Saturday 27th May 2006 – Woodlands Lake, Thirsk

This weekends fishing activities started early, as I had booked Friday off work to take advantage of the raffle prize that I had won on the Breast Cancer Care Charity Match that was held at Woodland Lakes, Thirsk in early April.

The prize was a 2-day fishing holiday with overnight accommodation at the Vale of York hotel, breakfast on 2 days, afternoon food and fishing for 4 people. In view of going halves with Purverted, we decided to take our good lady wives, they could go shopping whilst we were fishing, but all the best laid plans don’t always go as planned. The intended days fishing never actually transpired and we ended up arriving at our accommodation by approx 7:00 pm. We agreed to go into Thirsk for something to eat, then get back to the hotel for a few beers.

I am fussy when it comes to food, but a nice meal was had by all at the Chinese restaurant in Thirsk, then we got back to the hotel and Jack Daniels came out to meet us, well me actually. After an hour or so listening to the girls go on about how much they were going to spend and their battle plans for tomorrow, I decided to have a couple of games of pool with Purverted. We actually had 4 games, all for the usual quid, I lost all 4 for a total of £5. Shane from Elton Tackle said that I was as bad at pool as I was at fishing and a £2 side bet was struck that I would beat Purverted on the match tomorrow. Shane agreed, fool!!!

I had also paid the landlord £2.30 for a pint for Chappy when he got there on Saturday night.

Match Day

We awoke in plenty of time to get down to Woodlands and have a breakfast on the house, paid our pools (we did not have to pay the peg fee for the match as we were on a freebie) and joined the throbbing mass in the draw queue. There were a good few up there as the Superleague final was taking place at the same time. The Superleague match was the silver fish match today and the carp/anything goes match was taking place tomorrow.

I had agreed a quid with Nightie, Chappy, Panic and the obligatory £2 with Purverted. Due to my recent form of drawing at Woodlands, if I was on any lake apart from Partridge or Skylark, I was cheating as the only lakes being used for the open match were Partridge and Skylark. I put my hand in the bucket and pulled out Wagtail 10.

I checked my ticket and found that I was actually on Skylark 8, I was so used to being on A N Other Lake, I was actually gob smacked.

I was in excellent company today, I had venue regular Mark ‘Coyney’ Coyne on to my right on Peg 9, Gary Hamill? (Daiwa Dorking) on peg 7 (he had spent all week on the venue practising for the Superleague), former Kamasan champ Dean ‘Deano’ Smith on peg 6, and my quid, oops I meant Chappy, within earshot on peg 11. Both Young Adam and Gaz Malham were behind me on Partridge Lake.

Plans of attack

I set up 3 rigs for today;

Rig 1. a 0.3gm Series E float for the 6m line. This was set up on .16 Maver Genesis Line straight through to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook.

Rig 2. a 0.5gm Drennan Roach for the 14m line. This was set up as above.

Rig 3. a 4 x 12 Preston ‘Durafloat’. This rig was plumbed up down the side where I found 18” of water. I was also planning on using this rig for up in the water fishing at 13m. I set this rig up on .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook.

My bait table consisted of 2.5 pts meat, 1 large tin of hemp, (meat and hemp were my main methods of attack today), ½ pt 6mm hooker pellets and 1pt of micro pellets for feeding, should I need to go on them.

All In

At the kick off, I cupped in some meat and hemp on all three lines and I started to flick a couple of bits of meat out to 14m.

I baited up the 6m rig with meat, and settled down to wait for the float to shoot under. Coyney had had 4 carp and 1 skimmer and Gary had 2 carp and lost one and I had a total of nothing, zilch, nada, not even an indication. As everyone is in a line it is possible to keep an eye on what others are doing around you. After about 45/60 minutes, most people seemed to have gone a little bit further out. Coyney and Gary followed suit, this left the 6m line to me. My float dipped, and a carp of 3lb was soon in the rubber coated landing net. I baited up with meat again, and dropped in, another carp of about 4lb was in the net, this is easy or so I thought. I managed to claw back Coyney with a total of 5 carp, this also put me in front of Gary on the next peg. Coyney had managed to foul-hook a couple of carp on the 13m line and was now trying to get the carp competing up in the water (it is an unwise move to leave Coyney to this line all by himself for too long).

I was now about 1.5 hours into the match and I decided that it was time to have a look on the 14m line. I shipped out with the full depth rig on, a piece of meat on the hook and a few pieces of hemp and meat in the ‘tosspot’. I dropped in, the float dipped, I left it, it buried, nothing!!. I repeated the process, the float buried and a carp was attached, but not for long, I started to ship back and it came off.

I decided that the time was right to go out on the shallow rig, I had been feeding between 2 – 5 pieces of meat periodically over the 14m line, and the foul hooked fish was an indication that they were up in the water and I was going to bag up. That was the plan/idea anyways!!!

After a fruitless 15 minutes, I went out on the bomb, casting just past the pole line. I managed to snare 4 fish on this line. I looked up towards Chappy, who whispered or at least attempted to, 'cos' I couldn’t hear him, asked me asking me how many. I said 7 carp and a barbel. Chappy was struggling (my quid was looking good unless he was telling porkies). I was now in front of both Coyney (who’d had 6 carp) and Gary ( I would estimate that he’d had 5 or 6 carp), things were looking good.

Deano was rotating all of his lines (deep, shallow, 6m and bomb) trying to snare fish off each line and I could see that he was putting the odd fish together.

The Final Hour

With about 1 hour of the match remaining, I decided to come back in on the 6m line, but I changed it from a meat line to a pellet line. I cupped in some micro pellets and 3 or 4 ‘conkers’. Baited up with a single conker, the float shot under and a carp of 4lb was soon in the net. I observed Deano playing a fish, he was on his top 4 kit and the carp was in the middle of the lake (after speaking to him at the end of the match, he was using the hollow core 12 – 20 elastic). The fish was about 5lb.

I managed to get 1 more carp of this line before both Coyney and Gary cupped some bait in either side of me. I baited up and waited a little bit longer (enough time for Coyney to get 3 carp) before I managed to get another fish. Coyney’s main 6m line was angled towards me, so I cupped some bait towards him, but still within my peg. Coyney’s peg seemed to get a little quieter for the next 10 minutes anyway.

With about 2 minutes of the match remaining, a fish topped halfway between Coyney’s and my float. You know how you sit there and you think, go on, go under. Well, it did go under, only it wasn’t my float that went under it was Coyney’s. He soon had a carp of about 6lb in the keepnet. In the last hour I’d had 3 fish and Coyney had had 5.

Well, that was it, now for all the questions, had I beaten Coyney? He was admitting to 13 carp, I had 14 (it was going to be close), Would Purverted owe me £2? Would I be handing half of it over to Chappy? Would Shane pay up?

Here goes;

Chappy had walked past me and handed me my quid as he passed, he was that confident that I had beaten him. I could see that Purverted had tipped back (he later told me that he had 4 carp, a couple of skimmers, a tench and 2 barbel for about 15lb). The scales soon arrived and Chappy had weighed in 31lb, Coyney had weighed in 49lb (had I beaten him, I wasn’t sure). I weighed in 37lb. I’d had more carp and less weight, ho hum. Gary on the next peg had weighed 41lb and Deano had 54lb for 6th overall.

Chappy had paid his quid, I paid panic his quid, he weighed in over 50lb, Nightie weighed in 46lb, I went looking for him to pay his quid and he wasn’t around. Both Shane and Purverted declined to pay, I will get it back next time. I was still even at the end of the match as people that owed me some readies, didn’t pay or did a disappearing act.

Whilst we were eating breakfast, my missus was dribbling over the baking that Eva was doing, there were some very tasty looking cakes, raspberry cake and strawberry cake to note. When I ordered my afternoon snack, I also asked if I could have a piece of raspberry cake to take home for the good lady wife. I got a chip butty and a piece of cake and a chip butty for Purverted, all of this was gratis, free, cost nothing.

When I got home, I polished the quid that I got from Chappy and put it in on of those ring pouches that you can get from the jewellers.

Darryll (T.O.G.I.T.V.) Taylor won the match with over 80lb from Partridge (17, I think), over 60lb was second and a string of 50lb weights followed. It had fished a little hard and no one had really got a good run of fish together. Hey there is always the next time. Purverted has booked himself on for next Saturday, what about me? He didn’t book me on, I think that he is sick of losing his £2’s.