September 28th Alders

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.