the dreaded match pool!

The necessary two trips to my peg were then undertaken, I could have done with a lie down by the time I’d settled everything down! My peg looked quite nice; I was in a wide bay about 30m wide probably, so I’d have a nice chuck to the reed fringed island although there was a tree directly above me which would hamper my casting. I also had the spare platform of peg 30 to fish towards and also plenty of open space in front of me.

I decided to have a method line, a cat food line towards the spare platform and also a line at 13m for fishing pellet. I already had the method set up, 8lb Maxima mainline, a 15g small Preston method feeder to use in conjunction with my new moulds and a short hooklength of 0.18 Silk Shock with a PR36 size 16 and a small hair rigged bait band. Rather than using the size 10 swivel that Preston say will give you a semi fixed bolt rig, I had opted for a quick change bead.

My pole lines were all a lot shallower than I thought they would have been, I probably only found a maximum of 4 foot on the 13m line and just over 3ft off the edge of platform 30.

Bait for the day, I had a load of cat food but initially opened two tins, I had some soaked micros, some 4 and 6mm expanders and some ground bait mixed up for the method if I wanted to cut down the food content instead of fishing pellets on the frame.

The all in sounded at 10:15 and the match was underway, I lobbed the method out to within a foot of the far bank, sank my line, tightened up and waited, and waited, and waited………after watching a free DVD on method feeder fishing with Des Shipp, I remembered him saying ‘‘if you don’t get bites on the method then there probably aren’t any fish in your swim!’’ so after an hour of not even a liner I ditched the method and decided to have a look on the cat food line which I’d big potted right at the start.

I was glad to not be casting as the tree above had started to annoy me so I was glad to get on the pole, however annoyingly I had to break down twice due to the bushes behind me, due to me fishing essentially down my right margin it meant I had to ship out 13m straight in front and then swing the pole round 90 degrees to my right, which also wasn’t ideal! I lowered in with a juicy bit of cat meat and tipped in a further two chunks, my float dipped and I missed the bite, as well as my hook bait coming off, so annoying I shipped back, re-baited and dropped in again. I had another knock but this time managed a carp of about 12oz. I carried on in this vein for an hour or two missing fish and then getting a small carp and I was going no where fast! After missing a bite and having to re-bait for the umpteenth time I decided to put a new hooklength on with a smaller hook and a hair rigged quick stop which marginally improved my catch rate. But I was getting annoyed and decided to start up my pellet line at 13m instead. I needed to get a shift on too as Bri Gascoigne just down the bank from me was catching a fish a chuck and had been all match!

I big potted some micros in and left them for 10 minutes whilst I exhausted the meat line and then it was time! First drop out I managed a carp of 4lb, followed by plenty of smaller stocky carp. I also managed another good carp and two Tench that would both be knocking on 3lb a piece. I knew it was too little too late at the final whistle though as Bri had sacked up, I just wish I’d started on the pellet a lot earlier! Lesson learnt for next time I suppose!

Come the weigh in and Steve Hoddo was winning Cyprio with either 85 or 95lb, can’t quite remember, Tony Minikin was 2nd with 75lb, Tom Hoddo was 3rd with 72lb and rumours of Woody having a catfish?! Well Bri weighed in 66lb so I knew I didn’t have that and would hope for the section, I weighed in 43-12 so not a bad weight at the end of the day I was just really annoyed with how I’d fished and the constraints my peg had put up on me, but once you’ve drawn what can you do? Apart from fish it as best you can, which I didn’t feel I’d done on the day.

I don’t know what the final result was as we had to rush off as Gordon was party bound! I’m still in hope that I snuck my section but I knew Tony Koz had two nets in so he probably put a bigger weight on the board than myself, I can live in hope before the next match though!

I’m fishing for www.TalkAngling.co.uk on Saturday in the Northern Intersite so hopefully I’ll have a good days write up on the cards come next week!

August 9th - Sessay - Alders

2009-08-15T09:24:00.001-07:00

I’ve had a quite hectic week this week getting all my gear ready, seeing as I still store all my gear at my dads it makes it rather difficult to get stuff ready during the week so seeing as I was back over that way for band practice on the Wednesday night I decided I should at least set my rods up, so I set up the method rod and also set up a waggler rod just in case I drew one of the wide pegs on Alders. It was then a case of taking my box back to the flat to get rig making! Now most of the venues we fish I had catered for when tying up my rigs over winter, however I’d not tied any silver rigs, so a couple of full depth and a couple of shallow rigs had me nearly there before a marathon night of tying hooklengths!

I was at a 21st party on the Saturday which was held at a Casino, I luckily managed to win a few quid so I quit whilst I was a head as I thought it would cover my days fishing, bonus!

Well Gordon arrived at 8 o’clock with Rab and we chucked everything in the back of van and in the back of my mind I knew I was missing something but I had all my major gear, box, carryall, bait bag, rods, rod bag etc so I must have had everything! Or so I thought….

After a hearty breakfast with an extra sausage thrown in for good measure I was set up for the day and come the time of the draw I was looking forward to being anywhere but the top end! Luckily for me then I drew peg 8 which is the last peg in the narrows at the bottom of the lake, this would do nicely as I knew I could reach the island and it would hopefully be good for a few carp! My plan was to fish for carp in the first and last hour and fish for silvers in the middle to make up the rest of my weight. I walked over to the van to start emptying my stuff out and it hit me, my bib n brace and my boots! Still in the shed at home, thankfully Gordon had a spare bib n brace in the van, there was also room for someone else in them too if I got bored during the match ;o)

For company I had Nige to my right on peg 6 and Acko on 9. With Rab only up the road on peg 12 we were sure not to have a quiet match!

Rigs for the day were simple, I had a carp rig for tight against the island which consisted of a 4x10 Malman Cedar on Ultima Power Match 0.16 to an 0.14 hooklength of the same material and a size 16 eyed B911, elastic for this was size 14 latex. I then had my depth maggot rig for fishing 13m straight in front, this comprised of a 0.5g Preston Classic 10 on Ultima Power Match 0.12, a hooklength again in 0.12 and size 18 B911 spade and 10 latex. My shallow rig was the same as this but obviously shorter and with a 4x8 Preston PB3 float on a 12 latex. I did have a couple of 8 elastics ready with connectors and loops for the bungs and if need be I could have run them through a spare kit. My efforts putting the rods up midweek had paid off, or not as they stayed in half on the floor for the day, though if I’d have drawn 75% of the other pegs I’d have definitely used them.

Just before time I decided I best get some bait sorted. I quickly soaked some micros and drained them off and also pumped some 4mm expanders, I then went on the maggot run to the shop and got a pint of whites and a pint of reds. Thankfully I borrowed a maggot riddle of Acko, I think there was equal measures of maggots to maize in my box and if I was to be spraying maggots all day I’d have been blind by the end of the match!

The hooter sounded at 10:15 and the match was underway, two pouches of maggots out to the 13m line before shipping out in search for a carp! I was armed with a 4mm expander and a fruit shoot full of micros. I tucked the rig right into the far bank vegetation and tipped the feed in. Nothing, nothing nothing. I fished this line for perhaps 2o minutes without even a nudge, meanwhile Acko was catching silvers one a bung and I felt I’d perhaps made the wrong decision. I carried on feeding the maggot line and after 30 minutes with nothing to show off the far bank line it was time to go after the silvers before I got too far behind!

I shipped out with deep rig and a full kinder of maggots and lowered the rig in. I was into fish straight away albeit small roach, I maybe put a dozen in the net before I got the kiss of death! A Perch! I think by the end of the match I had 16 Perch, for about 3oz! You could see through them if you held them up to the light! I decided to big pot to spark a response from the better Ide in the lake, I dumped over 200ml of maggots in from a height to make a disturbance and it seemed to work! I put half a dozen Ide between 6oz and a pound in the net before I got a big one pushing 2lb but then the little fish moved back in! Another big pot and I was into a better stamp again. Thing is, I was quickly running out of maggots, I’d used my first 2 pints in about an hour and a half! Luckily Chris was having a walk round and he kindly agreed to get me a couple more pints! I carried on in this vein for the rest of the match, I tried a couple of times shallow but struggled to hit bites, so stuck to the deep rig and altered my shotting pattern instead. Every time I fed a full pot I’d get bigger fish and by changing hook size to a 16 meant I could mount up to 4 maggots and be a bit more selective to the size of fish I put in the net. I had a couple of Ide easily pushing 3lb but because they don’t fight you can fish relatively light! The time was now 3:00 and I’d dumped my last pot of maggots out and only had a handful of hookers left to persevere with! I managed a few more fish before I was completely out of maggots and then and then had to go for the carp on the far bank again. Nige had persevered with paste all day and the last 90 minutes he reaped the rewards and started to put some good fish in the net. I managed a couple of liners before bumping off a carp and that was the end of the match. I’d fed 4 pints of maggots in 4 hours and me and Acko realised that when ever either of us introduced a dump of bait the fish would move between our swims until the next person dumped so it was paramount to keep the feed going in. I could have easily put a gallon in but its not justifiable to spend £20 on maggots, £20 on the match fees and still not be guaranteed a pay out.

The weigh in got underway pretty sharpish, Bob Sinclar managed 34lb 12 oz and the next big weight was Nige with 46lb odd, next up was myself, I didn’t have a clue how much I had and was pretty glad to put 35lb of silvers on the scales, but it seemingly wasn’t enough, Acko put 43lb 8oz in the sling and because Steve Hoddo and Vince had caught on the other side it meant I missed out on my section once again. Still overall I came 5th but once again I played the part of the ‘nearly man’ with a decent back up weight. Acko had the right to feel aggrieved at missing out because if I’d have stuck to fishing for carp he’d have pushed on for 3rd place as we wouldn’t have shared fish all day, although he did congratulate me on fishing a good match and said that if a muppet had been next to him he’d have done it but because I twigged what was needed for the day it meant he had to put up with a section prize!

The top six finish looked like this:

1st – Vince O-Connor – Peg 32 – 68lb – Method feeder
2nd – Steve Hodson – 49lb odd
3rd – Nige Carter – 46lb odd
4th – Mick Atkinson – 43lb 8oz
5th – Steve Lupton 35lb
6th – Bob Sinclair – 34lb 12oz

Carp Vale - August 2nd Match + Front pool‏

2009-08-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

Well after a night of heavy drinking on the Friday the last thing I needed was a lads day out at the races on the Saturday so come Sunday morning I was feeling a little worse for fair after a couple of days on the pop. It’s amazing how any other time I’d have stayed in bed for the day but when there is fishing on the cards I’m first out the traps once my alarm goes off! The plan was for Gordon to pick me up at five to eight and with me doing no preparation for the match I more or less just chucked all the bait I had into my bait bag and hoped I’d not forgotten any major items of tackle.

Now there are two things I don’t like about Carp Vale, there isn’t a café and you can’t push a barrow round the lake due to it being quite narrow and having steps every now and then. However hopefully the fishing would make up for this!

Gordon and Rab turned up and rather than just pushing my barrow into the back of the van like normal it was one item at a time, the trouble is I take that much stuff that i was thinking it would take me a couple of trips to get my peg!

We arrived at the venue in plenty of time and had time for a quick look round and to get dressed before the match got underway. With our match being spread over two lakes it was decided that on the front pool there would be a 1st and a section prize for the whole lake and that match pool would have 1st, 2nd and two sections. The main reason for this was that the front pool was guaranteed to out fish the match pool.

By the time of the draw I managed to squeeze in between Gordon and Acko and when my time came I was praying to be on the front pool, when peg 59 stuck to my hand I was on the right lake! I don’t fish Carp Vale from one year to the next and have never fished the front pool before so didn’t know what to fully expect although I had a few ideas. Martin Whittaker who’s been fishing the Tuesday evening matches up there was confident with his draw of peg 58 next to mine and told me that they are both tip pegs and that my peg generally out fishes his. Basically peg 58 and 59 have islands in front of them and a 20m gap between them so we each had our own island to fish to albeit that Stu Stott was opposite me and Gordon was opposite Martin and we would therefore have to steal each others fish throughout the match.

First thing to do was obviously get the box down with all the metal attached and nets in. Now for a change I took my tip rod down after Woodlands last week so had the chore of setting up the tip before I thought about plan B pole lines. I was using an 11-13ft Ron Thomson medium feeder rod on the 11ft length today with a front drag Ultimate reel loaded with 8lb Maxima. Down the business end I started off with a small Maver method feeder, in front of this a soft rubber bead, a Korum quick change bead and a 3 inch hooklength of 0.16 Ultima Power Match with a size 16 Preston PR36 and hair rigged band. I decided to start with a single hair rigged band and change to two if I felt the need. The reason for starting with one is that the method feeder I was using would have looked quite ugly with 2 8mm pellets hanging off it and there wouldn’t have been much room loose feed!

I set up a rig at 7m slightly to my right to fish cat food as from what I’d heard this was doing quite well at the venue.

Bait for the day I had a couple of tins of Morrison’s My Cat, 3 pints of micros dampened and dusted in pellet power 4 to stop them breaking down too much on the bank. I also had my box of varying pellets for the band. I had a plethora of bait left in the bag but hopefully this is where it would stay!

At the all in I cupped in a big pot of chopped cat food and dampened micros on my 7m line and then cast out to the post marker on the island. My first cast of the day was a beauty, exactly where i wanted it, I sank the line and after a few minutes the tip arced round quite slowly to my surprise, at first I thought it was a big liner but when it went slack I tightened up again before the rod nearly jumped off the rest! A brief tussle entailed and a small mirror of about 2lb graced my first net. I re-cast and didn’t have a bite in 5 minutes so reeled in, in order to keep the bait going in. I managed to put 3 further fish in my net to round off the first hour with about 14lb from four fish. I thought if I stuck at it the line would get stronger but over the next two hours and continual casting by the time the third hour had arrived I only had 9 in the net for a guess of 26lb. Martin meanwhile had had 18 fish from chucking in a different spot every time as he said they weren’t settling in one place.

I was well behind and with only the winner and one section being paid I now had to concentrate on winning the section as to catch up with Martin would be a big ask as he was still catching fairly regularly.

I’d topped up twice on my 7m line and on the halfway mark I decided that seeing as the tip wasn’t producing anymore I would try the pole for half an hour. Six instant fish one after another made me feel as though it was the right decision but as soon as they came they’d gone and I was now sitting on 15 fish for about 44lb and Martin was near enough waiting at the finish line for everyone else! One fish I caught was by far the luckiest moment in my angling career. My float dipped and I struck into what felt a good fish, I netted it and it was probably pushing 5lb. I was quite confused as to what was going as my hook was no where near the fish? I’d managed to hook a stot shot on a piece of trailing line that was hooked into the fish’s belly! ‘’Better to be lucky than good!!!’’

Stu and Gordon opposite were both catching in a similar pattern to myself and picking off one or two in spells before it went quiet.

I mixed and matched lines with no more fish coming for an hour. I’d seen Martin was using one of the Preston method feeders with the new mould which was considerably bigger than my feeder so I swapped over to a Middy inline elasticated method and the double banded hair rig to try spark a response. With an hour left I knew I needed at least 5 fish to stay in contention although Stu had caught in my blank hour so I felt he was ahead. So back on the tip and into the last half an hour without a bite, just as I was contemplating reeling in the tip flew round and again and again and again, until I put 6 in the net in 30 minutes before the all out was shouted! I felt I’d fished as well as I could have done and rang the changes to keep fish going in the net. I finished with 21 carp, a skimmer and a roach for about 66lb by my estimation.

Everyone congratulated Martin as it was evident he had won the match by considerable margin and had put 53 carp into the net over the course of the match. Mally had had a frustrating day on peg 61 losing a lot of fish but we’ve all been there so hopefully he’ll shake off the demons by next week.

Come the weigh in and everyone who’d been on match pool were cursing that it had fished rubbish and I think the lake winning weight was 18lb less than the lowest weigh in our pool! They weighed our lake backwards meaning Gordon was weighing in first as Robert had tipped back. Gordon’s two nets went 65lb and it was going to be very close as to who won the quid for the day! Next up was Stu and he managed 83lb and I knew I’d lost the section! Still I’d caught a few fish again and once again underestimated. My first net went 31lb dead and my second 43lb dead for a combined total of 74lb, beating my Starbeck top match weight again! Martin finally had his score on the board after 4 weighs to record 143lb 4oz, not that the ounces really mattered! So well done to him, fantastic job!

So I’d won the quid off Gordon, but he kindly reminded me that he’d paid for me at Morndyke a few weeks back, so I reminded him that he owed me a weigh in form a few matches ago so we’re quits now!

Got Alders this coming weekend, a venue that’s treated me very well on occasions so a good draw and a few fish in my peg wouldn’t go amiss to make it three good matches on the trot!

July 26th Woodlands Partridge

2009-08-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been rather a long time since I last blogged. Busy weekends and holidays have kept me off the bank for 5-6 weeks now so I was raring to go this weekend! I’d tied up plenty of hooklengths for the bomb and plenty of rigs to cover all eventualities and for once felt very prepared!

It’s amazing how quickly things change in fishing, during my absence Woodlands have lifted the ban on the method and Paul Cooksey’s had a match win and a second! Long time due, well done Paul!

I arrived at the fishery in plenty of time and thought I’d re-introduce myself to a Full English! Then a trip to the tackle shop to stock up on some fishery pellets and I was sorted for the day.

The draw was a little late and ideally we would have fished from 10:15 rather than 10 but with an evening match on straight after ours we were still to fish 10 while 4pm. This meant we only had 45 minutes to set up. I decided to set everything up as quickly as I could and the chuck the bomb out while I sorted everything else out.

I already had the bomb set up, an 11ft heavy feeder rod with 8lb Maxima lining the rings. I had a swivel bead with a 3/8oz bomb and a Korum quick change bead cushioned by a rubber bead. Hooklength for the day was a 12’’ length of Ultima Power Match 0.16, a Preston PR36 size 14 with a hair rigged band. I was experimenting today and had tied another band to the one on the hair in order to present two pellets at once.

I set up two rigs, keeping it simple with a rig at 6m to my left where I would feed 6mm pellets and corn and use either corn or a 6mm expander on the hook. My second line was at 13m where I would fish paste over a big pot of 6mm pellets.

The all in sounded and I was ready apart from making up my paste. I first of all fed the two pole lines and then lobbed the bomb out with two 8mm pellets, I fired a few around it and then got on with making my paste which was, as usual, pellet power+ on the medium to soft side. After a fruitless 20 minutes on the bomb I went on the 6m line and managed a carp of about 4lb first put in. Then I started to get silly sail away bites met with no resistance before I was rewarded with a roach, time to re-feed!

I then went out onto the 13m paste line. It took me half an hour of feeding (with the left over paste) before I got my first indication. I had a few more dips and knocks before I managed to put a run of fish together. A small Tench and 3 more carp had me sitting on about 16lb for the first 2 hours. I desperately needed to get into some more fish though as Tony and John were apparently catching on the earlier pegs.

I re-fed both lines again and went on the bomb. I’d been feeding the bomb line continuously all match and hoped there’d be a fish or two to have.

By constantly firing out 2 or 3 pellets I started to put a few fish in the net, I lost count at 12 carp for the day but thought I maybe had 16 even though a couple of them were less than 2lb.

There was on point during the match and I thought to myself ‘’I’m not doing too bad, I’ve not had any rig problems or breakages at all, makes a change!’’ at that moment the rod wrapped round and then sprang back, I thought it was far too vicious to be a liner, reeling in proved that I’d been snapped but with the quick change bead I was soon back in action. I must admit I’m quite impressed by them as they get you up and running very quickly in that sort of situation albeit they can be a bit fiddly to open with wet hands. Next cast and I was soon into another fish, just as I got it under the rod tip it pulled! I’d spoken too soon (or at least thought too soon!)

At the final whistle I reckoned to having 55lb in the net, Tony Koz on peg 6 reckoned I had more than that and he was admitting to 35lb. When the scales came round honest John was leading with a weight around the 80’s (I think) and Tony Minikin on 79lb. I knew I didn’t have that so was hoping they’d take the spoils and leave me with the section. T-Koz weighed 44lb, a slight underestimate but then my fish went 62lb 2oz so we’d both under exaggerated!

I was pretty pleased that my double banded pellet had worked too, whether they were just having it or whether the double bait proved too hard to resist only time will tell, but hopefully it will prove a worthy string to add to my bow! I might invest in one of the Mosella banding tools though as a couple of times, especially with wet hands I was faffing trying to get the two pellets banded, although with the quick change bead I could have spares set up on my side tray? Something to think about for next time!

There were some more big weights around the lake, Rab 83lb, Martin Whittaker (not sure but big), Paul Jones 72lb but undoubtedly the winner of the day was Vince O’Connor with 115lb. Vince was nearly opposite me and caught on the bomb all day. Nige directly opposite me had 75lb, all on paste including well over 20lb of skimmers!

It had also been noted that sticking to one method all day would generally see you reap rewards. Vince fished the bomb all day, not that far out by the looks of it, perhaps 20m and constantly flicked pellets over the top all day. Nige on the other hand had fished paste all day and come out with a section winning 75lb. Perhaps if I’d have stuck to the paste line and made it work or stuck to the bomb all day I’d have maybe caught a few more to push for the prizes? I was also fishing half way across which theoretically means it takes longer to get each fish in? A few small lessons learnt and hopefully I’ll push a bit harder in the next match at the venue!

Well, due to other high weights it meant no fluky pick up although I couldn’t be too down heartened as this is my biggest Starbeck Match weight and also my biggest weight at Woodlands which was previously 52lb on the pairs event last year.

I’ve a busy week this week, golf on Wednesday, cricket Thursday, work night on Friday and Thirsk races on the Saturday so I’ll see what frame of mind I’m in before booking onto Carp Vale this Sunday!

31st May, Sessay - Cedar Open‏

2009-06-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

With the Fish o’ Mania qualifier at Sessay next week there was quite a few in attendance, a few not so familiar faces obviously wanted to get a feel for the place. I arrived at the fishery at 9:30 giving me enough time for a bite to eat and get booked on. I think I was the 42nd name down and a few more booked on after me and in total 55 fished. The sun once again was beating down and it was predicted that we’d all struggle today. A weight of around 40lb should get you in the spoils, with a top 5 payout and 5 man sections there was plenty to play for.

The draw was a little late, so at 10:15 I decided my fate for the next 5 hours. Peg 43, this didn’t rally mean a lot to me as I’ve not fished the lake since the Christmas series. I’ve fished 47 and 48 before so I knew that 43 was on a point. When I got to my peg I was in a mixed mood about it, with the peg being on a bend it means you have plenty of water to go at, the only thing was that there wasn’t a breath of wind which might make the day even harder than predicted! To complete my misery I was pegged in an all star line up, Maver Barnsley’s Ian Bowman was on peg 41 to my left although he wasn’t in my section. Peg 42 was left out, Chris from Browning Quaker was on my right on 44, Preston’s Lee Kerry was on 46, not sure who was on 47 and Mark Coyne was on 49. So as with any open you have to be on your game if you want to pick up at the end of the day. I spoke with Chris on 44 and we both agreed that our pegs were good for 20lb but not much more. So I set about catching 20lb of fish and anything more would be a bonus, I was more bothered about keeping pace and not embarrassing myself though!

Cedar is an odd lake in the fact that basically the ‘in’ method changes so often, luckily it was either meat or pellet that would do the business, or so I was told. With not having vast experience with meat I decided to go down the pellet route as I’d have a bit more confidence in what I was doing.

Rigs for the day were as normal for the Oaks; I had a couple of 4x10 Malman Cedar’s set up on 0.14 Ultima Power Match, Hooklengths of 0.12 and B911’s in 16 or 18. I had one rig for in front of the sedges and one rig for the mud, or at least trying to get to the mud as the sedges were quite dense. I also set up a track rig at 4m so I was able to feed by hand through the match and hopefully snare the odd fish when I was struggling. I also had my method rod set up as a last ditch attempt but mainly if the wind picked up.

Bait was simple, some 4mm expanders, some micros and a tin of corn as a change bait, although I didn’t think it was a day for corn today, just a gesture for my side tray!

At the all in I threw a small handful of pellets to 4m and then shipped out to my first sedge, on the far left at 13.5m, tipped in some micros and dropped my 4mm expander into the ripples. I didn’t have to wait long before my first indication but the excitement was short lived when I dropped a gudgeon into the keepnet. Straight back out again and yet another gudgeon, I did this one final time before deciding to feed a full fruit shoot and move to another line. This was straight in front of the right sedge, there were a few sedges in the water which meant it was a difficult task to drop the bait in the right place, but perseverance soon paid off and I was into carp number one of the day. I thought it was bigger than was but a lovely mirror of about 2lb soon joined the gudgeon. Two small F1’s later and the gudgeon had moved in once again so I moved to another line to my right. This is how carried on for the rest of the day, sport was very slow but I was picking the odd fish up by changing lines and trying to catch one or two before moving on.

The middle of the match was very quiet so I went 15m to my left in front of the tree and managed to hook one first put in, a foul hooker, next put in another foul hooker, one final time and I was losing my rag. I put the shallower rig on and managed two carp of about 2lb a piece again before having to move swims again. It was a frustrating day not being able to get onto a ball of fish but I seemed to be fairing relatively well in my section.

In the last ten minutes I put 4 F1’s in the net and on time missed another bite, typical they turn up once time has gone!

At the all I reckoned on about 18lb, maybe a bit more, when the scales came round Ian Bowman weighed in 31lb, he’d caught all his shallow with plenty of tapping. I then put 21lb 8oz in the sling and was glad to have beaten my 20lb target. Chris next door weighed 17lb8oz, mainly silvers and he’d fed 4 pints of maggots through the match. Lee Kerry Tipped back, as did the lad on 47. My weight was looking good for a section prize until Mark Coyne weighed in 26lb 5oz. Still second place in a very difficult section, I can’t grumble at that!

Final result looked like this

James Dent (Maver Barnsley) 49-2-0, carp and F1s, pole and pellet, peg 52
Keith Mitchell (Garbolino Elton) 48-5-0
Brian Clarke (Oaks) 44-2-0
Chris Hall (Oaks) 43-12-0
Steve Rothery (Garbolino Ossett) 41-4-0
Adie Mitchell (Oaks) 40-12-0.

May 23rd - Pleasure Session at Morndyke‏

2009-05-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I was at Evolution festival in Newcastle on the Sunday and Monday I decided to make sure I got fishing on the Saturday so I didn’t miss a week. I’d spoken to Gordon and decided to join Honest John and himself up at Morndyke. After carrying out a few early errands I got to the fishery at just gone 9 and John and Gordon we’re just about set up. They we’re pegged on 7 and 8 so I decided to plump next to them round the corner on peg 9. I’ve never fished this area before and tend to fish on or towards the central island. I quite fancied a day on the method but all the pegs I fancied for this we’re taken so I opted to fish paste again and with a marginal bush on either side I had plenty of scope for different lines to fish.

Gordon and John were both fishing paste for the day too so it would be interesting to see what the outcome would be regarding who fed what and in what quantity etc.

I finally rigged up with a rig identical to the one from the week previous, and also mixed up some more of the pellet power+ paste. I first of all went out to the right bush and plumbed about for a bit. I decided to fish a foot or two away from the bush, one it meant the float was easier to see against the back drop and also the bottom flattened out nicely where as under the bush it was on a fairly steep gradient and I didn’t want all my feed to roll to bottom of the slope away from where I was fishing.

First put out with a blob of paste and half a dozen 6mm pellets and after a couple of minutes I was into my first fish. Now the fish in Morndyke average at about 4lb although that average will probably be nearer 4.5 to 5lb now! The bite was much just like a typical bite on any bait, not a frustrating bite you often get with paste, I played the fish for a minute or two as they fight like crazy in here and you just can’t get their heads up! I put the power on as it charged under the platform and we parted company. A couple of extra winds of elastic onto the bung and I wasn’t going to be beaten again!

Next put out I waited a minute or two and was soon attached to another, this led me a merry dance and due to the amount of pressure you have to put on them I ended up landing it with my number four still in place. It finally took a gulp of fresh air and soon nestled in the bottom of the net, this was a good fish by fishery standards, probably knocking on 6lb. I had a couple more before I felt the swim was fading away from me.

Now feeding patterns, Gordon didn’t seem to be feeding anything, John was big potting after every few fish and I was dripping half a dozen pellets in with my hook bait. The thing is no real trend could be found as we were all catching.

John had started fishing shallow and took one straight away. Seeing as my line had pretty much died I dumped a pot of bait in at 7m straight in front and a pot full down next to the bush also. I would then fish the 7m line and start feeding pellets at 13m every few seconds.

I managed to take a fish straight away off the deck at 7m but no more. I went back down the bush and managed a couple more but I had to wait a long time between bites. I’d been feeding the shallow line for the best part of 90minutes now and decided to give it a go, 30 minutes later and no signs what so ever I decided to sack it off and save my bait!

John and Gordon packed up at 4pm and by this point I think I had 11, John had 16 and Gordon had 19. I decided to stay on for a further hour as it had picked up a little. I managed four in the space of half an hour whilst they were packing away. It started to spit and I thought it was best to head home also so chucked the remainder of paste away but then the sun came out again and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I pinched the rest of Johns left over paste and after they’d gone I managed another 3 fish in quick succession taking my tally to 18.

So another better weekend and a few more paste lessons learnt, I finished with 18 carp for about 70-80lb, easily my best result of the year and probably more than I’ve caught in the last few weeks put together!

No club match this coming weekend so probably another pleasure session somewhere, perhaps Morndyke again!

May 17th - Pleasure Session at Sessay - Oaks Lake‏

2009-05-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

With no club match this weekend and with the weather not looking too promising I was in two minds whether to go or not. However come dinnertime on the Sunday I was itching to go and decided on an afternoon up at Sessay where I planned on practicing my paste fishing. I arrived at the fishery at about 2:30 and all the lakes we’re matched up, there was no room on Alders, Poplars or Maple so I had a quick walk round Oaks and Firs and eventually decided to settle on the Oaks down the bottom end where Chris and Andy Nattrass were fishing. They’d both had a few on a variety of methods so I was fairly confident of catching a few for a change.

I’ve never really got into paste fishing but would quite like another string to my bow seeing as its wearing a bit thin of late and nothing seems to be working for me!

I only set up one rig, a 0.5g BGT paste float on 0.17 Powerline, a hooklength of 0.15 Powerline to a Mustad Carp Pellet in a size 14, although these hooks are a bit bigger than conventional hook sizes. Elastic was 14 Maver latex.

For bait today I mixed up some Sensas Pellet Power ground bait into a stiff paste with the view of adding more water the more confident I got with it. I also had a handful of 4mm pellets to kick start the swim.

I plumbed up carefully and settle on a flat area at about 7m. I’d plumbed up so that only the very tip of the float was showing however the shotting would only just drag the body under and the paste would do the rest of the work.

First put out with a ten pence size blob of paste and half a dozen pellets saw no action and when the float finally rose out of the water I struck to discover the paste had eventually gone. I would repeat this for the rest of the day and slowly build up a swim with my hook bait. On the third put in, the float rose out the water again and I just presumed the paste had disintegrated again before it slowly slid off into the depths and I was rewarded with my first fish, an F1 of about 2lb. For the next hour I was slowly building my swim and apart from a few liners I had nothing else in the net. I decided to dump in a small handful of pellets to see if I could interest a few more fish. By this time it was absolutely bucketing it down and most people were packing up or had already gone.

The big dump of bait had worked and I was soon into my second fish of the day, similar to the first, another good F1.

I’d been continually adding a bit more water to my paste so by the end of the session it was just about hanging on the hook and it proved to work as the bites were coming faster and easier to read.

I was slowly getting used to reading the bites and knowing when to strike and luckily I had plenty of chances to practice, I ended up putting 13 carp in the net, all at least 2lb a piece and a couple at 3 or 4lb, oh and one lonesome Ide! So all in all I probably had about 30lb in 3 hours, and the first hour I only had the one fish!

I’d had a really good day and given myself a proper induction into paste fishing. I just need a good draw on the next match to try it out again!

May 10th - Sessay - Maple‏

2009-05-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

With Gordon going to Holland straight after the match I had to make my own way to the venue for a change. I woke up with plenty of time to spare so after making my flask and packing the carryall I decided to make my top kits up and transport them to the venue ready to plumb up straight away. This would save me a bit of time before the match and I wanted to have a good plumb about on what ever peg I got and get a better feel for my swim. I’ve become a bit lazy and settling on fishing comfortable swims and not necessarily the right swims and so wanted to make a conscious effort of getting my rigs right for the day.

Come 9am and the draw was underway, ideally I wanted a peg between 30 and 45, we only had pegs 1-45 and I felt these latter few would throw up the better results. Needless to say I drew peg 4, I was still fairly confident but a difficult 7 man section would mean I’d have to pull out all the stops. Ian Farrington was on peg 1, Gordon was on peg 2, Owen was on peg 3, Leroy was on peg 5, Tel was on peg 6 and finally Nige was on peg 7. Owen is a new member to the club and told me it was from reading my blog that had encouraged him to join, I just hoped all my previous ramblings wouldn’t give him too much of an inkling into how to fish the venue!

Seeing as my top kits we’re already set up I set about preparing my expanders and then get on with the plumbing. I plumbed up from tree to tree on the far bank and found a fairly consistent depth of just over 2ft right across, although the right of my swim was perhaps 2 inches shallower. There was also a fair bit of crap in the water as the grass and the sedges had recently been cut, hopefully this wouldn’t hamper presentation.

I had 3 Malman Cedar 4x10 rigs set up, all on 0.14 to 0.12 Ultima Power match, one had a size 16 B911, one had a size 18 B911 and the other was set up for fishing to the mud again with a 16 hook. Elastics were 12 latex and 14 for the mud line. I also had a track rig set up.

Bait today I had everything for a change, the past few weeks I’ve limited myself so to not complicate things but when your baits aren’t working after the first few hours you’re left up poo creek without a paddle! So today I had half a pint of red maggots, some micros, some 4mm expanders, some 4mm meat, corn and even cat food in my bag as a back up!

At the all in I shipped out to the left sedge armed with a 4mm expander and tipped in a pinch of micros. After a lift and tap the float dibbed and I met this with a gentle lift, thus setting the hook and resulting in the first carp of the day, a mirror of about 3lb. After reading Clive Pritchard’s blog I decided to follow his rule of thumb in just gently lifting into bites rather than trying to yank the fishes head off, his reasoning was that if it’s a liner, that’s when you start foul hooking fishes in the upper depths, well, so far so good as this was hooked neatly in its top lip! I managed another 2 F1’s about 10 minutes apart which put me on about 7lb after the first half an hour. Then guess what happened? Correct, it went dead again, so many matches this year I’ve started off catching fairly well at the start of a match only to be kicked in the teeth and brought back down to earth! With our matches being 6 hours in duration it meant I went 5 hours without a fish before adding 3 further F1’s to the net by fishing as long in my peg as I could with corn and no feed. Meanwhile no one else was really catching either, most had a similar quantity to me and it was just a case of who had the bigger fish. However, Owen caught quite a few, he had at least double what I had and probably lost more than I had bites too, that’s the last time I tell him anything!

Come the weigh in, Gordon had to shoot off so I was left with weighing duty in his place. Ian on peg 1 weighed in 17lb odd, Gordon was next with 18lb odd and I thought to myself ‘’there’s another quid gone’’! Owen weighed in a very respectable 31lb which would easily take the section. I then weighed in, 14lb odd; ho hum…….another quid gone. Leroy weighed in 11 or 12lb, Tel had tipped back, as had Nige. There were then no real weights apart from those in the frame. T-Koz had 37lb, Stu Stott had 46lb odd, Chris Nattrass had 47lb to take the match win and Steve Hoddo made up the final placing with 41lb.

Even those who had weighed in over 40lb had said it fished crap, granted it did but try going 5 hours without a bite! Then you know its fished crap! Even the lads on the open had struggled to put any sort of weight together although Robbie managed a match win with nearly 70lb, I’m gonna have to take some lessons I think!

April 26th - Sessay - Poplars‏

2009-05-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

After a disappointing previous week, I’d tried to formulate a master plan which would hopefully overturn my run of bad form. Gordon picked me up, this week Rab had decided to have an early night so not to sleep in again!

We arrived at the fishery in good time and gave us chance to have a bite to eat and get some bait.

My bait for the day would hopefully cover every eventuality. I had a big tin of frenzied hemp, a pint of casters, half a pint of maggots, 4mm expanders and some dampened micros.

I was intending on fishing pellet for carp, and using the hemp and caster for everything! With the maggots to offer as a change bait.

At the draw I managed to pick out peg 38. By my reckoning this wasn’t a bad peg as it’s in a bay and you have quite a bit of water to go at. My section competitors for the day we’re Steve Hoddo on 42, Gordon on 41, Tupper-Ware on 39, someone on 36 and Honest John on 35. It was going to be very difficult to get anything from this match due to class of angler in my section, and Gordon….. Plus I owned the quid from the previous week and was reluctant in giving him it back!

I set up 2 lines for the far bank, one at 13m to my left for fishing pellet and a line at 15m straight out in front with caster and hemp. The fishing seemed to be enjoying themselves in the margin, time and a place please!

At the all in I went straight out to 15m with double caster on the hook and tip in a kinder of hemp and caster, I jiggled the float, lifted it and eventually after 15 minutes had an F1 in the net of about a pound. Straight back out and no more bites so I dumped in a big pot and went onto the pellet line as Gordon was catching and Tupperware was getting plenty of indication.

First drop in, with a pellet, I forced it tight to the cover and sprinkled a pinch of micros over the top, the float dipped then slammed under and after a 5 minute battle managed to put a common of about 4lb in the net, happy days! Next two put ins the same again and another two carp adding a pound and half each to my total.

Then the match for me and many other went a bit stale. I didn’t have a bite fish for the rest of the day, although I was hooking them. At one point I resorted to fishing the method on my pole so I could distance my pole tip from the fish but after a fruitless hour I was getting bored. Gordon was catching fairly regular but predominantly small fish. Tupperware had a good last hour and managed to catch up with Gordon a bit but it would be tight.

I fouled hooked 3 or 4 fish which all screamed off before either snapping me or attaching my rig to the island!

Come the weigh in I tipped back to save embarrassment, Honest John only had one foul hooked carp all day, the bloke to my right had 17lb I think, Tupperware had a low 20 which was good enough to beat Gordon’s even lower 20. the worst part of the day was yet to come, I sheepishly walked past Gordon and dropped a quid in his hand………..

Dennis Geldard won the match off peg 1, i think? With just over 50lb, so well done to him!

After missing the bank holiday weekend due to Uni commitments I’ll be glad to get back out on the bank with a few lessons learnt and a hunger to catch for a change!

Partridge 19th April‏

2009-04-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

Another week has rolled by and to mark the end of the week another club match. This time around we were on Partridge up at Woodlands. Gordon picked me up at 745, and there was no sign of Rab? Gordon had been to his before coming to mine and there was no sign of any life form, we went back to his after loading up the van with my gear but all the curtains were still shut and he wasn’t answering his phone, we would later find out that he’d had a night on the pop and slept in!

A quick sandwich and a visit to the shop for some fishery pellets before we started to unload the van. As we were finally loading the barrows and getting ‘dressed’ other club members were walking past and asking what peg we were on, we were drawing on time then! I managed to snare peg 14 and Gordon was to be on 23, we were both at the right end of the lake as all the weights had come from this top end on the previous few matches. Pete Whale was on corner peg 18 and I was fully expecting him to empty it if the lake was in the right frame of mind.

After having pretty minimal success up at Woodlands in the past I drew for some experience of some of the fishing forums. I got some good advice and formulated a plan of attack.

It was basically to fish a line at 6m with corn or expander over a light feeding of 6mm hard fishery pellets for the first three quarters of an hour and then move onto the long line which I’d have primed from the start by firing half a dozen 6mm pellets out every 10 seconds or so.

So with the plan of attack in place, I set up the following rigs to cope with every eventuality.

6m line - I had a 4x14 Preston float set up on 0.16 Ultima Power match, a hooklength of 0.14 to a size 16 B911, this had a bulk shot 2 feet away from the hook and a couple of droppers equally spaced thereafter. Elastic was size 14 Maver Latex.

14m deep line – this was the same set up as the 6m line just with a slightly deeper rig.

14m shallow line – this was a 0.2g Malman MTD1 on 0.16 straight through to a PR36 size 16 and a hair rigged band. Elastic for this was Preston Latex, size 16 and for the first time I laccied the kits up with Dacron connectors, hopefully I’d be able to snare a couple of fish and try it out.

Margin line – I didn’t intend on using this but set it up more as a desperation rig if I wasn’t catching.

Bomb – I teamed up my Shimano Catana medium feeder rod with a 4000 series Ultimate reel, mainline was 8lb Maxima, hooklength was 2ft of 0.16 Ultima Power match again with a PR36, 16 and a hair rigged band.

Bait for the day (in keeping with fishery regulations) was:

3 Tins of Corn (not that I intended to use them all)
2 Pints of fishery 6mm pellets
½ Pint of fishery 8mm pellets
The rest of my pellet quota was made up with some 6mm expanders and an array of different hookers.

Gordon finally called time, after getting permission of Stu; we wouldn’t want the match to start 2 minutes early again would we!

I shipped out to 6m with a dozen 6mm pellets, a couple of expanders and a couple of grains of corn and dropped them in. I decided to let it settle for 10 minutes and went out on the bomb to see if I could mug an early fish. Whilst on the bomb I had also started my rigorous feeding pattern on the 14m line.

No bites prevailed on the bomb and so after 10 minutes I went onto the 6m line expecting a bite straight away, I was wrong! When the float finally did dip at about 10:30 I was greeted by a skimmer of maybe 6oz. I plodded on with the 6m as I didn’t want to go long until at least 11 giving it an hour of constant feeding. As I was starting to get a bit fed up the float dipped and then yards of elastic poured out until the fish gave in and I slipped the net under a mirror of about 3lb, that’ll do! I carried on a bit longer than planned in the hope of another fish but no bites materialised.

Meanwhile Dennis Geldard on 13 had managed to carp for about 12lb and lost an absolute dog that was easily double figures. Martin Whittaker on 15 had had a skimmer but nothing else. Up on 17, Kev Bell was starting to extract a few fish and from where we were sat they all looked good fish too. Meanwhile Whaley on the end peg hadn’t had a thing.

I finally went to the long line at 11:15 and started on the deep rig. No sooner had the rig settled, the float dipped and I was into my first fish off the line, until it pinged off, a foul hooker. I repeated this twice more and losing another two fish before deciding it was perhaps time to go shallow!

Out with the shallow rig and the float was dipping but I couldn’t hit any bites, not that you need to really, generally they hook themselves and wake you up when you pole starts getting dragged off! I decided to try a bit deeper and see if they were sucking at the bait or if it was just smaller fish having a go. The extra depth didn’t bring me any more bites so I wrote it off as being small fish but kept feeding it.

Next plan was to go out on the bomb whilst continually feeding the long line. I would eventually just rotate lines and hope for bites, I couldn’t buy a bite anywhere although I did manage 3 more small carp and another skimmer on the bomb.

Kev Bell was now on about 30lb with 8 fish, Whaley I think only had one carp, Alan on 16 had had a couple and possible a similar weight to myself and either side of me still had the same 2 carp and one skimmer.

Entering the last hour it was dire, everyone was waiting for the final whistle and a few cheers echoed when the hooter finally went off.

I was hoping Kev had done enough to place in the top four as I’d not seen many catching and then hopefully push for my section.

Tony Minikin was leading with 91lb of carp taken on the bomb and ‘’50mm’’ pellet, quite an achievement on a very difficult day. There were a few 40’s and the odd 50 so my chance of a section had all but disappeared. I still however wanted to capture Dennis and Alan’s scalp for second in section. Dennis weighed his 2 fish in for 10lb 10oz, next up was myself and I surprised my self when the scale went to 12lb 12oz, with Martin not weighing his lonely skimmer in it at least meant I’d beaten either side. Alan weighed 12lb 11oz so I ounced him, get in! Next up was Kev who have just over 30lb, Whaley then surprised me when he weighed in 19lb 12oz of skimmers and Ide, all on maggot, his plan B worked, or at least better than mine! Over the other side there were weights averaging between 18-30lb with the odd bigger weight thrown in. Gordon hadn’t weighed in so I was at least taking my quid back from last week!

Overall a very frustrating day and I’m not sure why it didn’t produce as we’d all expected. The lake was flat calm all day and the sun baking hot which could have had something to do with it but you still expect more than 6 fish over 6 hours! Next week is Poplars up at the Oaks and I’m in 2 minds whether to go or not, but come the end of the week I’m sure I’ll be raring to catch next to nothing once more!

Maple 12th April

2009-04-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a while since I last blogged so I’ve got a bit to catch up on.

We had a few knock up matches up at Morndyke a few weeks back where I managed to come 2nd with 3 carp and Gordon came 1st with 6 if I remember rightly, a couple of weeks before that I managed to lose 2 carp early on and subsequently blanked, Gordon won that time too with 8 or 9 carp, most of which were caught in the last hour.

We went to Woodlands probably a month ago now and I once again managed to draw Kestrel, I managed 3 carp throughout the whole match for about 7lb, certainly nothing to write home about!

Easter weekend, we had the second of our club matches on the Sunday, I’d missed the first one as I was moving into my new flat, plus it was at Brafferton and I didn’t fancy gudgeon bashing for six hours.

We were up at The Oaks, Sessay where our match was to be held on Maple, pegs 24-66. Gordon and Rab arrived at 7:45; we quickly loaded the van up and were on our way. A steady drive and catch up saw us arrive at the complex at around 8:15.

Typically the draw was a little bit late, as I walked into the shop Rab had already drawn his peg and managed to snare boss peg 66 which is throwing up some weights at the minute so he pretty much ran towards his peg. Gordon was on 28 and I managed 26, with it being peg, miss a peg it meant we were next to each other. Robert was on 24, his missus was on 32 and Martin Whittaker was on 30 which would complete our section.

I set up an array of rigs to fish to the island; I had 2 rigs with 4x12 Malman Cedars, one on 0.14 and one on 0.12, plus two identical rigs but with 4x10 floats. Elastics were 10 and 12 Maver Latex.

Gordon sounded the hooter a couple of minutes early and you could here people moaning all around the lake!

First put in on a 4mm expander, I dripped in some micros and was getting the odd liner until the float buried; we soon parted company although I was straight back out to catch the culprit, an F1 of about 8oz. Gordon had a few better fish early on and took a considerable lead of what I assumed to be about 6lb.

I plugged away swapping between rigs and swims and managed to put a couple more fish in the net before a lull of perhaps half an hour before the same run of fish again. Gordon shouted over and asked how many I’d had, I replied that I’d had a couple of stockies and a common of maybe 4lb. Gordon replied with ‘you kept that 4lber quiet’, although not all of us have to make a song and dance about every fish we catch, I said that next time I caught a bonus fish I’d stand up on my box and make the whole lake aware before doing a lap of honour! Thankfully that was my only big fish of the day!

It was quite a tedious match and because I’d not been fishing in probably a month it wasn’t filling me with any confidence for the upcoming matches. Maple as a lake is one that I have some confidence in as I’ve done average to quite well on in the past and it suits my ‘style’ of fishing, although by the end of the match I felt I’d taken a backward step more than anything else. The back straight where we were was fishing pretty poorly in comparison to the other parts of the lake though so it was all about going for the section win.

Approaching the last hour I feel I only had a maybe 15lb, Gordon was admitting to 20lb although I knew he was lying. A last ditch attempt meant I had to push to right hand side of the island at 15 meters where I managed another half dozen small F1’s as well as losing a good fish. I knew I’d not won the section but it would be interesting to see what I had in the net. Robert had started catching in the last couple of hours and thought he might have pushed me too.

I’d not realised either but Robert and I were on weighing in duty, which meant I’d get a nice thorough soaking before we headed back! Robert weighed in just over 20lb and I thought it was going to be tight, I managed to plonk 25lb 2oz on the scales and surprised myself as I didn’t think I’d have 20lb. Gordon then managed to up the bar by chucking 30lb odd on the scales which meant he took my quid, I told him I’d be having it back at Woodlands next week! Gordon took the section as Martin put about 23lb is on the scales.

There were some good weights in all the other sections with Stu and Woody ounces apart with over 48lb each but Woody narrowly took the section. Bob the builder claimed the next section with 55lb odd.

Then came the bagging section. I’ve to thank Honest John for giving me a work out, 4 weighs later he’d put a total of 116lb on the board which coincidentally resulted in another match win for the Starbeck Champion. John was on peg 62 and fished maggot shallow to the aerator. Tony Koz managed 68lb 8oz for second place overall and finally to weigh in was Rab. I asked him why he only had one net on the boss peg as we had a 50lb per net rule but he wasn’t biting. Rab also managed to triple default his section and took home the spoils.

So this week I let the team down with both Rab and Gordon picking up, I asked them if we were still sharing the winnings but they both told me the same thing, ho hum!

Well Woodlands next week and for once I can guarantee I won’t be on Kestrel! I better get making some beefy rigs up!

Sun 25th Jan - Woodlands Open

2009-01-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

Well with last weekend being terrible regarding weather conditions I must say I didn’t really fancy it. So when this weekend came around I was eager to get back on the bank even though the weather once again looked a little suspect. Although this week I finally had my new jacket after waiting for a few weeks to swap it so hopefully I’d stay nice and dry.

I arrived up at Woodlands a bit later than normal, probably 8:45 and so quickly paid on and bought my bait. There were about 40 booked on by 9 o clock and so four lakes were put in. Curlew was a 6 peg section, Kestrel was another 6 peg section and Skylark and Partridge had a section per bank.

I managed to draw Kestrel 28, in fairness I didn’t know if this was a good or bad draw but I was soon told it was a crap draw! Apparently the lake was won the day before with 10lb+ of silvers. So I was essentially fighting for my section and with this in mind I thought I’d try the first half hour on bomb and corn and see how it went then fish for silvers for the middle four hours and depending on how it was going I’d swap to the bomb again for the last half hour.

I got round to my peg and the 6 of us on the 38 peg lake obviously had plenty of room. I had Mark Longhurst from the shop to my left on 25, someone else on 31 and three others opposite including Rab.

The lake was flat calm and there was only a slight wisp of wind that would occasionally drift through.

I already had the bomb set up so cracked on with setting up the pole. I set up two identical rigs to fish at 11m, the only reason I set two up was in case I hooked a big un and got broke, it would just speed things up a bit. I was using a 4x14 carbon stem, very fine tip bristle Milo float on 0.12 Ultima Power Match to a hooklength of 0.10 Powerline and a Middy 63:13 size 20. Elastic was size 8 Maver Latex.

At the call of time I shipped out to my 11m line which was at 1 o’ clock and tipped in a dozen maggots and a couple of pieces of corn. I then baited up with corn and cast the bomb out. I was only giving it five minutes before recasting in the hope I could cast onto a carps head! The first hour went by without even a liner and this was typical for everyone. Mark to my left went on the pole line a few minutes before me and was getting silvers, one a chuck and had also had a carp of about 4lb. I thought it was definitely time to drop in on the pole line, first drop in and I was rewarded with a small roach, this carried on for the remaining four hours, and I managed to put maybe 60 fish in the keepnet over this time, so by no means frantic but I was still happy continually putting fish in the net, be it a skimmer, roach, gudgeon or even a rudd!

With about 45 minutes to go Rab had a carp on the bomb, then the bloke opposite me had one, with not wanting all my hard work silver bashing to be undone I baited up the bomb rod again and cast out to the middle. I had a couple of pulls before the tip flew round and I was soon rewarded with a carp, although be it only about 2lb it was still a boost. I recast and had continuous liners until the final hooter sounded and the match was brought to a close.

It was to be close and come the weigh in Rab was leading with a low 11lb, Mark put 11lb 8oz on the scales and then it was my turn, I’d managed 9lb 13oz of which at least 7.5lb was made up of silvers so I just needed a slightly bigger carp! The bloke to my right managed 7lb 10oz of silvers and had also been kept relatively busy but missed out on the weight boosting single carp.

Back to the car park and Gordon had managed to win his section and the match overall was won with 71lb off Skylark I think where as the back up weights were all around 25/26lb and all came from Curlew.

All in all I’d had a nice day, the weather almost spoilt things in the middle of the match but it didn’t last and I’d managed to come somewhere near on a venue I don’t have too much experience in although I did learn a few lessons throughout the match.

I should have possibly tried to fish closer in, i.e. six metres instead of 11 would have perhaps seen me put a few more in the net.
Maybe even risk fishing the full five hours for this duration, if I had say 8lb in four hours, that’s 10lb in five hours, teamed with fishing short could well push for a winning weight.

We’ll just have to wait and see though!

Jan 11th - Sessay - Alders

2009-01-12T07:04:00.001-08:00

I did manage to squeeze one match in before the end of 2008; I fished the open at Woodlands and had 4 carp for 15lb 6oz, which was only good enough for second in section and 3rd on my lake.

The first club match of the year was on Alders up at the Oaks, I tend to fish either terrible or really well on here, no real in between. Gordon and I arrived nice and early at just after eight and had a good hearty breakfast, they don’t half fill you up but at least you don’t feel hungry for the rest of the day!

There were 14 booked on today, as Stu took the remaining money Robbie and I pegged out the match as fair as we thought possible, though I expected there to be a few complaints. We can’t all fish the same peg though can we?!

I was almost last to draw and all that was left in the bag was 13, 15 and 33, ideally I fancied one of the two earlier pegs so I was relatively pleased when I drew peg 15, leaving Gordon on 33 and Stu on 13.

I got round to my peg and ‘got dressed’, I had some new thermal under trousers on today that I’d bought from Matalan for a quid, and as it turns out, their brilliant, what a bargain!

I got the box levelled and all the pole out, I found that to be on the slope I needed to fish 15m to just get onto it. I’d tied up two rigs the night before as when I looked in my box I didn’t really have anything adequate. I shipped out with one of them, a wire stem 4x14 with a nice thin bristle and the rig was miles too short, I tried the other rig but this was also too short. Buggar, I ended up using a pretty crude rig that I had left over from months ago, it was a 0.7g body down roach float which incorporated an olivette and a few droppers.

I also set up a rig for half depth (3ft) as a gesture but didn’t think I’d need it.

With the match starting in five minutes I realised I’d forgotten to get my bait so quickly ran to the shop for half a pint of red maggots. This was all I would use today although I did have some corn to use on the bomb if the ice thawed out on the island.

At the sound of the hooter I went out straight in front to 15m and cupped in half a dozen maggots and dropped the rig in on top. I had no indications for the first 10-15 minutes where as Stu had managed 2 small carp by big cupping liquidised bread in after every fish. The ducks then landed in my swim and pushed a mass of ice right where I was fishing so I decided to move to 15m at 1 o’ clock and set up a new line on the mark of half an hour. I tipped in another half a dozen maggots and waited. Stu managed another 2 small carp before his bites dried up. I think he’d now fed 4 cups of liquidised bread and as I watched him cup in the 5th my float disappeared but I missed the bite. I then foul hooked 2 fish and lost them both. I then managed to foul hook a Barbel of about 3lb in its pectoral fin but graciously tipped it into the keepnet.

I kept foul hooking fish throughout the day and tried up to a foot over depth and foot off bottom and everywhere in between but could only foul hook fish! Over the course of the match I lost 12 foul hookers, it doesn’t help sitting near Acko in times like these, although I probably provided his best bites of the day by snapping back at him!

By the end of the match I had 2 proper carp, 2 Barbel, 4 F1’s and an Ide but was still disgruntled at the thought of what weight I could have had. I felt pretty confident in the knowledge that I’d won the match mainly due to so many people walking round during the match as they weren’t catching so I was getting a pretty regular update that no one was really catching.

At the weigh in I was glad to be packing away as I was so frustrated at the amount of fish I’d lost and more so why I couldn’t locate them properly. I think through the match I only hooked two in the mouth, all the rest were in their fins, their backs, chins, foreheads, anywhere but the mouth! I managed to weigh in 20lb 8oz which seemingly was good enough to win the match, Gordon came 2nd with 9lb 15oz so I’d won pretty comfortably and it would also make for a pleasant trip home as we’d both picked up.

So in one sense a good start to the year in terms of reward but its still annoying me as I’m writing this that I should have weighed in at least double what I did!

December 21st - Sessay, Cedar Xmas Cheer

2008-12-22T03:56:00.000-08:00

After a few beers on the Saturday and not getting to bed until 2 I was feeling a little worse for wear when I woke up at 7am. I decided it was probably best to go the back way along the country roads and avoid the motorway just in case I got stopped. I arrived at the fishery and had my breakfast which didn’t go down too well and then paid on. There were 52 fishing today and it was decided that 5 man sections would be fished with £50 per section and two sections of six that would be fishing for £60. The top prizes were more than worth winning today, 1st place - £500, 2nd place - £300 and 3rd place - £200, put that with the £50 section and it was well worth pulling your finger out.

Come the draw I picked out peg 47, I’ve fished 47 and 48 before; I had 20lb odd from 48 for no where and 36lb odd for 4th a few weeks ago from 47 so wasn’t too down heartened although other areas were fishing better than this over the last couple of weeks. I was just glad I wasn’t in the 30’s along the back straight, I can’t stand it there!

I drove round to my peg and started to set up, with the draw being a little late we had until 10:15 before time was called. I set up my normal rigs, a 4x10 Malman Cedar and a 4x12. These were both on 0.12 Ultima, 0.10 hooklength to a Middy 63-13 size 22. Elastics were 8 latex. I also had a rig for down the track, I used a 0.7g float, a bit heavy but with the wind thrashing through I put an 18 inch lash on.

For bait I had a pint of reds and some corn. At the all in I shipped out with the 4x12 to the sedge straight in front, let the float settle and then held the back shot. I had to wait maybe 20 minutes before I got my first indication, the ripples on the surface were proving a little too much in order to read the float correctly. I finally manage to hook a fish, it ran me ragged for a couple of minutes but I took my time and was soon rewarded with a Barbel of 2lb. I went back out an instantly hooked another fish, this fought the same as the first fish but after a brief tussle we departed company and it was still one Barbel on its lonesome. I went back out and managed 3 F1’s, another Barbel and a lovely chub of about a pound. All in all at the end of the first hour I had about 9-10lb. I was pretty pleased as I’d only seen people nicking the odd fish so felt I was ahead. I then couldn’t get a bite anywhere, four hours I sat there struggling against the wind but no reward. I did however manage another small Barbel and an F1 right at the death and felt I had about 12lb. Martin up on 45 had been catching on the bomb, something I should have done rather than being so lazy! I could see Chappy round the corner and I’d seen him catch a few although they were all small fish. I knew I’d been beaten for the section but was still fairly pleased come the weigh in.

I managed 14lb; Martin sacked up on the bomb and had 33lb odd for 4th in the match. Chappy and Pimmy both had 26lb odd so I was well beaten but did manage to beat Tupper Ware and the bloke on 48 who only had 7lb odd.

There was a presentation do on at the local pub so after a quick pack up I was glad to be in the warmth and out of the wind. Everyone who weighed in received a prize; I managed a bottle of red and 6 cans of lager for coming 25th out of 52. I cannot remember the top 3 but I’m sure they’ll be in the paper next week. Afterwards there was a raffle with hundreds of pounds worth of prizes. With £20’s worth of tickets in front of me I didn’t have a single number, although once all the prizes had gone they raffled off all the money that was raised from ticket sales and I managed to come away with £50 so not a bad day at the office after all!

This will more than likely be my last fishing trip of 2008, it’s been an up and down season, I’ve achieved a few goals but there’s still plenty more up for grabs next season. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank those that have helped me this year, my results have improved greatly as a result of this and I’ve made some good friends too, as well as strengthening some friendships I already had.

So happy Christmas everyone and may next year be full of fish!

Sunday 7th December – Alders, Oaks – Sessay

2008-12-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

The plan was set for Gordon to pick me up at 7:30 on the morning of the match, as I was getting my final few bits together Gord rang to let me know that Alders was frozen all the way around and that the aerators weren’t shifting it! We decided it was still worth going otherwise it’d have been a day in front of the tele, of which neither of us wanted.

We arrived at the complex at 8:15 and decided to go see what was happening. The lake was definitely frozen all the way around and didn’t look like it was going to break itself! I ended up chucking the plastic life ring in on every peg, that was until 5 pegs in Pete ‘The Key Juggling’ Whale let go of the rope and we were then left looking at a ring that we couldn’t retrieve! Wayley managed to retrieve the ring by hooking the rope with his bomb rod!

After that little mishap Tom went around in the boat which broke the ice but in fairness it all just settled like shattered glass on the surface.

Something to do with organising getting drunk in a brewery distinctly came to mind when trying to sort the draw and people paying on, thoughts of a rover match on the whole complex were also suggested but instead we were to fish Alders and make do after all the effort that went into breaking the ice, that and the fact that all the other lakes were frozen too.

Last week there were 29 people booked on for this match. A fair few turned up, 14 paid on and by the time we were sorted only 6 people actually fished! The open on Cedar was also cancelled due to the lake being frozen.

Gord and I decided to go near the bottom aerator, Gord settled on 38 and I was on 36. Gord had a completely clear peg in front of him and the ice started out of pole reach so hopefully he’d do ok. I on the other hand could fish 13m but if I caught any fish I would have to bring them back through a slalom path of ice!

I only set up the one rig, for fishing full depth and it was the same rig that I used last week.

Within 10 minutes of starting I had a bite, which was a surprise in itself, let alone that there was elastic coming out! The excitement was short lived and the fish and I departed company. This would seemingly be my only bite of the day.

Fifteen minutes later Gord repeated my earlier misfortune and hooked and lost his only bite of the day.

Then the excitement really started, Gord got the bomb rod out! After tweaking his set up for a few minutes he decided his plan was to cast onto the ice then slowly drag it back so that it plopped in just in front of it. Easy enough by the sounds of it! Anyway up the rod went followed by a light chuck onto the ice. This is where the bomb and the rest of his rig stayed for the rest of the match, on the ice! His bomb froze solid to the ice and wasn’t going anywhere; it was still there at the end of the ‘match’.

After losing his bomb he went to the shop to buy some more links, swivels or whatever and I decided to have a walk around the lake to warm up and see how everyone else was doing. First stop on my walk was superstar Stu Stott – blanking. Next up Nige – blanking although he did catch the bottom when I was watching him. Next up Bob ‘the builder’ Sinclair – wait for it……………a chub AND a roach! We can’t all be angling superstars I suppose. Last but not least was Acko - ……….blanking.

By the time I got back around to my peg the sun was disappearing and it was getting colder. We decided to pack in at 2pm and make our way home to the warmth! Easier said than done. The van was stuck! The more the wheels span with no conviction the nearer it got to the waters edge. Plan A – I would put the barrow ramp under one of the rear tyres and Gord would try slowly drive up it, this wasn’t working, even setting off in second didn’t even see the van make it onto the board let alone drive on it. Plan B – I remembered seeing a shovel outside the café, this would be used to clear a path in the snow for the van to drive up, genius, if I do say so myself. After clearing a path Gord started up the van and…………. Plan C – it was noticeable that the van was just spinning on the ice under the rear wheels, so with this Gord would spray de-icer on the ice around the wheels whilst I tried to get us out. After covering Gord in diesel fumes and snow we were still no further. Plan D…..never happened even after doing my best impression of Ray Mears by chopping up a branch with the shovel. Plan E and frankly the plan we should have gone with from the start, ring Robbie, to ring Tom to get David to come pull us out in the tractor. Sorted!

On our way out in the car park we met Bob the builder who was receiving his prize money from Stu, Acko also claimed £20 for being the only other person to catch, a tiny, tiny roach! Probably the most valuable roach ever caught!

I’m not fishing next week as I’m off to the Peak District for a beer fuelled weekend. The weekend after however sees the Xmas Cheer match on the Sunday! I might even try get down on the river on the Saturday for a few hours depending on a few things…….oh ok, depending on the weather!

Alders Practice Match November 30th

2008-12-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

We’ve got a couple of extra matches booked in on Alders up at the Oaks over the winter period, with the first one coming up on the 7th of December it seemed ideal to have a practice this weekend and get a feel for how its fishing.

Gordon arrived at my house at around 7:45 with Rab and we made our way up to the fishery. With a bridge out it meant we had to take an alternative route through the villages to get there. We arrived up there at 8:15 and were greeted by Honest John, Paul Cooksy and Pete ‘the garlic kid’ Whale. With a few already setting up on the lake we decided to dump our tackle on our pegs before we headed for breakfast. I drew peg 34 and to my right I had Paul on 36 and Pete on 38, to my left there was Rab on 32, Gordy on 30 and Honest John on 28. I was fairly pleased with my peg, its very wide; probably over 20m and this meant I had plenty of scope for various methods.

Anyhow we went for breakfast and I had time to plan my attack for the day. I was planning on a 14.5m line on the pole with bomb tight up to the island. Hopefully this simple approach would pay off.

We started to set up at 9am and fish 10-3; I was official timekeeper for the day so would let everyone know ‘TIME!’

I already had the bomb set up, a half oz lead with a 6inch hook link of 0.13 to a PR36 18 which also incorporated a hair so I could present up to 2 bits of corn. Pole rigs were the same I normally use on Cedar. I had a 0.5g Preston float on 0.12 with a bulk 18inches from the hook and a few droppers. My hook length was 0.10 Powerline to a size 22 Middy 63-13. I also had a typical Cedar ‘Sedge’ rig set at 2ft to use over the top if the fish came shallow.

I shouted time at precisely 10 o’clock, and proceeded to ship out around 70ml of maggot and 5 bits of corn to my 14.5m line. I tipped it in from a height and tried to spread the bait around a bit. Then it was a nice chuck to the island with the bomb. I planned on fishing the bomb 30 minutes and if I’d had no real indications then to drop onto the pole line. I managed a few liners but nothing more. All the while I had been flicking maggots (in an area the size of a football field) to 14.5m. After a non existent first half hour I went out on the pole with single maggot. I was about 3 inches over depth and after a couple of indications I was into my first fish of the day, an F1 of about a pound. It lead me a merry dance on my 8 elastic but was soon in the net. I managed a couple more of a similar size and was soon creating a lead over the rest of Team In-Betweeny! John, Gordy and Pete had all had one carp each, Paul hadn’t had one and Rab had had 2 F1’s.
It remained like this for the rest of the match, for them anyway, I was obviously on fish and after tinkering with my depth and shotting pattern I got into a rhythm were I was getting a fish almost every put in. At one point I had all 5 of my competitors watching behind me, the fish were obviously there and fancied a bit of feed so I would constantly keep flicking out half a dozen maggots and re-laying my rig in until I got a bite, even if I struck late into a bite, yards of elastic would still pile out, this was brilliant!

Paul and Pete decided they’d had enough and packed up at 2pm and headed home. John, Rab and Gordon had also started packing, meanwhile I was still catching one or two although it had slowed somewhat. Although I did manage a mirror of 3lb and a common of 5lb with 10 minutes to go. Normally on Alders, especially at this time of year you would expect the Ide to be feeding and not the carp, but hey ho I’d had a really good day.

At 3 o’ clock I shouted time, even though I was the only one still fishing! I had my personal photographer with me so managed a final catch shot to round off the day. In total I’d had 18 F1’s, a Skimmer and two proper carp fro over 30lb. Rab finished with 2 carp and 3 Ide so came 2nd.

In one sense I’m looking forward to next week, although I just hope I’m on fish, if not I also might be heading home early!

22nd and 23rd November - Oaks Open, Cedar

2008-11-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning soon came around once again and I’d planned on another weekend up at the Oaks. There had been a vast drop in temperature and even when I was packing the car I was thinking to myself that it was going to be a grim one! I arrived at the fishery at half eight ish and got paid on and breakfast etc…

I was hoping for another kind draw today so that I’d either catch a few or at least have a peg out of the wind so that I’d be comfortable for the day. The fishery has recently been restocked with 5,500 small stock carp averaging at 4oz, hopefully these would be feeding and presumably on the pellet as that’s what they be used to.

I got in the queue and was midway by the time of the draw and managed to snare peg 54. Dave from the shop told me that a rake of fish was put in on this peg so hopefully I’d be in for a few. With these fish averaging 4oz it meant you needed a hundred of them to have 25lb, which meant 20 an hour! I thought about this and due to me not being used to speed fishing I halved this to 50 fish for the match, although this depended if I was on them or not!

I arrived at my peg and had Brian ‘Tupper’ Ware on 52 and someone else on 56? Looking at my peg it looked ok; I had plenty of sedge cover on the far bank and the aerator to my left just in case the sedges weren’t showing. The sun was shining down onto my right hand side although it was still bitterly cold and the wind coming from left to right which would hamper my presentation.

Bait for today I had some pumped 4mm Sensas Expanders, half a pint of whites with a few reds, some corn just in case and some micros for feeding if the pellet was working.

Rigs for today I had my usual Malman Cedars, 4x12 and 4x10, both on 0.12 Ultima to an 0.10 hooklength and size 22 Middy 63-13 hooks. Elastics on both rigs was Maver 8 Latex. I had an aerator rig too just in case at 11m.

At the all in I went straight across to the sedge straight in front of me, baited up with an expander, I was having difficulty holding the 4x10 float in position and the majority of the time it just laid on its side due to the heavy ripple passing through. I shipped back and changed to the 4x12 rig, this was spot on and I could let the float drift from one side of the sedge to the other and repeat this until I got a bite. My first bite came after 15 minutes, a stocky of about 4oz. all fish had to be netted to keep them in top condition so it took a little longer to get it in due to not being able to swing it in. I went back and managed another 2 of a similar size but was having a bit of trouble keeping the pellet on the hook. Due to the wind blowing through I was having to strike fairly hard to make good contact, the only thing was that this heavy strike meant the pellet came off if I missed the bite.

I decided to use maggot as hook bait instead as this wouldn’t come off on the strike. I also started to feed a pinch of micros after each fish to keep them interested. By the end of the first hour I had 10 fish in the net, all of about 4oz, so I needed to keep plugging away in order to build up any sort of weight although at least I was on target for 10 an hour.

Into the second hour and it was much like the first, struggling to hold the pole at 13.5m in the wind and striking at any dip I got in hope that I would connect. I was still feeding a pinch of micros through my fruit shoot top after every fish but had a slower hour than the first taking my tally to 17 after the first two hours. This meant I was behind by 3 fish, although was I? Neither side of me had had a bite in the first two hours so really I was ahead if not by my own standards set.

Into the third hour and the fishing picked up somewhat, perhaps due to the perseverance of the sun which had finally broken through to heat the water a little. The wind had also died down somewhat although the ripples were ever consistent. I was plugging away with maggot and a few micros when Chappy and Adam Richards walked past. Chappy was on 74, out of the sun and in the wind and wasn’t doing very well so had decided on a walk to warm up. He asked me how many I’d had and I think at the time of asking I’d had 25. By the time he came back around I’d finished my 3rd hour on 35 fish so I’d put 17 in the net, back on track! Although Darrell Taylor had had 60 in the first hour! Yes 60 in an hour! Although he now couldn’t get a bite. Meanwhile John Illingworth was getting one a chuck and had been since the start!

Chappy came to sit with me for half an hour and gave me some notable pointers which In turn saw my catch rate improve once again! There were a few things he noticed about my set up;

I wasn’t using a back shot
I was using maggot not pellet as a hook bait
I was too much over depth
My pole pot wasn’t near enough to the end of my pole tip.
I was feeding after every fish

After sorting out these few tweaks, adding a number 8 buckshot 5inches above the float, changing back to pellet, changing my depth by a couple of inches, moving my pole pot right to the end and feeding every 3-4 fish I managed to amass 24 carp in the 4th hour, which meant my total catch thus far was 59! I’d beaten my target of 50 and with an hour to go and the fishing at its prime I had my sights set on the 70 mark!

But I was wrong, the clouds came out, the sun was hiding and the chill factor had also changed, it was freezing! Due to this temperature drop in the air it meant my last hour wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped. I managed a further 8 fish and finished on 67. I was chuffed to bits to have caught that amount of fish, especially in winter when bites are generally at a premium. Brian on 52 had had a liner and one fish in 5 hours and the bloke to my right packed up and went, he was hiding behind his brolly all day so I’m not sure how he got on?!

There were a few moaning about how rubbish it had been. This really gets my goat, now I know I’d had a reasonably good day and caught plenty of fish but most people wait all week to go fishing and then when they get there all they do is moan! They don’t have to go fishing! Nearing the end of November do you expect to catch big bags of fish week in week out? No! So don’t complain about it!

Come the weigh in, John Illingworth was leading the match with 58lb, made entirely of stockies, he’d had an approximate 220 fish in 5 hours! That some going by anyone’s standards!

5 people to my left didn’t weigh in and I then plonked 18lb 6oz on the scales, maybe they average a little more than 4oz?!

Back to the café I was hoping with so little people weighing in that I would have done my section. Middy read out the results and I was pleased to hear my name, I’d come 6th overall! Another good result although they only pay top four and Ray Singh who came 5th was in my section so he took the honours with his 19lb 10oz bag.

Saturdays Results (34 fished)

John Illingworth (Daiwa Dons) 58-13-0, carp, pellet, peg 16
Gavin Stansfield (Selby) 27-0-0
Andy Middleton (Oaks) 25-3-0
Ian Bowman (Maver Barnsley) 22-14-0
Ray Singh (Garbolino Elton) 19-10-0
Steve Lupton (Oaks) 18-6-0

Not to worry, I’d be back on the Sunday for what would prove an even bigger grueller weather wise!

Now Sunday morning I awoke at 7 o clock, had a quick phone call from Gordy, he was off to Woodlands with a hot water bottle for the day. I decided another trip to the Oaks and get my 6th and final qualifier in for the Xmas cheer match.

Over night it had snowed and there was a thick frost covering my car which took an eternity to clear!

To cut a long story short on the fishing front, I drew 33, along the back straight, somewhere I didn’t want to be at all!

I managed to foul hook and lose a fish off the sedge and then foul hook a 1lb Barbel in its tail all match. Needless to say I tipped back!

Ghandi won the match with 34lb made up of stockies and fish up to 5lb.

A few people in the café said how hot and cold I was, they were right my Saturday performances have been good of late yet Sundays are proving to be a nightmare!

Sundays Results (32 fished)

Chris Hall (Oaks) 34-4-0, carp to 5 lb, corn, peg 11
Tony Kozaczek (Oaks) 26-14-0
Dave Pimlot (Garbolino Elton) 24-0-0
James Wood (Oaks) 16-13-0
Ray Singh (Garbolino Elton) 14-12-0
Ray Knox (Aireborough) 14-3-0

Even though I’d had a rubbish day, did I moan? Did I buggary!

Gordy had also won the match at Woodlands with 24lb 4oz, beating 2nd place who had 24lb dead. Apparently one of the lakes was won with 4lb, oh dear!

Sat 15th & Sun 16th November - Oaks, Cedar Open

2008-11-17T08:54:00.000-08:00

I arrived up at the fishery at about 8:30, paid on and went for my breakfast. After last weekends horrific weather I was looking forward to a days fishing where I’d be able to fish how I wanted to and hopefully catch a few. The fishery owners had recently stocked some small mirrors, ranging 3-8oz, hopefully these would perk up the older residents and get them feeding!

The draw came at 9am and there were 40 booked on, a vast increase on last week. With Cedar holding 80 pegs it meant it would be every other peg in so we would all still have plenty of room. I dipped into the bag and peg 47 had stuck to my hand. I wasn’t too down heartened by this as a few weeks ago I drew 48 and had about 20lb. As I was walking to the car I had a quick word with Chappy and the last thing he said to me was, ‘don’t feed, don’t even put a cup on!’’

I got to my peg and for company I had Ray Singh on peg 45, Tim ??? on peg 49 and Mal Bailey on 51. I definitely had to my work cut out (as always!) to get anything from this match.

Bait for the day I had a tub of corn from last week which I’d frozen. I read an article by Paul Coyle, he said he often fishes with defrosted corn as it seems softer and the fish tend to have a go at it a bit more. Plus it’s cheaper as you can use the same tin of corn for weeks! I also had half a pint of white maggots and a handful of reds.

I set up my usual 3 rigs. A 4x10 and a 4x12 Malman Cedar, both on 0.12 mainline to an 0.10 hooklength and size 20 B611. Both these rigs were on match kits with 8 latex elastic. Shotting for these rigs was typically shirt button with number 11’s with 12’s and 13’s dotting it right down. I also set up a track rig but hopefully wouldn’t need to use it. I also didn’t get any pole pots out!

I plumbed up in front of the sedges and found a good depth of 2.5-3ft, this depth was consistent right across the bank and with a spare peg either side it meant I could go pretty far down the bank if I needed to.

Weather wise it was very nice in contrast to the previous week, the sun was out and would blind me for the whole match and there was also a steady ripple on the water running from right to left. Usually the ripple gives the fish a bit more confidence as I think the shadow of the pole can put them off a bit as the water is fairly shallow and pretty clear at the minute too!

Time was called at 10:15 and I shipped out with the 4x10 rig with single red maggot, I tucked the float right into the sedge on my right, just before the marker tree at 14m. The float was well dotted down and the ripples were making it a bit difficult to see. However I didn’t need to see the float as within a few seconds my light 8 elastic was streaming out of the tip! After a brief tussle the first fish was in the net, an F1 of about a 1lb. I quickly shipped back out to same spot, the ripples had died down now so I could see a lot easier. The float once again dipped, I missed it, it dipped again and a gudgeon was soon in the net! I went out a third time and snared another gudgeon so I decided to try corn instead as I didn’t want to catch bloody gudgeon all day!

I managed a couple of the small stockies and 2 or 3 more F1’s before the swim was dieing a bit. I’d also changed to a 10 latex elastic as my 8 was dragging me all over the place. I thought I’d persevere for 5 more minutes before writing the swim off and starting up a new line further along the bank. My perseverance paid off, my change in elastic also! I lifted into what felt a good fish, but rather than a healthy scrap the fish came up pretty much straight away, a common of about 5lb hooked in its chin!

For the rest of the match I carried on in the same vein, by the half way point I estimated to having about 13lb, if I could keep this up I’d be on for a good weight and 28lb won the match a week ago so I thought it might put me somewhere. Ray and Tim to my immediate left and right were getting the odd fish but I felt I had the upper hand. Mal Bailey on 51 was fairing better than those two and probably had a similar weight to myself.

I kept on with the corn for the remainder of the match picking up 2 or 3 fish off one line then waiting 10-15 minutes on a new line before I got an indication. At one point I set up a new line at 15m to my left and managed to pick off 3 fish for about 7lb. With half an hour to go I had a few more stockies but it was slow going. By my estimations I had 25lb in the net, now seeing as 28lb won the previous week I thought I’d done well but needed one or two more fish to seal the deal!

3:15 came around and with it ‘TIME’ just I hooked into a big F1 of about 2lb. This meant I had 27lb by estimation. I’d had a great day I just hoped it was good enough as those around me had all struggled apart from Mal Bailey on 51 who was admitting to 25lb including a 4lb Barbel on time!

Whilst packing up my gear it was obvious I’d done well as most people on the point were all at my peg asking me questions on how I’d fished, where I’d fished, how much feed? Gareth came round to weigh in our half of the lake, Ray Singh put 15lb on the scales, next up was my peg, I dragged the keepnet out and realised I had perhaps under estimated! As Gareth said ‘F***ing Bagged Up!’ the scales went round to 36lb 8oz! I’d done a lot better than I thought! Tim to my right weighed 19lb so I beaten both my neighbours, put together!

Next up was Mal Bailey, he’d also under estimated and put 38lb 10oz on the scales, his big barbel had pushed him into the lead. Further round the bank there were two weights of 37lb. Chappy weighed in 34lb 4oz so my fish on time had also edged just in front him!

Back in the café I realised I’d come 4th overall out of 40 anglers so I was chuffed to bits! Chappy remarked that he was going to stop telling me what to do as it was now having detrimental effects on his final position. They were also only paying out top 4 so it meant he had to put up with a section ;o)

I got £50 for coming 4th which would nicely pay for my weekends fishing! I’ll also see my name up in lights for the first time, or at least in the Anglers Mail!

Mal Bailey (Garbolino Elton) 38-10-0
Bert Lockwood (Bob-Co) 37-12-0
Steve Sharples (Oaks) 37-10-0
Steve Lupton (Oaks) 36-8-0
John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 34-4-0
Mick Grant (Oaks) 33-10-0

Sunday came around very quickly and I was full of confidence after the previous day and couldn’t wait to get back out on the bank. I got there nice and early again so not to be rushed. By the time of the draw there were 47 booked on! At the end of the match I heard the match organiser say that someone had said ‘why’ve you put this peg in? It was in yesterday!’ to which he replied ‘well there are only 80 pegs on the lake so where do you want me to get me some more from?’’ The joys of being a match organiser I suppose!

This time around I drew peg 31, a crap draw and the day before most people along that bank didn’t even weigh in! I looked on it positively though and thought I’d try make the most of a bad draw!

I set up the same as yesterday yet I set up two 4x10 rigs as the wind was non existent, there was even a ripple on the surface which might make my day even worse! On setting up my setting rigs I went out with the rig I used the day before with a new hooklength on and found the sedge line was perhaps only 18 inches deep! I did manage to find one spot that was just over 2ft but not a big area! I also had an aerator to my left so plumber up down here. It was one extreme to another, this line was well over 6ft; my top kit was only just long enough for the rig!

In short I didn’t have a bite for the first two hours. I foul hooked a carp and lost and then had 6 bites which I managed to turn into fish, 4 stockies, an F1 and an Ide. Steve Sharples on jackpot peg 29 weighed in 35lb dead by using his foul hooking technique ;o) and John Fallows on 33 managed 17lb odd. I weighed in 6lb dead purely because on a Sunday they do a draw from a bag and whatever weight comes out if you had it you win some coin. Anyway 33lb 11oz was drawn from the bag so nobody won again.

Final result looked like this and I was disappointed as I wanted to show that the previous day wasn’t a fluke but at this time of year you need to take it whilst you can. On the Saturday I was clearly on a few fish yet the Sunday I clearly wasn’t. Not to worry still an enjoyable weekend and I’ll be back again next week!

Mark Calvert (Garbolino Elton) 38-10-0
Steve Sharples (Oaks) 35-0-0
Anthony Stock (Oaks) 34-10-0
Adie Mitchell (Harrogate Angling) 24-12-0
Bert Poole (Oaks), Chris Hall (Oaks) and Dave Pimlott (Garbolino Elton) all 24-4-0

On a lighter note I got a text off Gordon saying he’d found my blog and asked who had taken the photo in the top corner, was it a professional? So to repay the favour here is a picture that I took of Gordon down in Whiteacres, ‘Say Cheese!’

Gorgeous Gordie - The Pensioners Pin Up

Sat 8th & Sun 9th November - Cedar Open

2008-11-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

I’d decided to book myself onto the Christmas Cheer match up at the Oaks on the 21st December, with a top prize of £500 and an evening do with a buffet and a raffle I thought why not?! To qualify for the match however, you need to fish 6 matches between the 1st November and the date of the match itself. With a free weekend just gone I decided to fish both Saturday and Sunday to get a couple out of the way. I arrived at the fishery at around 8am on the Saturday morning, ready for a bite to eat, get some bait and book on. The draw was to be at 9 and fish 10-3, just like our club matches we started 15 minutes late ;o)

Dave was holding the draw bag, my hand went in and out came peg 58, I asked him if it was a good peg and he paused before saying, yeah, yeah its alright, the pause told me everything! Today however I would have been glad to be in a peg out of the wind and actually fish my match how I wanted rather than the wind dictating how I approached it.

Thankfully when I pulled up at my peg I was 2nd peg into the point and therefore would have the wind on my back all day but would hopefully be able to fish my own match. I had Ian Bowman (Maver Barnsley) round the corner on peg 56, someone on 60 and Bob ‘The Builder’ Sinclair on 62 so I’d have to fish my heart out to get anything from the day.

Rigs for the day, I had two sedge rigs, a 4x10 and a 4x12 Malman Cedar on 0.12 Ultima, the lighter float had a hooklength of 0.10 Powerline to a Fox Carp Match 20 and the heavier float had a size 18 B611. Both sedge rigs were on 8 latex elastic. I also set up a track rig at 12m.

My main sedge line for the day was to be 14.5m to my right, tight to the sedges in front of the tree. I was able to use the same rig right across the swim as the depth was consistent. For bait I had a pint of whites and a few reds.

Time was called at 9:15 and I shipped out with the 4x10 rig out with a single red maggot and spent the first 45 minutes searching the swim, not feeding anything and simply fishing different lines for five minutes. If I didn’t get any indication I would simply drop it in a metre further down the bank. My efforts were finally rewarded when I slipped the net under a little ghostie of about a pound. The bloke on my left had also had 1 and peg 56 had nothing. I then decided to introduce a bit of feed to my main sedge line. I tipped in 4 maggots and swung my rig over the top. Within a few minutes the float dipped and a brief tussle entailed and soon I had an F1 of about a pound in the net. I managed a further 2 F1’s of a similar size before it went quiet again. I started to search around again but no look. Ian on peg 56 had started to put a few together and I think with 2 hours to go he 2 Ide, a Chub and 4 F1’s so I was 3 fish behind. The bloke on 60 had also had 4 fish by now.

By the last hour I had caught Ian up and on the final I had another fish on to mark the end of the match, I finished with 9 carp and one Ide. At the end of the match I was getting regular dips on the float but couldn’t connect. Ian finished with 9 fish in total and the bloke on 60 still only had the 4. It had fished hard but hopefully I could take away the knowledge of beating some of the regulars. Ghandi came round for the weigh in and Ian on peg 56 put 12lb 6oz on the scale so it was to be close. I managed 13lb dead so had beaten him and also the bloke on 60. Bob ‘The Builder’ weighed in 5lb so I felt I’d done ok. Mark Calvert weighed 16lb odd off 64, peg 66 had 20lb and 68 16lb odd.

Although I’d not won the section I was happy to beat the anglers immediately around me. I spoke to John Chapman after the match and he weighed 9lb 11oz so overall I’d not done too badly. James Dent won the match fishing corn and managed about 30lb I think.

Sunday came and with it winds of up to 40mph! Not gusts of 40mph, just constant all day! I drew peg 15, this time around Dave said that there were a few fish to be had there, again it was just a case of being able to fish!

For company I had Dave Pimlott on peg 17, Steve Sharples on 13 and Tony Koz on 11. The wind was to prove to be a problem with the gust coming from left to right through my swim. Due to me being on the end of the point it meant I couldn’t see how everyone else was doing so I’d have to guess they were doing well and try to do better myself.

Rigs were the same as yesterday and I had my remaining maggots from the day before as I’d probably only used a dozen from the pint! Today I also brought the bomb rod with me, I was glad I did as the wind was terrible!

To cut a long story short, the first two hours came and went and all I had were a few skimmers and gudgeon, the wind was as predicted and felt more like 100mph. the second two hours the winds remained but with it came a driving icy rain, I didn’t put the brolly up as I thought it would be more hassle than its worth so got cold and wet! I also remembered I’d torn the crotch on my waterproof trousers and so after a few hours had a little scare when I thought I was wetting myself, gladly to realise the rain was running off my jacket into tear! Phew!

I couldn’t feel my hands for the most of the match due them being so cold and seeing as I couldn’t fish further out than my top four I decided to chuck the bomb out and sit and wait until the tip went round. After 45 minutes of it being in the water the tip finally arced around and my first F1 was in the net. After that the wind and rain both subsided to I put the pole out to the same hole I’d got my bite from and nothing else, not even a liner. I managed a few more silvers before the final whistle but was more than relieved when time was called.

I tipped back to save embarrassment, Steve Sharples had ‘10’ for 17lb odd and Dave Pimlott had 13lb I think? Chappy managed 3rd with 25lb odd I think. Robbie managed to double default his section with 13lb 14oz. Stu tipped back 5 carp and for most it was a day to forget! I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a cuppa so much!

Anyway I’ll be back again next week; hopefully the weather will behave itself!

October 26th - Maple Pairs Match, Oaks

2008-10-27T06:17:00.001-07:00

Well, where to start? The weather this week leading up to the match had been very poor, high winds, rain and a big drop in temperature. Thankfully the winds weren’t meant to be too bad for the Sunday, it can rain as much it likes but I can’t stand fishing in the wind, as you may have read in last weeks blog! Oh and I managed to get a new number four too so it was all stations go for the last club match of the year!

I arrived at the fishery at 8am to give me time to demolish one of the wonderful full breakfasts! I paid on and then bought my bait for the day, a pint of whites, with a few reds mixed in for a change bait.

Stu and Nige were running a pairs match today, with the top four pairs getting paid out along with the individual winner. They were also running a guess the weight competition for the winning combined weight. Rather than picking pairs before the draw it was decided that your partner was selected from the draw. As I was one of the latter to draw it meant I got to see who my partner was. I drew peg 17, along the back straight, not a bad draw and I fancied a few fish from it. My partner, Paul Whittaker drew peg 51, I had my work cut out, last match him and Alan drew peg 63a and 64 and neither of them weighed in, not to worry though. I’d just have to fish my socks off!

I got to my peg and to be fair I was a bit disappointed whilst setting up. The sedges were miles away! Order for the day was that I had one line at 11 o’ clock towards the dividing bush at 15m and one at 1 o’ clock to the sedges, even at 15m I wasn’t as tight as I’d have liked to have been but I still found a good depth of about 3ft so wasn’t too put off although I knew I was in for a grueller if the wind picked up! My target weight for the day again was 30lb but felt 40lb would be needed to pick up.

I set up two rigs for across and one for down the track at 13m which was the base of the shelf. I used the same rigs as last week on Cedar, carrying on my motto of ‘’fish light, get a bite!’’

Honest John had told me that we were finishing at 3:30 today as it would be dark earlier due to the clocks going back. Maple can often throw up a weight in the last hour so with the clocks going back the last hour was actually not the last hour and we’d have another hour after? If you know what I mean?

At the all in I shipped out to my right sedge, tipped in 6 maggots and then went to my left sedge which I fed with a dozen maggots and aimed for this to be my positive swim. I went 50 minutes without a bite, this was a horrendous, I’d seen a few people catch one or two but not loads so I wasn’t too far behind but desperately needed to find the fish. My first bite came, a foul hooker that came off no sooner had I hooked it, next put out the same happened, I then foul hooked my third in a row, this one I played for a while before the hook eventually pulled!

The middle of the match was strange, the fish started to feed! Or in my peg at least! I changed to my right sedge, tipped in another six maggots and eagerly watched the pimple of a float. After a couple of minutes it dipped and I lifted into what felt like a good fish, I eventually got It out on my light gear, a mirror of about 4lb, just the start I needed! Next put out and not a bite, so I decided to create a new swim, to the right of my left sedge, I repeated the process and caught another good fish of perhaps 5lb. for the next 2 hours I only managed another 4 fish but they were all good uns! I had one that must have been knocking on 7lb. It just goes to show that by using balanced tackle you can get pretty much anything out. After all I was using an 0.10 bottom and a size 20 hook with a soft 10 elastic, it took some time to get them in but who cares? At this time of year you need to make every fish count so I just took my time.

With the last hour and a half looming it went quiet again and I’d only pick up a very odd fish and they were only small F1’s. Half three came and went, but no whistle! We must have been finishing at four as normal! I think I had two more small F1’s in the last half hour and felt I’d had a pretty good day, but what had my partner had?

From peg 1 right around to peg 45 I was winning with a weight of 37lb 12oz, the bloke to my right had 31lb and to my left had 12lb I think. So I had surpassed my 30lb target and wasn't too far off 40lb. Mick Akko spoilt my day when he put 54lb on the scales. My partner had 1lb 15oz so we were going nowhere with our combined weight. I think he needed 20lb to get us a pay out, the pegs either side of him both had 25lb ish so I don’t know where he’d gone wrong?

Back in the café I realised I’d come 5th overall and in normal circumstances I’d have walked my section but it wasn’t to be today. Well with the club season over I’m going to fish a few opens and hopefully get on the rivers, it must be 5 or 6 years since I last fished running water! Bring it on!

I’ve been keeping a record of my match weights throughout the year and I think at present my average is just over 24lb. the reason I’ve done this is so that next year I can compare results and see if I’ve improved or not, let’s bloody hope so!

October 18th - The Oaks, Cedar

2008-10-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well this was to be my 2nd ever open after my first at Woodlands earlier in the year. I’ve never fished Cedar Lake up at the Oaks but was assured it was similar to fishing on Maple just that the average fish size was smaller so with this in mind I could scale down if I felt I needed too. The weather forecast leading up to Saturday didn’t look too bad apart from the wind! Averaging at 18mph all day with gusts up to 30mph, so far from ideal!

I arrived at about 9:15, had my breakfast and got booked on in the tackle shop. The 10am draw soon arrived and I was probably in the last half dozen to draw and managed peg 48. This meant nothing to me as I’ve not fished it before; in fact I’ve never even seen it!

I made my way round to my peg which was just after one bend and a couple of pegs down from another. I probably had 4 spare pegs to my right and another spare peg to my left. Tony Koz was on 46 and there were three other lads on 44, 42 and 40 which ‘filled’ our point.

Whilst setting up I realised how horrific the wind was going to be today, whilst plumbing up my sedge line the pole was getting thrown all over the place. With this in mind I set my roller fairly low so if they did blow off they wouldn’t have far to fall!

I set up two rigs for across, the first being a 4x10 Malman Cedar on 0.12 Ultima to an 0.10 Powerline hooklength with a Fox Carp Match size 20, this was on an 8 Maver latex elastic. This rig would be fished at 14m to my right in front of the sedges next to the peg dividing tree. This would be my positive line where I’d feed only maggots. My second across rig was the same float but a 4x12, mainline and hooklengths were the same yet I had a size 18 B610, this was finished with an 8 size Maver Later elastic. This rig was to fish to the other peg dividing tree at 14m to my left. I would feed this line with a couple of maggots and the odd bit of a corn as a back up line to my positive line. With the wind being pretty bad I also plumbed up down the track with a 0.5g Preston float, on 0.11 straight through to a size 20 B610, elastic was a size 10 Maver latex elastic. All my rigs were 2-3 inches over depth.

Bait for today I had a pint of white maggots and a few reds thrown in for good measure. I also had a tin of corn.

11 o’ clock soon came and with it time was called. I first went out to my left sedge and tipped in 4 maggots and 2 bits of corn. Then I got cracking with building my right sedge swim up. I went out with a single red maggot and 7-8 maggots in my pot. I forced the float tight to the sedges and tipped the free offerings over the top. I’d been told the first hour could be quite slow, you’re not wrong! I got my first bite after 40 mins and missed it! I went back out and tipped a few more maggots over the top and got another bite, I soon had a small F1 of about a 1lb in the net. Soon followed by another. I then battled through the wind until the halfway point and I think I had 6-7lb in the net at this point. I then decided enough was enough with the wind and decided to fish my track line.

I went out with double maggot and tipped a kinder pot of maggots in to try and force them onto the feed straight away. I managed half a dozen roach, a few gudgeon and a skimmer before I latched into a better fish. The awkward fight led me to believe this could have been a Barbel, I was right, a pristine fish of 1.5lb. I then managed a couple more F1’s and another smaller Barbel before disaster struck. I was playing an F1 of about 2lb which was a welcome bonus however whilst I was playing it on the top kit the wind got hold of my pole which somehow blew the male end of my number 4 between my box and box leg, a sudden gust then ripped my entire pole of the roller, with my number 4 now being wedged a crunch sounded as the top 8 inches snapped cleanly off my number 4. ‘’Bar-Steward!!!!’’

Thankfully when I bought my pole last year the bloke I bought it off also included a spare number 4, be it a repaired section it was a welcome lifeline!

When I got back up and running it went from bad to worse. I hooked a big Barbel of about 3lb, just as I was slipping the landing net under it the hook pulled, as I stretched in desperation to scoop the fish it woke up and bolted off. ‘’Bar-Steward!!!!’’

After this I think I foul hooked and lost 8 fish on the trot and just couldn’t understand it, I’d strike, slowly ship back keeping adequate pressure and the hook would pull! ‘’Bar-Steward!!!!’’ (Per fish).

So after a relatively calm start to the match and an afternoon of swearing at everything how had I done? Ghandi came round to do the weigh in, the bloke on peg 40 had 22lb, peg 42 had 15lb, peg 46 on the point with no side wind had 22lb, T-Koz on 46 had 26lb and I dumped 20-13 on the scales so in the grand scheme of things I not done too bad in the area I was fishing.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get a new section by next weekend. Next weekend I’m back up at the Oaks on Maple again but seeing as it’s the last of our club matches for the year we’re having a bit of a pairs match too.

Tight Elastics and watch that wind!

October 12th - The Oaks, Maple

2008-10-13T08:53:00.001-07:00

Well back up the A1 to the Oaks this weekend to see if I could capitalize on last weeks tactics and make the maggot work again. I arrived at the fishery at about 8:15, had my breakfast and then got roped in to taking the money whilst Nige went for a fag! The draw was typically late again but this time it saw us drawing at half nine so we would be fishing 10:30-16:30.

My plan this week was to fish maggot again but fish two lines rather than the one I fished last week. The reason for two was that I could feed one sparingly and feed the other a bit more positive. This would then enable me to see what was best on the day. For bait today, all I had was a pint and a half of maggots, nothing else!

We had pegs 24-66 as the first 23 pegs were booked on another match. At the time of the draw my ‘lucky’ left hand delved to the depths of the draw bag and my hand re-emerged attached to peg 24. With this being the first peg in our match it also meant I was weighing in, I don’t mind weighing in as you get to see how everyone has done although you do get a thorough soaking!

Anyway a quick drive around to my peg and I have Paul Jones on peg 25 for company. There was also a bloke on 23 fishing in the other match so unlike everyone else I didn’t have a spare peg. Dennis Geldard, Howard, Tony Koz and Bri Gascoigne made up the rest of my section.

Peg 24 and 23 are on a corner and there is an aerator between them both in the corner which is well worth fishing too but as I was setting up the bloke on 23 was plumbing up all around it so decided to leave him to it, I’m glad I did as at the start of their match he filled it in with cat food and only caught four fish from it!

I set up two lines to sedges in front of me at 14m, one to the left of the gap and one to the right. I plumbed up so that I could use the same rig on both lines without switching kits or altering depths all the time. My plan B this week was to still fish maggot but on the point of the island where I would big pot. My aim this week again was to catch 30lb but what I really wanted was to beat last week’s effort and hopefully claim another section, or better!

My rigs were similar to last weeks, I set up two Malman Cedar floats 4x10, both on 0.12 Powerline, the rig for the sedges had a size 20 Fox Carp Match Barbless on 0.10 Powerline and I had a B610-18 on 0.11 Powerline for the point of the island. Both rigs were 2-3 inches over depth. Once again they were both teamed up with a 10 latex elastic.

The all in was called at 10:30 and I shipped out with a kinder pot of maggots to my right sedge and tipped in 5 or 6 maggots and then moved to my left sedge and tipped the rest pf the cup in. I switched between lines for the first hour trying to tempt a proper fish but was constantly getting bitted out by the resident gudgeon and roach! After an hour I finally got a positive bite and put my first F1 in the net, only about a pound but hopefully this would kick start things. I managed to snare another one on the next put in of a similar size and then an Ide of 8oz soon after. Then came my first proper carp, a mirror which would boost my tally to about 4lb. meanwhile Paul Jones on the next peg was catching fish after fish, be it and Ide, a Chub or an F1.

By the time the 4th hour came around I maybe had 6-7 pound in the net, by switching lines I was picking up the very occasional mug fish and giving the roach population a good battering. I decided it was time, ‘’Sh*t or Bust time!’’ I potted in around 150ml of maggot on the point of the island and decided to stick it out here for the rest of the match. After a 20-30 minute wait I got my first fish of many leaving me an hour and a half to catch up! I got into a run of fish be it a small carp, F1 or Ide. Then I had a much welcome boost, my pimple of float, dipped, only slightly, but my eagerness saw me lift into what felt like a good fish, after a long tussle I managed to get the fish to the surface, arse first! This was a good fish, especially for Maple. I only had my small pan net today as usually the fish tend to get lost in my bigger nets! I managed to finally net the fish by kneeling on my footplate at full stretch with the landing net, the fish was that much bigger than my net that I actually didn’t net it but balance it onto of the frame and slid it across the surface until I got it to my feet and it eventually sunk into the net, double in half! It was a much welcomed boost at around 7lb and had completely worn me out! Next time I’ll perhaps set up a big landing net too, just in case ;)

The all in was called ‘fish on’, everyone looked over as I swung in a 2 oz roach! I quickly packed up before having to weigh in. Dennis and Paul witnessed my weigh, 27lb 4oz, not far off my target so I was pretty pleased, and for the minute I was winning the match! Paul Jones then left me ruing my poor start by weighing in just over 40lb, next was Dennis who put 27lb 10oz on the scales. I could have been annoyed but to come within 6oz of Dennis was pretty good as he’s a very good angler. Howard didn’t bother weighing in and next up was Tony Koz who managed 42lb 12oz odd to take the section, Bri Gascoigne on 31 managed 25lb odd so overall I’d done ok. There were a few 40’s and plenty more 20-30lbs so the fishing is slowly picking up again! Honest John did it again from peg 66 with nearly 50lb and put some more money towards his new front teeth fund! ;)

Stu and Tony Koz split third prize as they both had 42lb 12oz which meant they won less than if they’d have won there section!

Well with a week off before our final club match I’m jumping in at the deep end by the fishing the Open on Cedar next Saturday! Let’s hope I snare a few!

October 5th - The Oaks, Maple

2008-10-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I took in around June time whilst on a microlight flight. This is the Oaks complex to those of you who don't know. Looks a bit different from the air I must say!

Well this week saw me return to the Oaks to fish Maple again. Gordon picked me up at 7:45 and we arrived up at the Oaks at about twenty past eight, we thought it rude to not have a breakfast so quickly got in the queue. I had another new tactic today, I’d decided to leave the method feeder at home this week, its tailed off over the last 2-3 weeks and hasn’t been producing as well as it had been and with a fair bit of a rain and a dramatic drop in temperature over the last week it was a definite no go. My new tactic today was maggots, maggots and more maggots! I know a lot of the regulars have been catching well on Cedar with maggot for the last few months and after speaking to one of them on the Oaks Banter site it was decided my best line of attack would be to fish maggot on one line all day and make it work! I did have a plan B though which I could try in the last hour if I was struggling but hopefully I wouldn’t need to use this. I’ve also decided to set my self a personal target for each match, that way I can be pleased with my performance even if I get battered. Today’s target was 30lb, this would be tough to achieve on somewhere that hasn’t been fishing all that well but I thought It was achievable and also thought it might get me in the money.

There was 37 booked on today with a few guests and a few of the lads from the Otley club that had gone to White acres with us. We had the whole lake today so we would have a bit of room. I drew peg 30, not a bad draw, there’s certainly worse. Peg 30 is on a corner with a small overhanging willow in the margins which looks very appealing but I was going to ignore it today. My one line tactic was to be across to the island in 2.5-3ft of water on the shelf, this ended up being to my right at 1 o’ clock in line with another small tree on the far bank.

Rig wise I had a couple set up, still both for the same line. I had a Malman Cedar float in 4x10 on 0.12 Ultima to a 6 inch hooklength of 0.10 Powerline to a size 18 Gamakatsu Pellet hook. This rig was for fishing on the drop or at least to give the bait a slower fall and would be back up to my main rig which was the same but with a 4x12 float with 0.12 Ultima straight through to a size 16 Gamakatsu Pellet Hook. Both of these rigs were attached to some match kits incorporating a soft size 10 Maver latex elastic teamed with pull bungs. My plan B rig was a 0.4g BGT shallow long float for fishing at 10.5m at the bottom of the shelf, this was on 0.13 straight through to a 16s PR36. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to use it but if I did I had a tin of cubed meat at the ready dusted in green Swim Stim.

Weather wise it wasn’t too bad for a change, the sun was out for the whole day all be it cold enough to need jumpers and fleeces on. Wind was minimal with the odd gust very rarely but on the whole the lake was very still.

Gordon’s hooter went off at 10:15 (another typical late draw) and the match was underway, I went out with a 250ml cup half full of maggots and tipped them in, spreading them about a little bit as to not concentrate the fish too tightly. I then went out with the positive straight through rig, double red on the hook and dragged it up the slight slope; I was fishing 3 inches over depth to ensure the bait was always on bottom with the undulating depth; this would also pin the bait down and keep it more static. The first half an hour went by without so much of a nudge on the float where as Jim on peg 31 had had a couple of gudgeon and a small F1, the bloke to my left on peg 28 had a carp first put in but I don’t think it was a big one. I hadn’t put any more bait in during this half an hour as I didn’t want to overfeed and so after a motionless first 30 minutes I switched to the lighter rig again with double maggot but this time cupped in a dozen maggots as I laid the rig in. The float was held up for a second, I struck but nothing. I laid the rig in again; the bait this time had time to reach the deck before a subtle lift that forced the top of the body out of the water, this was met with a gentle lift and the first fish was on, a gudgeon but at least it was a start, I caught a couple more gonks before I had my first better fish, an Ide of about 6oz. After I had this Ide I switched to the more positive rig as I felt the 4x10 rig wasn’t getting to the bottom quick enough (even when I grouped the shot 8 inches away from the hook). The 4x12 rig was laid in and some more maggots cupped in over the top. The float lifted again and Ide number 2 was in the net. This carried on until I had 5 Ide in the net until I lifted into something that felt a lot better, after a short tussle on the ‘’light’’ elastic I stretched the top kit in the air and slid the net under a Barbel of about a pound, hooked in its side! I then went back out and another better fish, a tench of maybe 12oz was soon in the keepnet. Then after my first small F1 of the day it went quiet for 20 minutes so I big potted another 125ml of maggot in on the same line. This worked a treat and I soon put another 3 better F1s in the net.

I think there is a definite advantage to fishing one swim all day and making it work as throughout the day you’re always aware of what’s going on in the swim. I usually have half a dozen different swims and to be fair I can’t keep up with them all. Or as Mick Bandy would say, ‘’I’ve got more lines going than Pete Doherty’’.

Quarter past one soon arrived to mark the half way point (we have 6 hour matches) and I estimate I had 14lb in the keepnet so I was just about on course to my 30lb target. I hooked a decent fish which I’m saying was foul hooked and subsequently the hook pulled! D’oh! (Or at least words to that affect). For the rest of the match I would catch half a dozen fish, Ide and F1’s, and then have a quiet 20 minutes, a big kinder pot of maggots would switch them back on for another 5 or six fish. If I big kindered any sooner than 20 minutes then I would still have to weight so decided every 20 minutes to introduce a bit more feed unless I was catching and then I would simply feed a dozen maggots after every fish.

Honest John snared a lump of about 6lb and had a few other better carp but by the end of the match he only admitted to 15lb although I thought he had a lot more than that. The pegs either side (28 and 31) both tipped back where as I was confessing to 25lb but thought I may have 30lb at a push.

A quick pack away and I managed to join the weigh in at Tony Minikin who had 50lb odd to take the lead from peg 11 I think (the first one on the straight just after the corner). I watched a few more weighs and it had a fished a bit better than normal with a few 20lbs and then Bri Clay who was a guest from the Otley Club dragged his net which had over 60lb of fish in it. The only problem here being that as a club and the fishery we have a 50lb per net rule, you can use two nets and have 60lb in one and 10lb in another but with only one net in you can only have 50lb. Bri plonked his on the scales and it kept going round until the scales bottomed out at 50lb. This meant his weight was capped to 50lb and his fish didn’t even get weighed. Perhaps a bit harsh to a guest but rules are rules and others were capped a few weeks back so it would have caused far too many arguments if this one had slipped through the net, no pun intended.

There were no real weights in my section and when we got round to my peg I was shocked when lifting my net out as I perhaps had a bit more than I had estimated! I plonked 36lb 4oz the scales which would take the section depending on what Honest John had. John was being honest, nearly, and put 20lb on the scales so I had won my section.

There were no real massive weights on the rest of the lake, Nige had 18 odd and Gordon had a similar amount. Martin Dodsworth did manage to put 46lb on the scales which turned out to be good enough for fourth.

Back to Caf for a chip butty and a cuppa and also to claim my second envelope of the year. Tony Minikin won the match and Stu also won his section. The open on Cedar had fished terrible with 49lb winning, Ian Bailey had 36lb and Robbie only managed 32lb so it must have been hard. I just hope they don’t decide to come on the club matches instead!

So to conclude, my one line attack worked a treat and with a second pick up of the year I can’t grumble. At the start of the year I didn’t expect to come anywhere in any match but now with a section and 2nd under my belt I have the much needed confidence that I have perhaps been lacking. For once I not only had a tactic but a tactic that I’d employed and I’d also made it work! Role on next week when were back on Maple again!

September 28th Alders

2008-09-30T07:46:00.001-07:00

I had a week off last week as our club match was at Brafferton who have reportedly had a fish kill and its fishing pants so I decided not to bother. The week before I was on Maple and tipped back about 10lb! God knows why everywhere is fishing so poorly at the moment? I still manage to prop everyone else up every match so it’s alright for them!

This week I was to return to Alders up at the Oaks, I had a club match up here in May and also fished the Northern Intersite here where I came last in section from peg 24.

Anyway I arrived at the venue at half past eight, got my sandwich and a cuppa and sat down to watch Match of the day, first bite into my sandwich and the yolk exploded over my lap! ‘That’ll make a mark,’’ at least it’s yellow so It can’t be mistaken for anything else!

Then to the draw, my ‘’lucky’’ left hand delved in and out came……you’ve guessed it, peg 24! My left nor my right hand have given me a decent draw this year, perhaps I’ll use my feet next time, or re-enact apple bobbing in future.

With a grueller in prospect I drove right to my peg, got out the car and had a quick look at the water in front and had a think about the days attack. Whilst pondering I got shat on, literally, by a seagull, thanks for that. Although they say it’s meant to be lucky I kept it quiet as I had Mick Bandy on peg 23 and I wouldn’t have heard the end of it for the next 6 hours! I had a spare peg on 25 and then Pete Whale on 26 otherwise known as the Garlic Kid.

Now as I’ve mentioned before this top end isn’t brilliant due to it not getting as much sun as the rest of the lake, especially pegs 20, 21 and 22. So when Brian ‘’Tupper’’ Ware drew peg 20 he was absolutely fuming as he’d pegged the match and left this one out! Oops, it was amusing for us though to see him marching up and down the bank muttering to him self!

Seeing as I did so poorly last time, I decided to solely fish for carp today and go all or bust. I spoke to Ian Bailey after the last match and he said it was more of a carp peg due to it being fairly shallow up that end, around 4ft and that the Ide prefer a bit more depth. So with this in mind I set up a Pellet feeder to fish to the island which was about 18m away then have a meat line on the pole at 14m and a line to the edge of the bush on my left.

My pellet feeder rig was 0.20 Ultima on my Shimano Catana 3000 reel, a 9ft Silstar Bomb rod (which to be honest has seen better days!), I used a Dinsmore paste feeder and a had a short 4inch hooklength of 0.17 Powerline, a size 16 B911 and a hair rigged band completed the set up.

Pole lines I had a 4x14 Preston PB14 for meat at 14m on 0.15 straight through to a 16s B911, I had a shallow rig set up for over the top of this line. I also set up a 0.4g BGT Shallow Long float for a bush to my left.

Bait wise I’d kept it very simple, soaked micros for the feeder and hard 4mm pellets for the band and then two tins of 6mm meat.

At the all in I cupped in a 100ml pot of meat on the 14m line and then cast the feeder out. For the first half an hour I stuck to the feeder in hope that a couple of fish would be on the meat line. With no indications whatsoever after 30 minutes I switched to the meat line. I Shipped out and dropped a couple of bits over the top, lifting dragging, twitching, laying the rig in brought me nothing at all. I stuck with this for an hour trying to make it work, I started spraying a couple of bits of meat over the top in hope that the fish might no be feeding on the bottom but still no luck.

Bandy on 23 was catching a few bits and had also had a 4lb carp to boost his weight, Pete was catching Ide quite steadily but they were only small fish. I decided to go back on the feeder, a decision which paid off, I cast tight to the far bank and after 5 a five minute weight my tipped was bouncing off the keepnet and I was into my first fish. I soon slipped the net under a small F1 of about a pound. Next cast resulted in sharp take no sooner than the feeder had touched bottom, this time I knew it was a better fish, I was right and added a 4lb mirror to the keepnet. I stuck to this line for a couple of hours but you’d catch a couple of fish and then have to weight half an hour. I managed 4 carp and 4 F1’s for somewhere between 15 and 20lb. Bandy and Pete were still catching small fish one a chuck with the occasional bigger Ide.

With an hour to go I decided to try up in the water on the meat line as I’d now been spraying a couple of bits of meat over it for a good couple of hours and thought there might be one or two competing but not so much as sniff. I finished the last half hour dumping a pot of meat down to the left just off the end of the bush and sat it out in hope that a big carp might swim past and fancy a feast! Gordon’s hooter signalled time and although I’d still not bagged I’d definitely done better than the last time I visited the peg!

At the weigh in 40lb was winning and I knew I had no where near that, Brian of peg 20 had 21lb odd despite all his whinging, Bandy weighed 17lb odd, next was me, I put 19lb 12 on the scales before The Garlic Kid put 28lb of Ide on, maybe some of fish weren’t tiddlers after all!

Once again John Livesey put on a fine display with 19lb of carp and 30lb of Ide from the late 30’s for another match win with 49lb. Well done to John who can perhaps put his winnings towards some new front teeth, although Christmas isn’t that far away….

Next week I’m back on Maple which I’ve done terribly on despite thinking before the matches started that I could hopefully do well on due to fishing it quite regularly on an evening. I’ve been messaging one of the regulars up at the Oaks on the Oaks Banter website over the past few weeks so hopefully I can have a better days fishing after putting in a fair bit of homework. If not then there are only 3 matches in total on Maple now which will finish our season, then I can maybe fish one or two opens in order to hopefully learn a bit more before next season kicks off.

Oak Tree Leisure, Pond 1 - Sept 7th

2008-09-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

Well, after a week off the Club matches we were back this weekend at Oak Tree Leisure on Pond 1 again. I’ve had mixed results here this year, the first match I blanked and the last match we had there I came 2nd with 42lb 8oz. Overall this year the pond has fished, well, crap! I’ve also heard through the grapevine that the owners have been transferring fish from this lake to the other lakes, whether it’s true or not I don’t know but it would explain such low winning weights from a venue that last year you needed over 100lb to win.

Anyway on the Saturday I prepared my bait and checked I had some adequate rigs. My plan was to fish pellet to the island, have a couple of margin rigs and a rig for down the middle that I’d try a bit of paste. Above all else I had decided that my main priority would be to land every fish I hooked as I knew it would be a hard match and one fish could decide whether you frame or not with the average stamp being about 3lb.

I arrived at the venue at about ten to nine for a 9am draw due to a lot of the roads being either closed or flooded; luckily the draw didn’t happen until the usual quarter past so I still had time for a butty and to load up the barra.

My hand went into the bag and I pulled out peg 38, this doesn’t really mean a lot to me as I’ve only ever fished here 3 times. I knew roughly where it was and so headed towards the far corner on the nearside bank. My peg was 2 or 3 up from the corner and due to the venues recent form there was only 19 fishing on a 50 peg lake so I had a couple of spare pegs to either side. I had an aerator to my left in front of peg 39 and the island was about 14-15m away. I had no real feature in the margins apart from the spare platforms. My platform was also under 6'' of water too so it was a case of get all the splashing out of the way and then stay sat for the rest of the day!

Bait for the day I had, well, everything. I had 4 and 6mm expanders and a big bucket of micros for fishing toward the island, three tins of corn for the margins and finally some Green SwimStim paste and some hemp for my middle line which would now be towards the aerator at 8m. I also had some maggots as a change bait for the island.

As far as rigs go I had BGT shallow floats, 0.2g for the far bank and margin lines on 0.17 Powerline, the island rig had a PR36-16 and the margin a size 14. My paste rig had a Preston PB13 4x14 on 0.18 Silk Shock with a Kammy Animal size 12.

There was roughly 2-2.5ft depth on the island shelf and the margin shelf and it was 4-4.5ft next to the aerator where there was quite a large flat spot.

At the all in I cupped in some corn down the margin and planned to feed little and often throughout the duration of the match. I also cupped in a potful of 4mm next to the aerator and then proceeded to go out to the island line with a 4mm expander and a kinder pot full of micros. As expected it wasn’t hectic and I had to wait 20 minutes before getting any sort of indications. I was taking it slow and feeding a potful every 10 minutes or ideally after every fish. I was getting silly line bites so shallowed up six inches but no more bites were forthcoming so I re potted and went back to dead depth. When I finally hooked my first carp after about 35 minutes, I soon got it in, a small mirror of about 3lb. I quickly went back out, inches from the island and hooked another carp, possibly foul hooked as I pulled out and 3 or 4 other fish were spooked and sent waves right down the far bank. Seeing as this had happened quite a lot on previous visits to the lake I decided to rest the swim for ten minutes and let the fish gain a bit of confidence.

I fished the left margin with double corn but no indications; I once again potted some 4mm pellets out to the aerator and then went back to the island. I managed another 3 carp of a similar stamp, 2 on 4mm expander and one on triple maggot. So two hours in and about 12lb in the net. Cooksy had had 5 by this point and lost a couple and I don’t think Howard to my right had had any. I then sat for three hours without a bite, whether I fished the paste line, the margin or the island, Cooksy had also stopped getting any bites and Howard probably had 7 fish in those three hours putting him on for the section.

With the last hour descending upon us I potted three big pots of corn down the margin in a hugely desperate bid to snare a monster. I left it for 15 minutes before dropping my rig. No sooner had the hook bait hit the bottom and my top kit was nearly ripped out of my hands and pointing straight to the middle of the lake, I quickly put on 2 emergency sections and followed it before getting it under control and shipping back to the top kit.

I knew this was a good fish and took my time as I knew this could possibly win me the section, this was a real solid fish as when ever I lifted into it the connector would still just hover over the surface of the water and more elastic would come out. After a ten minute tussle, with no bullying whatsoever it just pulled out, gone! I was hacked off to say the least, after a few choice swear words I was tempted to pack up I was that annoyed, but persevered until the end.

Come the weigh in the whole lake had fish poorly, Howard to my right had 22lb, I weighed 11lb 12oz and Cooksy weighed 18 odd. Next was Alan Whittaker who plonked 46lb on the scales for 1st place, he’d managed a couple of proper lumps to double his weight, Nige was next with 26lb for 2nd place and Gordon put a bigger 18 odd than Cooksy on the scales, much to his delight and Paul’s dismay!

Another poor match at a continually poor venue, next week we’re back at Sessay on Maple which also hasn’t been fishing well of late, for me at least, I’ll be hoping for a kind draw and hopefully the fish will be a bit hungrier than last time! Although I imagine the persistent rain might ‘dampen’ (excuse the pun) proceedings.

Carpvale, Maple and Woodlands Pairs

2008-09-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve been a little busy so that’s why I’ve not updated. I've got three matches to fill in but unfortunately I can only skim through the details of each match otherwise I’d never catch up!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve fished two club matches and a pairs open:

August 17th – Carpvale – Cyprio + Matchpool
August 24th – Sessay – Maple
August 25th – Woodlands Pairs Match

Right, so Carp Vale, I managed to draw on Cyprio again on peg 9, I’ve always fancied this bay and it was ideally where I wanted to be, perfect! Or not! I like these pegs because you’ve got so much water to go at, it’s a good 40 yard plus chuck to the island where I had a tempting little lily bed. I had a bush on both sides in the margins and then a vast expanse of water out in front.

I started off with fishing the method to the island for the first hour after I’d potted some feed down on the margins and a 13m line. I realised when fishing on the tip how terrible my casting is, I seriously need to fish the rod more often, a lot of the venues I fish it isn’t called for so when you get somewhere like Carp Vale I definitely felt out of practice.

The first hour passed and no knocks or indications so I went down the left margin. First put in I hooked a nice little mirror of about a pound and a half. Next put in, before I had time to strike my float was 3ft below the surface tangle around the root system of the bush! With the bush being so close it was hard to pull for a break, in the end I decided the safest way was to keep the tip under the surface of the water and pull the bung out and keep pulling until it gave way! Now with 0.18 straight through it took some pulling I can tell you!

I then went out to the 13m line with a blob of paste, once again first put in the float slid away, this time though there was no real fight just a dead weight, I slowly shipped back dragging the dead weight to eventually see a colossal Bream grace my net, it only just fit in my landing net and must have been all of six and half pound! Easily my biggest Bream to date. Any way back out on the paste line and no more bites.

By this time I was getting a little bored so I decided to go back out on the tip and feed a shallow line over my paste line, I constantly dripped in 6mm pellets for an hour, then I started to see the odd swirl so out went the shallow rig. I was wind milling the rig and still firing pellets out and managed to finally hook a carp after about 15minutes, it was a good fish however when I hooked it every other fish in the swim got spooked and swirled on the top before buggaring off for the rest of the match! I got the fish in though, a big common about 9lb so a healthy boost to my other 2 fish but it definitely wasn’t enough and it meant another poor match for me, I must be due a good day soon enough!

Anyway my 3 fish weighed 16lb on the dot; Steve Hodson had one fish that weighed 17.5lb so even one of his fish was better than my tally!

I didn’t stick about for the final weigh in and results although I think Honest John may have been up there as he 70 odd pound.

The match up at Sessay was another dire affair, I weighed in 9lb 12oz, a lot of people DNW’d and it was won by Mick Atkinson on his favourite peg with 51lb. I’d been up for a couple of practices a couple of weeks before and done atrociously so sought the advice of one of the regulars and fished method feeder for the match with the correct set up and correct bait and still couldn’t muster up a weight! Not to worry.

After the poor result at Sessay Gordon and I were fishing the pairs match up at Woodlands so hopefully we’d both catch a few fish!

After a coin toss we decided Gordon was on the good lakes (Skylark and Partridge) where as I had the least favourable draw or Curlew, Wagtail or Kestrel.

Gordon ended up on Skylark 20 and I was to be on Curlew 8, Nige told me that my peg had the potential to be a match winner today so no pressure then! In fairness I never expected to win nor even frame as I’m a newbie up at Woodlands and a lot of the other guys know the place inside out.

Anyway I ended up with 52lb 6oz and Gordon weighed 24lb, so we weren’t even close, the match was individually won off the peg to my right with 140lb, oops, what was I playing at then?

It was won by Darrell Taylor and Adam Richards who had 87lb and 107lb respectively (I think???).

Anyway pleasure fishing for a week and then back to Huby where I picked up my first and only brown envelope of the year however its still fishing poorly so I’m not hoping for a weigh day!

Woodlands Open August 10th

2008-08-26T03:23:00.000-07:00

Initially I was booked onto the Starbeck club match as a reserve but at five past seven on Sunday morning Nige rang me to say someone had dropped out and that I could get on. Bonus! My plan was to turn up and fish the open if I couldn’t get on but thankfully I’d made it onto the match, or had I!? Somehow Nige had made a mistake and already had one too many booked on the match before I arrived. Not to worry though, Nige sorted me out and I was fishing the open which was to be held over two of the lakes, Kestrel and Skylark. Ideally I wanted to be on Skylark as it is supposedly a much better lake than Kestrel. I’ve also fished Kestrel before and not done very well as you may have already read!

With the draw not until 10am I sat around and had a think of what tactics to employ. The draw finally came around and I was to be on Kestrel 8, brilliant! Or not! I gave Nige a ring to get filled in on how best to approach it and he said ‘big fish down the edge and fish a pellet line at 13m and after every 3 or so fish chuck the bomb over the same line and fire a load more bait in!’’ Easy I thought!

I already had the bomb rod set up with 0.20 Ultima mainline to an 0.17 Powerline trace (12’’long) with a PR36 size 16; I also employed a hair rigged band in the set up.

I plumbed both margins and only found a deviation of a couple of inches so the one rig would do for both lines with a bit of alteration in between. The margin rigs were on 0.18 silk shock straight through to a PR36 size 14. As for the float, it was once again one of my trusty BGT shallow floats 0.2g. Elastic was 16 latex.

I also set up a line at 13m for on the deck, this was the same line and hook as the above rig but with a hair rigged band. Float was a Preston PB13 4x14. Elastic was 14 latex.

Finally I had a shallow rig to go over the 13m line just in case.

Bait for the day in accordance with the limits were: 2pints 6mm feed pellets, ½ pint of 6mm expanders, ½ pint 8mm hard pellets for the band and 3 pints of meat for the margin.

The hooter sounded at 11am to signal the all in, I quickly potted in either margin with a big pot of meat, then out to 13m with a potful of pellets. My plan was then to try and snare a fish or two down the edge before moving onto the 13m line. I tried for 10 minutes on either side without a sniff, not even a liner. So I decided it was time for the 13m line.

Whilst fishing the margins the weather had changed for the worse! The wind had picked up so that even presenting a bait at 2m was difficult let alone 13m and the rain was hammering down! This is how it remained for the rest of the match, lovely! Although we should be used to it by now!

For the rest of the match I was forced to fish the bomb on the 13m line as this was the only method I could present properly. I managed to snare quite a few fish and ended up with 34lb 12oz. once again I couldn’t snare any of the monsters from the margins to bump up my score but that’s how it goes. After the match I spoke to a few people who kindly informed me that meat doesn’t work at Woodlands, so maybe that’s why I can’t get them from the margins then if I’m feeding meat! D’oh! The bloke to my left on peg 6 battered me with 96lb yet the bloke to my right on peg 10, who is a regular up at Woodlands only managed 46lb so I didn’t feel too bad although I knew I could have done better!

The club match was won with 113lb by Vince and Pete Whale came 2nd with 111lb, so some very good weights, there were also a lot of backing weights around 60-70lb mark.

August 9th – Sessay – Alders – Northern Intersite

2008-08-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

I’d book on to fish the Northern Intersite match for www.talkangling.co.uk; we were to be up against 3 other forums, www.maggotdrowning.com, www.totalfishing.com and www.anglingforums.com.

In the weeks running up to the match we’d all been busy collecting as much information as we could about the venue. We had a team plan formulated and hopefully our hard work would see us reap the rewards, bragging rights!

I arrived up at the oaks at about half nine, the draw wasn’t until 10:30 so I had plenty of time for a cuppa and a chat, I bumped into Bri Clay who I’d recently been to White Acres with, so after a brief discussion about all things fishing, I eventually spotted a talk angling t-shirt! I met up with the guys whilst they were walking around the lake and in fairness, there wasn’t an awful lot of activity on the lake, the occasional swirl was all the fish were giving away!

All the captains were rounded up to draw our teams’ pegs, we all then drew our individual pegs from a hat and I was to be on peg 24 for the day. Not where I wanted to be but what can you do? Peg 24 is about 17m to the island and with only 15m of pole this meant my island line would be a bomb and pellet attack.

So, rigs for the day were to be the bomb rod for the island which I already had set up. Then I had two lines at 13m, one at 11 o’ clock for the carp and one at one o’ clock for the Ide.

For the carp line I was to use a Preston PB13 in 4x14, this was on 0.15 Powerline with a size 16 PR36. I also set up a shallow rig to fish over the same line with a Gaz Malman MTD2 0.2g float with the same line and hook but with a hair rigged band.

For the Ide line I used a Preston PB23 0.5g on 0.12 Silk Shock – with a hooklength of 0.11 Powerline to a Gamma Green 18. I also had a shallow rig for the Ide line too; the same as the depth rig but with a Drennan Caster float.

Bait for the day, I had 3 pints of casters for the Ide, some micro’s, 4mm hard pellets and also some 4 and 6mm expanders. I also had a little bit of meat to use as an alternative to pellet on the bomb.

At the all In I cupped in a 150ml pot of casters on the Ide line and the same amount of micros and 4mm pellets on the carp line. My plan was then to fish the bomb for the first hour whilst continually spraying the respective baits over the 13m lines to try to get the fish shallow.

I’d clipped up to the island and as long as I held the rod perfectly upright after casting the bomb would splash down within half a yard of the island. This worked well and for once I didn’t snag up on the island for the whole match. I had a banded 4mm pellet and every few minutes I would spray half a dozen 4mm pellets over the top. It became a bit of a juggling act feeding all three lines and having to use two different catapults but I managed to get my head and get on with it. I didn’t have so much as a liner on the bomb for the first 15 minutes so I changed over to double caster to see if there was anything about but still not even a twitch on tip. I stuck to it for 45 minutes though as I wanted my 13m lines to be well primed before I went on to empty them!

Eventually I gave up on the bomb and went out to the Ide line with the full depth rig, I had double caster on the hook. I swung the rig out as the way it had been shotted would hopefully give a nice slow fall through the column of bait. The rig was working as I’d expected and you see each shot register on the bristle, the only thing was the bristle wouldn’t go under from the resistance of a fish! I fished this line for nearly an hour trying to induce a bite but nothing. This was until the float started to slide off sideways, the tip buried and I struck into my first fish of the day, a 2oz roach, at least I hadn’t blanked, therefore I was able to weigh in at the end and at least pick up one point for the team!

At this point the guy to my left hadn’t had anything still but the lad on my right (who was also using his car as a pole roller!) had one carp and a couple of Ide. No-one I could see was bagging so at least I could hopefully make it up.

I decided to leave the Ide line as I’d still being spraying pellets onto the carp line. I shipped out with the depth rig armed with a 4mm expander. Generally I use the tackle shop ‘own brand’ expanders but seeing as I’d run out the past few weeks I’ve been using some Sensas ones that I received when I took a magazine subscription, I’m very impressed with them, they go quite rubbery as long as you don’t leave them too long. I’ll definitely carry on using them as the ‘own brand’ ones can go a bit mushy over the course of a session. First put in I got a liner but ignored it and then BANG! The float shot under and my pole tip slapped the water, carp on, I quickly got it in on the 14 latex and swiftly placed it in the keepnet, it was only just over a pound but hopefully this would get the ball rolling. I shipped back out and the float buried again, get in I thought! It must have been foul hooked as it steamed off and pulled out sending a giant bow wave through my swim, after a few choice words I was shipping out again but to no avail. The swim was devoid of any fish life.

For the rest of the match I swapped between the two pole lines and the bomb but couldn’t tempt a bite. Meanwhile the guy to my left where it gets a bit wider and also a bit deeper was lining the Ide up and the lad on my right was getting a few carp off the island rushes at 16m.

By the time the all out was called I had the lonesome roach and single carp in my net, what a disappointment after all the preparation I’d done.

I weighed in 1lb 7oz for last in section. As a team I think we came joint 3rd, so technically last but it was a good day out even if it did chuck down all day.

Due to the rain two of my sections had got stuck together, now with my old pole, the sections were much shorter so if this happened I could just bung them in the back of the car and usually by the time I got home they’d dried out and would pull apart. However my current pole there isn't a chance they would fit. So I went to the café just before it shut to get some boiling water to pour over the female joint to hopefully make it expand, this didn’t work! In the end it took 4 of us to get it apart, with Woody and I on either end pulling whilst Ian Bailey and another chap rolled and tapped it respectively, thank god t came apart, otherwise I’d still be there now!

Hopefully I’d be able to get on the Starbeck match on the Sunday otherwise I wouldn’t have had a days fishing this weekend!

Carp Vale - July 6th

2008-08-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late update but for the past two weeks I’ve been on a bit of a road with half a dozen of my mates. We travelled right down the west coast of France experiencing fine breads, cheeses and wine, also some not so fine wine! I fished this match the weekend I got back from Whiteacres. Seeing as we’d fished everyday for the past week I was eager to get back on the bank after a days rest on the Saturday.

I got there at about 8:45 and paid on straight away seeing as I was a little late. I’d not fished Carp Vale since I was in my junior league so it was good to be back as I did well on one match catching a few good carp on the method tight to the island on around peg 8 or 9. Seeing as we’d just got back from Whiteacres I didn’t have any time to tie up any rigs but most of them were on 0.15-0.18 so hopefully I’d still be able to haul some kippers out even though rumours of people being snapped on 0.22 were bounding around!

Since I was last at Carp Vale they’ve divided the big lake into 2, this now comprises of Match Pool and Cyprio. There is also the front pool but I’ve never fished this. We were to be on Cyprio and Frontpool today and to be fair I fancied Cyprio mainly because I’ve fished it before, so when I drew peg 18 out I was pretty chuffed!

I got to my peg and it looked like I’d be in for a nice easy days fishing. I had an island with roots and plenty of vegetation poking out and it was only around 13m away. I set up a rig tight to it comprising of a 0.4g BGT shallow long float on 0.18 with a PR36 size 16. I set up the same rig but with a 0.2g float for the left margin.

Time was called at 10am and I threw a handful of 6mm pellets in the margin, then shipped out to island with a 4mm expander and a kinder pot of 4mm pellets. The float sat motionless for a few minutes and then shot under! The pole nigh on got ripped out of my hands! I managed to haul it in, all 6lb of it. I went back out and caught another of a similar size. The next put out I didn’t get any sort of indication so shipped back in and went out double corn, it worked and I put another 3 carp all of around 4lb in the keepnet. I also managed a tench of about 2lb before my hour of bagging came to a dramatic standstill. At first I was thiniking if I can catch at this rate all match I would be on for a ton! However things didn’t materialise and I didn’t get another bite on the island for the rest of the match.

Midway through the match I saw Ian Bailey sitting on peg 8 I think, he had the majority of his pole in the air with elastic streaming out, he eventually netted what looked like a decent fish and then proceeded to fall in the lake! What was he doing? I think he lost his footing and slipped into the drink. The lad on the next peg helped him out and others gave him a cuppa and some dry clothes to try warm him up a bit.

Stu on the opposite side of my island had managed to hook it and Ian started shouting ‘that’s cheating, you cant pull it closer to you!’ I swear I had to put another section on!

I did manage to hook something that was probably nearer the description of a steam train than a fish down the margins which coincidentally snapped my 0.18 mainline. I put an identical rig on and managed to snare a tench of about 3lb. then that was it, the all out was called and by my predictions I had nearly 30lb, not brilliant but I though I might get a section from it. When the scales came round I managed to put 19lb 8oz on the scales! What?! I think my fish must have joined fat fighters when they were in the keepnet! I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think I’ll be estimating from now on, Paul Cooksy found this amusing as he thought I’d beaten him all match!

Ian Bailey even after going for a swim managed third with 64lb, John ‘Honest John’ Livesey put 75lb 8oz on the scales from peg 68ish for second and Martin (sorry, forgot your surname) managed 87lb 8oz for 1st.

All in all I enjoyed the match but perhaps I’ll have to learn to estimate before my next match.

I’m fishing the Northern Intersite team match for talkangling.co.uk on Saturday. The match is on Alders up at the Oaks so it should be a good match. Then on Sunday I’ve another club match up at Woodlands on Partridge.

Tight elastics………..

White Acres 27th June - 4th July

2008-07-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

After a meeting at the pub a few days prior it was decided that Gordon, Stu and I would set off at 3am on the Friday morning in order to get there for around dinnertime and do a couple of hours fishing in the afternoon. We packed the van the night before so we were ready to set off with no hiccups in the morning and hopefully we hadn’t left anything behind. We packed the van such that our barra’s were loaded up with our gear one behind each other and we were able to wheel them on and off on Gordies ramp. This turned out to be a godsend as we could pull up somewhere and get fishing without having to load up the trolleys every time! I didn’t get picked up until perhaps 3:20 but we should still get there before dinner. Our first hiccup was when we tried to get onto the A1 at Wetherby, we stopped at a set of temporary red lights at the roundabout for probably 5 minutes before we realised they weren’t working properly, bearing in mind its only 3:30 so the roads are hardly busy! Any way after that we were making good progress until we hit the 50mph average speed check, we were in the inside lane doing bang on 50 when an ASDA lorry started to overtake (perhaps his 50 was different to hours?), the lorry then decided to come back into the inside lane, forgetting we were there, Gordon nigh on stopped to prevent us from being crushed against the barrier, there must have been an inch of room either side, no joke! So with our hearts in our mouths and clenched buttocks we started again and this time made it down to Gordano services where we met the lads from the Otley Club. After a quick chat, mainly about fishing, a cuppa and a sandwich we were back on our way. Approaching White Acres and we only had enough fuel for……0 miles, but Brian in the van in front went past White Acres as we said we would go to Morrisons for a second breakfast, we eventually made it to the pumps, the van coughing and spluttering as we were probably running on the fumes by this point!

After another breakfast we finally made it to White Acres, we picked up the keys and headed down to the tackle shop to pick up our permits for the week and find out about matches. We’d booked some knock up matches between the ten of us so that we only had to pleasure fish 1 days in the week but Gwinear was closed due to disease so we now had to pleasure it 3 days! I don’t hate pleasure fishing but I do prefer a challenge instead of dropping fish straight back in the water.

Our first pleasure session saw us fish on Pollawyn, mainly because it was a short walk and we only needed to entertain ourselves for a couple of hours before the pub opened! Gordon (the Pensioners Pin Up) went on 9, I was on 10 and Stu went on 11. We had a van pool for the week which only counted in matches and basically it was a three way quid, just for a bit of fun. We decided when we were setting up that who ever caught the first carp would be the proud owner of a free pint off the other two. Unbeknown to us the pegs we picked are quite frankly, crap! I managed three bream and a few roach, Stu managed some skimmers and roach, Gordon caught a few roach on 11mm pellet and a Crucian which took the prize by default. In my opinion if a Crucian is classed as a carp then so is a roach, they are both members of the carp family!

So grudgingly Stu and I got Gordon the first couple of pints for the holiday. We drank into the night after an excellent meal at the onsite restaurant and by the end of the night I was pretty drunk and ready for bed! Apparently I’d said I would only stay for a bit longer but would only drink soft drinks, ‘double Jack Daniels and Coke please!’ was my apparent reply, how much truth is behind this is unbeknown to me!

Saturday morning soon came around and we were on one of our knock up matches. Today we were to be on Mawgan Porth. We met up at Morrisons for breakfast and followed the Otley lads to the venue. After a drive down some of the narrowest roads I’ve ever come across, and also passing the ‘Magic Cove’ we arrived at the fishery. Gordon made up some story about the Magic Cove being a wishing well, he told us all that his first wife had fallen in and drowned, I don’t think everyone got it!

We were to draw at 10 and fish 11-4pm, the lady read out the rules and told us that we all had two keepnets, a landing net and a towel on our peg, this was to cut down on cross contamination of different venues, not a bad idea but the landing nets held so much water your were drenched all day and the towel was smaller than a flannel, cheers!

This is very much for me a novelty fishery, once you’ve fished it there’s not much point in going again, especially not on an open as I’ll explain later. Basically you fish your top kit all day literally hauling the carp out. There only 12oz-1lb in size but they aint half fit, I used a 14 solid latex and still got run ragged all day, lesson learnt. I started off fishing a 6mm expander and dripping in 4mm pellets, after 4 fish in as many put ins the bites became silly as there were too many loose offerings making them dart about, a quick switch to paste and no loose feed saw me bag up for the rest of the match. You definitely need duplicate rigs at this place as after 50 or 60 fish your rig is looking a bit worse for wear, my silicone tubing split and instead of putting a new rig on which would take time I crudely taped it on with some black insulation tape, the bites still came thick and fast so the presentation certainly wasn’t a must have! I ended up realising the best way to fish the paste was a piece the size of thumbnail and holding a tight line to the float. I could then make up a ball of paste for the next put in without looking at my float as the laccy would simply stream out. A lot of my fish were quite small, 6-8oz but I still had perhaps 200 fish split between the nets. After packing up, which takes literally minutes seeing as you don’t need to get the rest of your pole out the owner came around and weighed us all in. I lifted my first net out which went dead on 50lb. I thought to myself if I’ve the same in the next one then I’ve done my first ton! Due to the rings getting stuck on the boards I couldn’t lift the net out properly but once I received help from a spectator the net was out and I knew I had done my ton, the second net weighed 69lb 4oz so I had a total of 119lb 40z, so I’d done my first ton it was just a shame we were only paying out top two. James Clay weighed a staggering 196lb so just missed out on getting on the board in the hut and Otley Rob weighed 143lb which was also his best ever match weight! After a tiring day we went for a meal at the nearby Two Clomes and then headed back for a few beers!

Rob and Tony arrived late Saturday night, early Sunday morning because Rob had fished the Kamasan final; he won his section so well done to him, picking up a nice medal and a few bits of tackle for his efforts. Seeing as I’d had a few it took them a while to wake me up and unlock the door to the caravan, oops!

Sunday morning quickly arrived and we were all up at 7am, getting our stuff ready for a pleasure session. We went down to the onsite café for breakfast. Whilst we were eating we decided we’d have a few hours on Jenny’s as it’s not a far walk from the tackle shop car park. We unloaded all the gear on the barrows and made our way to the slope that takes you up to Jenny’s. There is a small kerb before the slope and when I tried to push the trolley up it but on first attempt it didn’t want to go. I thought if I gave it a bit more a push and tried to bounce it up I’d be rolling, alas, no, my wheel sheared off the trolley! After a few choice words I carried all my stuff to around peg 19 ish and threw my barrow back in the van. I set the feeder up and fished the long cast to the island and caught steady all day, catching Crucians, f1’s and skimmers but still no decent fish. I caught by using riddled meat in an open end feeder that I’d dusted initially with icing sugar to get it sticky then with some crazy bait gold. I then either banded big pellets or used big bits of meat on the hook.

We called it a day and went for a walk around the lakes. Being a bit bored with Jenny’s, Gordon and I made our way to Python to try a bit of paste and tempt some of the resident big fish! Gordon had one first put in down the margins that was definitely a double! I managed three good carp all around 7-8lb and a couple of big Crucians at around 2lb a piece.

Monday was the Gold Match and it was to be on Trelawney and Nelsons. I wasn’t too sure on where I wanted to be but 19 and 20 Trelawney looked ok with the big reed lined bay and 18 also didn’t look too bad as you could reach the island. So after breakfast we did the draw and I got 18 so I was pretty pleased. Gordon was on 19 so at least we could have chat. I set up a couple of lines on the far bank at 14m, a line to my left margin and a paste line at 7m. At the all in I cupped in some corn and some pellets down the margin and a big pot also went out to 7m for later. I then shipped across to the far side with a 6mm expander and tipped half a kinder pot of 4mm pellets over the top. My float sat motionless for the first half an hour until I started to get the odd liner. I changed to a banded 6mm pellet and started to feed pellets of the same size but could only manage 5 small roach. Strange how back at home you wouldn’t even dream of a roach taking a 6mm hard pellet?! I decided to have a look down into the margin and managed to snare one carp of about 2lb and then a further nothing. I went out on the paste line but as with a lot of the lakes at White Acres the tow is very strong due to the constant aerators so I was finding it hard to present the bait properly. Whilst I was trying to get my paste line going my carp jumped out of the keepnet and back into the lake, could this day get any worse! Well I didn’t catch another fish for the rest of the day and tipped back my 5 roach.

Gordon had fished well and caught a fair few carp from down the margins and put 34lb 5oz on the scales which just beat Otley Dave’s 34lb 4oz. Back up at the pub for the presentation and Stu, Gordon and Otley Rob had all won their sections and Robbie had come 2nd overall off Nelsons 11 with 74lb odd, he fished at 17 to the island all day and because of this borrowed Stu’s Middy arm rest for the rest of the week!

Tuesday came and we had booked onto Bolingey for the day. We walked down to the bank furthest from the car park and decided to all fish next to each other so we could have some good banter and it meant people wouldn’t sit between us. We did a mini draw and I ended up on peg 19 with Stu on 18, Rob on 17, Gord on 20 and Tony on 21. I thought I’d set the bomb rod up, chuck it out and then that would give me chance to set the pole up. I fished a 3/4oz bomb, on 0.20 Ultima mainline with an 0.18 trace to a size 14 PR36; a hair rigged band completed the set up. I put an 8mm pellet in the band cast tight to the island and fired half a dozen 8mm pellets around it. Put it this way, it was solid; I had 8 carp all around 5-6lb before I even got the pole out my holdall!

I decided to leave the bomb for a bit and set up the pole. I setup a line to fish at around 7m in 7-8ft of water on paste. I had a 0.5g BGT paste float on 0.18 direct to a big Mustad size 12. I made some paste up out of some micros, potted in a big pot of 6mm pellets and sat over it. I had 3 fish in 3 put ins, all around the same stamp as on the bomb. Robbie and Stu were fishing shallow on the pole at about 13m and getting a carp a chuck by feeding, slapping the rig in 2 or 3 times and then waiting for the pole to bury under the surface. I’ve never tried shallow fishing properly before and thought this would be an ideal opportunity to gain some confidence in it.

I set up a small Dick Clegg dibber on 0.18 straight through to a size 16 PR36 with a hair rigged band. I put one number 8 stotz about 3 inch from the hook; this would give a third splash including the pellet and the float. I’d put a big pot of 6mm pellets out at 10m to get the fish in the area then started firing pellets over the top little and often, slapping the rig in. It took 5-10mins before the first fish succumbed to the 8mm banded pellet but after that there was no looking back. I managed to get 21 carp on this method to take my tally to 32 for the day and around 170lb, Robbie must have had 4-500lb of fish in the day, an awesome achievement, he had half a dozen that were between 10-15lb. Rob and Stu were both fishing shallow at 13m+ and picking up better fish, smallest of around 8lb but my fish at 10m averaged at 6 probably, so maybe fishing further out would have got me a few bigger fish, but I wasn’t complaining! This must have been the best days fishing I’ve ever had and certainly one of the best venues! I’ll definitely be going back!

Wednesday and we were back at Mawgan Porth were earlier in the week I’d done my first ton but with only 8 of us on the lake. This time around it was the open with around 20 of us including 3 venue experts including one of them who did an article for match fishing a few months back. Now I don’t want to label people cheats but there is certainly something suspect that the experts can manage to draw the ‘flyer peg’ week after week after week. Rumours were bounding around that the old guy who holds the tub with the pegs in holds the flyer between his fingers and the experts grab that off him instead of from the bucket. Other suggestions were going round that the owner only rings the experts when us newbie’s have booked on so it gives them some pools to play for, if we weren’t there then there would only have been about six of them, some open match! If I ever fish there again it will certainly be on one of our knock ups rather than an open as with more people on the match it also didn’t fish to half its previous capabilities. I drew peg 47 on the island which is meant to be a very good peg and only managed to put 25lb 4oz in the net, the match was won by one of the experts with just over 100lb. We had booked onto another open on the Friday but after the match we all booked off it due to the poor performance.

Thursday saw us all on the Rover match, on the previous night we had walked around the lakes with the lake guide and marked on pegs that we fancied. I fancied either peg 19 on Trelawney or 38 on Pollawyn. Stu was an absolute bag of nerves before the match and couldn’t make his mind up where to fish for the day so when he drew out peg 1, this unsettled him even further. He ended up going on the same peg he drew in gold, peg 23 on Trelawney and he did well getting just over 60lb. I managed number 15 but when I went into the tent I remembered peg 4 on Sycamore and decided to go here, even though the pegs I wanted were still free! What was I thinking! Lesson learnt for next time! By the time I got to my peg I realised there were 4 of us in a line which would make things difficult as I fancied fishing bomb and hard pellet to the island where as the lads either side were both on the pellet waggler so the pellets were flying all over the place all day! I fished another poor match and with an hour and a half to go I packed up and took everyone a cuppa, I’m good like that! Robbie came 2nd again using the same tactics and the same peg from the Rover, this time weighing in 124lb for another 2nd overall and Alan managed 135lb off Eery peg 5, fishing bomb onto the sand bar, so well done to those two. We all told Robbie he should have pulled his finger out as we all wanted a free holiday but he wasn’t biting!

All in all i think we all had a very good week and learnt a lot for the next time we go. Next time ideally we’ll have a match everyday, know what lakes and pegs to fish and take EVEN BIGGER pellets to avoid the roach. Hopefully we’ll have all learnt the lyrics to the Benny Hill song Ernie by then too so we can sing a long with Gordon in the van!

June 22nd - The Oaks, Poplars

2008-07-07T04:30:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I last updated so I’ve a few to add in, firstly would be my dismal trip to The Oaks. We had a club match on Poplars and I drew peg 9 which wasn’t a bad draw but I’d have preferred somewhere near the main road in the twenties.

My plan for the day was to fish tight to the island, catch a few carp early on with pellet over micros and in the meantime spray casters out to another spot on the island where I could target the Ide for the rest of the match. The first half an hour went well, I managed to pick up 3 or 4 small carp and a couple of Ide on pellet before the wind picked up and knocked all my plans out of the window. To cut a long story short I packed the pole away to stop it getting broken seeing as I was off to White Acres the following Friday and set up the bomb to fish the island. I weighed In a poor 9lb 8oz and it was certainly a match to be forgotten!

June 1st - Oaktree Leisure, Pond 1

2008-06-02T04:08:00.001-07:00

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.

The Oaks, Sessay - Alders Lake 18th May

2008-05-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

After the disappointment of my last two matches I thought I'd have a break last weekend, recharge the batteries and re-tie some rigs. The match today was to be on Alders, up at the Oaks, Sessay, North Yorkshire. Alders is a 41 peg rectangular lake with an island running the full length. Due to mass confusion we only had pegs 11-41 and there was another match on the first 10 pegs. The first 8 or 9 pegs can all be reached easily with the pole at probably just over 13m where as the rest of the lake varies between 15-25m to the island. This was in the back of my mind when getting all my gear ready, I knew I might not be able to pole fish the island so I'd have to take some rods with me too! I didn't bother with the waggler as I've not used one in years so thought it best to stick to what I know and just take the feeder rod with me as well as the pole.

After speaking to a few people, the main attack would be to fish to the island with pole if possible and pick up a few carp, before coming shorter and fishing shallow for the abundant Ide population.

So for once I felt extremely prepared and was hoping for a good days fishing, I was about due one! So I woke up at half six and had the obligatory half an hour snooze whilst watching the news, then at 7am all I had to do was load up the car and make my flask. By half seven I was on my way up the A1 and I arrived there at about 8am. I quickly joined the breakfast queue before it was out of the door and then went for a stroll around the lake with butty in hand!

Whilst walking round there were a few fish topping and a few reeds nudging on the island but mostly in the wide pegs. Apparently you didn't want to draw any of the three pegs at the top end because there always in the shade and they've never thrown up any weights in previous matches.

So, once everyone had paid in and the football card had been done it was time for the drawer, as usual everyone surrounded the draw bag like vultures and I probably only had half the pegs to pick from, I was to be on peg 18 for the day, only two pegs down the straight from pegs 'you didn't want to be on'.

What I like about the oaks is that you can drive right to your peg, so I didn’t even need to take the barrow today, I tend to be worn out after lugging all my gear to my peg and need a 10 minute sit down to recuperate!

When I arrived at my peg it looked quite good, I must admit, on first glance I thought I might just be able to reach the island so that would be a welcome bonus!

Whilst setting up I couldn't see any more fish rolling as there was a little more cloud cover but my mood was still fairly high. First things first, level the box and then straight out with the pole to see if I could reach the island...... and yes I could, be it a full 15m away which meant even the dolly butt would see daylight! Now I knew I could reach I knew I wouldn't need the feeder and so proceeded to pump my hookers and start setting up some rigs.

Bait for today was very simple, micro pellets for feeding to the island, 4mm expanders for the hook, and two pints of maggots for fishing shallow. I only bought two pints in the hope that I’d get a narrow peg and that I’d be able to fish pellet for half the match. However if I got a wide peg I could have still got some more from the onsite tackle shop.

I set up plenty of rigs for hopefully every eventuality,

Rig 1 - 0.7g body down roach float on 0.11 Powerline to a size 18 Colmic hook, with a Garbolino yellow hollow, this was to be my down the track bottom rig for the Ide, I set it up with a 'shirt button' shotting pattern to hopefully find where the fish were.

Rig 2 - 4x10 Preston Chianti on 0.11 Powerline to a size 20 Colmic hook, again with Garbolino yellow hollow. this rig was to be used over the deeper Ide line, at half depth, I had a couple of the same rigs in my tray but with a size 14 hook, I’d been told that often you can get pestered with small roach but they can't get the size 14 in their mouths! Crude but you’re not going to compete with small roach today!

Rig 3 - 0.2g BGT shallow float, this was on 0.18 silk shock to a size 18 PR36 tied with a knotless knot. The elastic for this was Middy 12-16 Pink Hollow. I know 0.18 sounds a bit heavy but it was quite snaggy with reeds to the left of the peg and other vegetation lining the bank so I opted to beef up in order to not get run ragged all day! This was to be used on the deck tight up against the island in about 3ft of water

Rig 4 - the same as rig 3 but half depth once again in case they came up.

The all in was sounded and I quickly fired three pouch fuls of maggots to 9-10m out for my Ide rig, I then went out with Rig 3 over to the far side with a 4mm expander and a kinder pot of dampened micros. My float settled and after a few seconds shot under, I struck and to my dismay it was an Ide of about 4oz, this was quickly followed by another. I was continually firing maggots out to the Ide line but went back out to the far side. This time I double kinder potted in the hope that the Ide would shove off and let the carp move in. then, nothing, I couldn't buy a bite, twitching the float, lifting, slapping, brought nothing.

With the first hour gone and only 2 small Ide in the net t was time to target them properly; I swung Rig 1 out with double maggot and watched the float, motionless once again. Up until the start of the third hour I had managed another Ide and a small roach. Looking around the lake I could only really see to my left as there was a tree and bushes on my right. I could see Nigel on peg 22 catching a few carp and Terry on peg 20 had had a few also.

Something needed to be done, what it was I didn't know, but it needed doing! I decided to go back out to the far bank with Rig 3 and sit it out for the carp. I went back out with an expander and another pot of micros, this time the float shot under straight away and carp number one was in the net! Although it was only about 1lb it was more than welcome.

I fished the rest of the match in this swim, and with it being at 15m I was shattered by the end of the match! I managed to put a good run of fish together over the lat four hours and finished with around 20 carp all the same size as the first with one bonus mirror of maybe 8lb. I also had 3 or 4 skimmers and even a perch succumbed to the 4mm expander!

By the time of the all out I was feeling fairly confident as I hadn't seen many catch through out the match, although I couldn’t see the start of my section from my peg.

As we were all packing up a few people asked how I’d got on, and for once I didn’t really have a clue, I knew I had more than 20lb but wasn’t sure how much more? When the scales came round disappointment struck, the pegs at the start of my section had all done very well; in fact the whole of my section pretty much out fished the rest of the lake.

By the time the scales arrived at my peg, John Livesey was winning with 51lb; there was a 40 odd in there and a couple of 34's. There was also a DNW and the bloke next to me had about 15lb I think. Paul Cooksy on my left had tipped back as he'd had a shocker of day to be fair, although I wouldn’t have fancied his peg due to the aerator not giving you much scope on where to fish.

I managed to weigh in 31lb 4oz, so my best result of the year but seeing as all the weights had come from my section I didn’t get a pay out.

The other side had struggled and one section was won with about 18lb.

Still, I was still chuffed to bits as for a change I’d done well in a match, I did lose a few but so did everybody else probably, or at least I hope I’m not the only losing so many fish!

After we were all packed up it was back to the onsite cafe for the full result, I met Rob Minikin and we decided to have a couple of hours pleasure fishing on Maple lake, I thought I’d be able to learn a bit, which I did as Rob is top of his game when it comes to pellet fishing tight to islands, I just didn’t realise how good until we got fishing.

I plumped for peg 50 and Rob went on 51, we both only set up one rig for the island to fish expander over micros. To cut a long story short, I had a very good couple of hours in my book, catching 18 carp before it got dark for about 40lb. My result was cast deep into the shadows though; Rob amassed 50 carp for over 100lb in two hours! We didn’t fish too dissimilar or at least I didn’t think we did but all the tiny differences Rob had over me all added up to effectively 32 fish!

We had to pack up at ten past nine as the gates get locked at half past, talk about cutting it short! I didn’t get home until about 10pm and it was shower then straight to bed and try to stretch my back out, 8 hours fishing at predominantly 15m takes it toll to say the least!

Woodlands Lakes Thirsk - Kestrel Lake 4th May

2008-05-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

After the disappointment of my first club match of the year I was hoping for a good result today or at least a good weight for a change. So far this year my fishing hasn't really got going, yet!

Today we were fishing on Kestrel up at Woodlands lakes near Thirsk; I woke up at 6:45, made my flask, packed the car and sorted out my bait. I was on the road by half seven and arrived at about 8 o' clock. With the draw not until 9am I decided to have a quick walk round with a couple of the guys. Kestrel is a simple rectangular lake with rushes and sedges over hanging the 'boards' that line the lake. On first glance the peg I'd have loved to have been on was 35 (or the end peg near the entrance, think it was 35!) When fishing in the corner pegs you have a feature to fish to, or not so much a feature but the boards that line the side of the lake. The wind was pushing strong into this corner, and it looked to be the peg to be on for the day. The opposite corner was flat calm without a breath of wind! After we'd finished walking around, a quick sausage butty and then into the onsite tackle shop to get some pellets. At Woodlands there are bait limits, and many other rules that in all honesty confuse the angler more than anything else!

Bait for the day then was two pints of meat, two pints of hemp, two pints of 6mm pellets and a handful of 8mm hard pellets and also some 6mm expanders. Up at Woodlands the rules state you’re only allowed 3 pints of pellets including your hook pellets, you also have to use Woodlands pellets. This doesn’t bother me too much although for them to distinguish that your using their pellets they put in a small handful of tiny pink pellets, no problem there you might think, I’ll explain later on!

So to the draw, I drew peg 24, it was at least on the bank that the wind was pushing on so I wasn't too disgruntled. The corner pegs hadn’t even been put it in, I presume to make it a little fairer on everyone. I got to my peg and started to set up. Methods for today were to include a 6m line at 10 o' clock, a 13m+ line at 12 o' clock, two margin lines (left and right) and a simple running bomb to finish off the array of tackle.

My margin lines comprised of 0.17 Powerline straight through to a size 14 PR36 tied with a knotless knot. The float was a BGT shallow 0.2g and elastic was Middy Pink Hollow (14-16). This rig was perhaps a couple of feet deep and was to hopefully cope with the big boys that move into the margins towards the end of the match.

The 6m line was 0.15 Powerline direct to a size 16 PR36. The float was a 0.4g BGT shallow long float and the elastic was a solid Middy 12-14.

The 13m+ line was the same as the 6m line but with a Preston PB13 4x14.

The bomb set up was a Ron Thomson 11-13ft heavy feeder rod, used at 11ft, with a Shimano Catana loaded with Ultima Power Match 0.20. To this I had a simple quick change running bead with a half ounce lead. A 12 inch hair incorporating a pellet band finished off the setup.

At the all in I potted a 250mm cup of hemp, meat and 6mm pellets to both sides and also on the 13m line. I then went out on the 6m line with a 6mm expander and kindered a pot of 6mm pellets and hemp over the top. after a couple of lifts and drops the float shot under and I was into my first carp, although only about a pound it was more than welcome, seeing as though I’d blanked the last match! I went back out again and caught a skimmer of about 3oz, how they get a 6mm pellet in their mouths I’ll never know. I managed to pick up 3 more carp of a similar size and a dozen more skimmers in the first hour but it wasn’t hectic by any means. I decided to try the 13m line and went out with double meat, the float immediately shot under with hardly enough time for it to settle, a skimmer of 4-5oz was soon in the keepnet, I then caught three or four more skimmers before re-feeding the swim and going back on the 6m line (I might as well catch milk bottle tops at 6m rather than 13!)

I persevered for another half an hour before going out on the bomb, I’d been firing 6mm pellets quite sparingly at about 25-30m and so banded up an 8mm pellet and launched the bomb out, after a couple of liners the rod wrapped round and I was into another carp, carp number 5, although once again it was only around a pound. Now, here’s my qualm with the fishery own feed pellets and then little pink ones. When your firing 6mm pellets 30m away, where do the pink ones go? That’s right, not 30m but 8 or 9m out, where you’re not feeding! Brilliant!

For the rest of the match I predominantly fished the 6m line catching 3-4oz skimmers, no matter what I did, 3 bits of meat, 3 6mm pellets, I couldn't not catch a skimmer. All through the match I’d been throwing bait down into the margins and so when the last hour arrived I sat it out down the boards.

With feeding both sides I fished ten minutes on one side before swapping to the other, I dropped down with two 6mm pellets and the float sat there stationery for ten minutes. I swapped to the other side and bingo! The float shot under and my elastic was being ripped out at a rate of knots, the fish jumped up twice in the next peg scaring the bloke sitting there half to death! Any way to cut a long story short it ran and ran until my rig came back with a giant scale attached to it, foul hooked then!

I hadn’t really seen anyone else catching, the bloke to my left hadn’t caught well all match but had 4 or 5 carp from the margins in the last hour where as the bloke to my right had suffered a similar fate to mine although he was catching 2 fish to my 1.

When time was called I was actually quite relieved as once again my match hadn’t gone as planned and I was thinking what had I done wrong this time? (Answers on a post card please).

At the weigh in I estimated I had around 14lb made up of skimmers, and the five carp. When the scales got around to me I weighed in 13lb8oz so not a bad guess. The match was won I think with just over 72lb, the winning peg was somewhere around 6, 7, 8 I think. Apparently the winner had fed 3 pints of caster shallow all match. So completely what I wasn’t doing then!

After a quick cuppa and a chat in the cafe it was time for off and time to reflect on how poorly I’d done again.

This weekend just gone I’ve had a break, mainly due to hangovers on Saturday and Sunday morning, but I’ll be back on the bank on the 18th for another club match up at The Oaks, Sessay on the Alders Lake. See what I can manage!

Sunday 27th April Pleasure Session at Brafferton

2008-04-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

The more observant ones amongst you will have noticed i didn't blog after my match last week. Following the practice session I was in two minds on how the match itself would fish. With poor weather conditions predicted and a heavy wind I was lucky to draw on the bank so the wind was on my back, so at least I had a comfortable day in comparison to others! However, I managed to hook 3 good carp in the first 45minutes and lost them all! This would have been close to a section win on the day if i'd have landed them, but I didn't. I then followed up losing the three fish by not getting another bite for the rest of the day and blanking along with half of the lake! So after blanking for the second time this year I didn't see the need to tell everyone how not to catch fish again!

Now, onto the weekend just gone, I went to Brafferton which is the far side of Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire. I've only ever been here a couple of times but a long time ago, the first club match was set here and was won with around 60lb, although i didnt personally fish it. I'd been on www.maggotdrowning.com to pick up some tips and the plan for today was set to be predominantly feeder tactics with a short pole line for back up.

We didn't actually arrive until about half twelve due to other commitments, we all plumped for pegs on the right hand side of Ghost lake as you look at it from the cafe and fished about half away up the lake. I had two islands in front of me, the one to my right was a good 25-30m away and the one to my left was nearer being about 20m although I could see right down the side of it.

I set the feeder rod up with a bomb at first in order to clip up to the island on my right, and thought if I were to fish to the other i'd have to cast 'properly'. Once clipped up I mixed up half a bag of Sensas Marine groundbait and added around three quartes of a pints worth of 2&4mm softened pellets. Mainline was 0.20 Drennan Super Specialist, to a 2ft trace of 0.13 Preston Powerline and a size 18 Gamakatsu Black. I used a simple metal open ended feeder which had a quick change swivel attached in case I wanted to change the amount of feed going in.

I filled the feeder, put a couple of red maggots on the hook and launched it towards the island. I started with maggot in order to judge what fish were in the swim, I soon changed to corn after reeling in to find tiny roach after the first three casts with no indication on the tip. I then proceeded to set up the short pole line while the rod was out. I set up a mathckit plus my number four, this was to fish at the base of the near shelf. The depth was about 4ft, i had a Garbolino Hollow Yellow, to an 0.13 Preston Powerline direct to a sie 18 PR36, the float for today was a 0.2g BGT 'shallow float'.

Whilst setting up i'd managed only a couple of small carp between 4 and 8oz. I persevered with the feeder for another hour and managed a couple more carp of a similar stamp. I then thought i'd give the feeder a rest for half an hour which would also give me chance to bag up on small roach and gudgeon on the 4m line. I'd been chucking a couple of maggots in every five minutes and hoped there'd be a few fish about, I wasnt wrong first chuck in and I was into my first gudgeon, at least I was catching I thought. After 7 or 8 gudgeon and small roach I swung the rig out once again, the rig 'didn't want to settle' so I lifted and the float bolted under water and I was soon into a good fish. I'd hooked a good carp that tried his best immitation of free willy arching out of the water three times before he got his head down and bolted. With my elastic carrying a rating of 6-10, the fish bolted for all it was worth and ended up a couple of pegs down before it stopped. I shipped back and removed the number four section and then played the fish for the next 7 or 8 minutes on the pull bung. After a very healthy scrap by both parties the fish was in the net, a common of about 8lb! I then went straight back out to see if his big brother was there, he wasn't, it was back to the gudgeon for the rest of the day.

Seeing as the gudgeon and roach had settled back in i decided the feeder was calling once again, I fed to both the islands and then roatated between them either every five minutes or every fish. I started to catch the odd carp but they were all only around 12oz with the odd better one pushing the pound.

The time was now about 6pm and with the light starting to fade and the loud roars of thunder over the horizon it was decided to pack up before it started raining again. On emptying my net I had around 15lb in there, so not a busy day by any stretch of the imagination, but an enjoyable one to say to least. We almost missed the rain but it absolutely paggered it down as we were walking back to the van, sods law that you keep your stuff dry all day only for it to be soaked on your walk back!

I've got a match at Woodlands this weekend so hopefully I can improve on my last match, i'll update the blog, so check back next week!

Practice Session at Oaktree Leisure, Pond 1

2008-04-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

With a club match on the 20th April I decided to go with a couple of the guys for a practice seeing as I’ve never even seen the place let alone fished it! I got there at about half eight to find that pegs 1-25 were booked for a match and a lot of the other pegs had been taken. I'd been informed that last weeks open match was won from peg 34 with 50lb and that the majority of the weights had come 34 upwards so all was not lost.

After much deliberation I plumped for fishing on peg 29 with John on 31 and Paul on peg 27. Peg 27 and 29 are both in the corner and fishing to the corner of the island, I can’t begin to imagine how tight it would become if someone was on 28 too! I'd put a few feelers out on the Oaks Banter site and Maggotdrowning and found that it was about 4.5ft down the track and 1-2ft across on the island. With this in mind I’d set up a few rigs at home. I’d made a couple of different rigs up for down the track and also a few more for fishing across.

With the impression of there being a lot of big fish in there I stepped my gear up to 0.18 although on reflection maybe this was too much. Whilst plumbing up I found about 18inch-2foot on the island and only around 3feet down the track so most of my rigs were useless. I ended up fishing a BGT shallow 0.2g on the island rig with 0.18 straight through to a size 18 PR36 and the same rig but with a size 14 PR36 for down the track and the margins. Both of these were teamed up with a middy pink 14-16 hollow elastic.

I started the session by cupping in a few pellets and some mashed up cat food on the margin line and then went out to the island with a 4mm expander and tipping in half a kinder pot of micros over the top. For the first two hours my float would not sit still from liners, I managed to hook two fish, probably foul hooked as I lost them both. Meanwhile John couldn’t get any indication and Paul was having similar trouble to me losing one. I then managed to snare two in quick succession, one of about 3lb the other nearer 4lb on triple maggot. Paul then managed one from the margins on corn. I decided to have a quick look on the margin line, the float slowly sunk within seconds, I struck and nothing. I dropped back in and didn’t get another indication.

The main problem was the depth of the water, when ever you struck or lifted your rig, waves would appear on the surface from the fish swirling. This meant there was fish there but they just didn’t seem to want it. We persevered until three o’ clock but nothing more was happening.

Typically it rained all day and as soon as we packed up the sun came out. Not the practice session I’d imagined but at least I’d fished the venue now and new a tiny bit about what to expect next week. The lads on the match from peg1-25 didn’t seem to be fairing too well either. The guy on 25 had a couple and one guy maybe had half a dozen whilst we were there but no one else seemed to be doing much either. It doesn’t tend to bother me as much if no one catches but when you’re not catching anything and everyone else is that’s when you start doubting your own ability.

Not to worry, I’ll just have to hope that next week proves a little better and hopefully we'll have some nicer weather to boot!

The Bank Holiday Weekend

2008-03-25T02:31:00.001-07:00

Well, the bank holiday weekend had descended upon us once again, the tough decision was made to not simply spend four days in the pub and make full use of recovery Monday but too utilise my time a little better and get some fishing done! The weather forecast couldn’t have been worse, Friday – Light showers, Saturday – Heavy showers and sleet, Sunday – Heavy sleet and snow. So in hindsight my decision to go fishing on the Sunday was perhaps a bad one, although I had been invited to fish a small knock up match with a few of the lads from the club up at a place called Morndyke in North Yorkshire. It was decided that come Sunday morning if the weather was rubbish we wouldn’t go but if the sun was shining and the rest of the days forecast wasn’t too bad then a trip out might not be too bad. So when I stirred at 6:15 and glanced out of the window to see at least 2inches of snow everywhere I quickly retreated back to my ‘pit’ as my father so affectionately calls it. However I’d not turned my alarm off so I was once again awoken at 8:00am, a quick couple of texts and a phone call later and we were heading on our way by 9:30, we must have been mad!

Now I’ve never fished this venue before but I’d been told by the guy I’d gone with to expect deep water, carp of around 4-5lb and lots of them! Pegs were dictated by his previous experiences and I was brimming with confidence by the time I was sat on my box. I chucked on a couple of trusted rigs and started plumbing up, they weren’t joking when they said it was deep! I ended up tying up a new rig, on 0.15 Power line, a BGT 0.4g float, a size 16 PR36 and capped off with a Middy pink hollow. Now the reason I chose such a light float even though the depth was around 7 feet is purely because I was fishing less than three metres away from the bank but 15m away from my peg to a marginal bush. The wind wasn’t too bad and I thought a bulk shot around 2.5ft away from the hook would give me a nice slow fall of the hook bait. If the wind were to pick up and therefore affect presentation I would simply bung a few more shot on and just lay it over depth by 6inch or so. For bait today I only had 4 & 6mm expanders which I’d pumped the night before for the hook and some 2 & 4mm coarse pellets for feeding.

So I was finally set up and shipped out 15m to the marginal bush where I tipped in a fruit shoot cap full of pellets dropped my rig in and eased it up the slope. After a biteless first hour, the weather was seemingly picking up even if the fishing wasn’t. The guy I was with had hooked one and lost it and there was no one else on the lake to make any judgements on. After a cuppa and another half hours perseverance I finally had my first bite, I struck and connected, the fish led me a merry dance and I thought I’d lost it under my platform for a few seconds however it all came good when the fish surfaced at my feet and was swiftly scooped up into the net. At around 4.5lb I thought, yes, we’re now in for a few fish, it wasn’t to be, and I didn’t have another fish nor a bite for the rest of the day. My mate only had the one carp too of a similar size to mine and we decided to sit it out until 3pm and if we hadn’t had any more fish then we would pack up and head home. Which we did!

Granted we’d had heavy snow the night before and not ideal weather leading up to this weekend but as an angler I always like to lean towards the optimistic side as I think a negative attitude gets portrayed into how you fish. But with 2inches of snow that leads for a lot of cold water entering the lake which surely won’t do any good. However we live and learn!

To top things off I thought the only way to rectify this negative result by going again on the Monday, it turns out I’m a glutton for punishment. I went up to the Oaks, near to Thirsk and fished on Maple lake peg 1, I didn’t have a bite all day, my mate only caught a roach no bigger than his little finger, it snowed on and off all day and to top things off the spike was stuck in my brolly so I basically sat and got cold and wet for six hours. Perhaps next Easter four days in the pub might not be such a bad shout!!

The Blog Begins

2008-03-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose I should start with a small introduction about myself, I was introduced to fishing at the age of 11 through my local youth club. I learnt the basics of fishing including how to set up, fish welfare and more importantly keeping safe on the bank. This then progressed into junior matches in which I fished until I was 17, I then stopped for four years but started again early last year, after getting back into swing of things I fished a couple of club matches at the back end of last year.

I'm now a member of my local club (Starbeck Angling Club) and looking forward to the run of matches which start in the next month or so.

So, although we're now into March, Sunday 2nd March was my first trip out in 2008. Other commitments and weather conditions have prevented me from getting out. Today was hardly ideal weather wise with 30mph winds and gusts over 50mph but I had itchy feet and needed to get out on the bank, especially with a new pole and some new pole floats i wanted to test out. So a trip to a small lake not too far away from home was on the cards. Not sure exactly what the lake is called to be honest but I know it as Weeton as it’s in the small village of Weeton in North Yorkshire. Now when i heard of this lake last summer my first trip was a memorable one which led to me pleasure fishing it every other weekend and often after work as it’s on the way home from the office. The lake as i knew it then looked like a donut on plan about 1-2 acres in size with a reed lined island, marginal bushes and lilies, a delight to behold. The target fish were carp from 4lb up to 22lb (supposedly?). These carp all put up a very healthy scrap and definitely knew where the nearest snag was! However when i arrived today all of the reeds had been removed from the island and it looked like the place had been flattened of all vegetation. However while setting up it was noticeable that all the anglers who were already fishing seemed to be catching pasty sized F1's quite frequently and not the previous zoo creatures I was used to.
So the big rigs were put away and i opted for a 0.4g BGT ''Shallow Long'' float on 0.13 Preston Powerline to a hooklength of 0.11 of the same brand to a size 18 Gamakatsu Black. This was teamed up with yellow Garbolino Hollow. So considering the size of float, I had five no.10 Stotz 12 inches from the hook and opted not to use any smaller droppers to accommodate for the large ripple on the surface.

For bait i had half a pint of red maggots, a handful of corn, some 4mm expanders and a mix of 2&4mm coarse pellets, which i quickly soaked to get them through the surface tension.

Due to the high winds I opted to only fish up to 7m out in open water where I had a depth of around five and a half feet. I baited up with double maggot and filled my kinder pot with the pellet mix. Within a few seconds I was quickly netting my first F1 of the day, this was swiftly followed with four or five more before the wind was too unbearable at this relatively short distance so I ended up sliding the float down a touch and fishing my top kit straight in front of me. I picked up a couple more F1's here but it was very slow and with wind still howling I decided to persevere until the wind receded. When the wind did decide to calm itself down there was a gentle ripple on the surface and it was straight back out to 7m where the earlier run of fish came from. Once again I baited up and dropped in another full pot of the pellet mix. It took a little longer to get any indications and when they did come they were only slight knocks but over time I learnt that these knocks should be met with a gentle lift, this then resulted in an F1, even though the float barely moved, I suppose this partly proves the myth of finicky biting F1's!

I'd now had a good run of fish but the light was quickly starting to fade so before i packed up i thought a couple more fish wouldn’t do any harm. The next put in resulted in a 4lb common which put up a healthy scrap on the relatively light elastic, so for the first time I had to employ the resources of the pull bung. Now I’ve not used one ever before and have perhaps been a little sceptical about them as I used to think it was just a way of bullying fish to the net but when used properly they probably make it kinder to the fish and certainly makes the anglers life easier. One more F1 followed for an altogether enjoyable if not cold days fishing. I ended up with 30 F1's for probably just over 20lb.

I'll definitely be returning to this new look, new style lake in the near future as its not only local but cracking fishing too.

I'll try keep this blog as up to date as possible and definitely put in all the club matches I fish in the near future if not all of my pleasure trips.

Tight Lines........ 'til next time.