Saturday 29th April 2006 - Woodlands Lakes, Thirsk.

Not sure if I was going to go all week, but booked Friday off work, looked after the kids and booked on the match. Rang Perverted and asked what he was doing this weekend. He was planning on going on Sunday (The Oaks) and Monday (Woodlands), but with a little bit of gentle persuasion, he decided to go to Woodlands today, and it was arranged that he would pick me up and I will pick him up on Sunday. I rang Panic to find out how he had gone on during the week, and he had won Curlew with over 60lb. We arranged to meet Panic at Morrison’s to partake in a breakfast.

We arrived at Morrison’s in plenty of time, in fact we were that early, Perverted and I had eaten our breakfast before Panic had arrived. Panic arrived in his new van, complete with sign – he is going back to work, or at least going to do work that he is going to get paid for.

I was already fretting and we hadn’t even arrived at Woodlands yet!! This was due to my drawing arm (?). Wagtail, Curlew and Kestrel Lake (in that order) have the lakes from my last 3 matches (all be it, I won my section on both Curlew and Kestrel). The banter was going on in relation to which of those 3 am I going to draw again.

We arrived at Woodlands and paid my entrance fee and promptly joined the queue of people waiting for the draw. John (Ally) Allerton came and joined the queue, also in attendance we had Haircut, Chappy, both of the Addy’s, Woody, Pimmy and a few others that I recognised but didn’t know. Chappy was showing everyone a picture of his dog on his mobile phone (not sure if it was a bitch or not).

The Quid’s

A quid was struck with Gordon and £2 quid was bet with Perverted. I arrived at the draw bucket and put my hand in and pulled out PARTRIDGE 4, did you hear me – PARTRIDGE 4. Yippeee, drawn a decent lake at last. Walked past Nightie and asked him if he wanted a quid, he asked me where have I drawn, I said PARTRIDGE 4. He said ‘No’ or words to that effect.

Chappy

I arrived at my peg and had Steve Rayner (?, a lad from Whitehaven, Cumbria) to my left, empty peg 5 and none other than resident venue expert, Chappy, to my right on peg 6. He quickly cajoled me into having a quid side bet, well, what can you do, he is bigger than me. The banter was flowing freely, especially in relation to what I was going to write about him in my blog.

I made Chappy some Dacron connectors about a week ago and he told me at the time how he attaches his connectors to his top kits. It is so simple, yet looks so scary.

1. Tie a knot in your hollow core (or similar) elastic. No. 1 rule, this method only works with hollow core/hydro elastics.

2. Pass the elastic through the loop at the end of your Dacron connector.

3. Then whilst trapping the elastic between finger and thumb, pull the elastic into the rubber bead.

Hey presto!! Chappy was pulling for all he was worth (about a quid) and still couldn’t get the two to part.

The good thing about the above method is that if the elastic frays or breaks, you just tie another knot in the hydro and do it again.

Just before the match started, Chappy came up to me and whispered, do you want to hear some good advice. So there I was on tenterhooks waiting for his words of wisdom on how to fish my peg. I waited with baited breath and he said ‘Don’t eat yellow snow’. Bar Steward.

Baitspikes

I asked Chappy how does he keep his bait on, on the bomb. He replied that he used the Korum baitspikes. I replied that they have a habit of snapping off in your landing net. He replied that it happens once in a blue moon. By the end of the match, he had used 3.

The Rigs.

Chappy had a dig at me about using coffin ledgers and asked why I flatten my ledgers. I replied that ‘I don’t flatten them, I buy them like that’. I set up a free running bomb rig (as per usual), with a flat lead (or coffin lead) to a .15 Preston Powerline hooklength. The main line was 5lb Maxima Chameleon line, strong and robust. A size 16 Kamasan B911 was tied to the hooklength.

I also set up a 4 x 14 Drennan roach float (removed the wire stem and replaced with a carbon stem), on .14 MAP Carptek line to a size 16 Kamasan B911 hook. I plumbed up at 6 metres and was intending to fish pellet on this rig. This was attached to the orange hollow elastic, through the match 2 and 3.

I also set up a 4 x 14 Drennan roach rig at 14m at full depth. This was set up as above. There was approximately 6” difference in depth between the two rigs. Grey Hydro completed this set up.

My final rig was set up with two options/swims in mind. I set up a 4 x12 Carp Devil float on .15 Preston Powerline attached to Blue Preston Hollow elastic to a size 14 Kamasan B911 hook. This rig was plumbed up to fish down both sides of me to the boards. This rig was also going to be used up in the water at 14m.

All in

At the all in, I cupped in some pellets at 8m at about 10 to the hour, then potted some meat in at 14m straight out in front of me. I then threw a couple of hands full of pellets to my left, down the boards and meat to my right on the same line.

I went out on the pellet rig at 8m, with a ‘Toss Pot’ full of pellets. Dropped in, the float buried and a skimmer of about 4oz was committing suicide by trying to choke itself on my conkers.

I reloaded, and dropped in again. The float dipped then shot under, followed by the orange elastic. I played the carp for about 10 minutes (although it did feel longer). After a battle, the carp was in the landing net, all 6lb of it, in the time that it took me to get that one fish out, Chappy on the next peg had 3 carp. The top kit was ‘Javelined’ up the bank and swapped for No. 12 Vespe elastic. I dropped in again on the same line, and the same thing happened again. Another carp of about 6lb had a liking for the conkers. This one was soon subdued (well, after about 4 or 5 minutes) and in the keepnet. I dropped back in on this line and caught about 4 skimmers in a row. The carp had gone!!!

I decided to have a look down the boards to my right. Dropped in with 2 pieces of meat on the hook. The float shot under, I struck, nothing. The bait had gone. Re-baited, dropped in again the float trembled and dipped, I struck and the carp was making a desperate bid for freedom. After a brief one-sided struggle, the carp was soon in the net. Thirty minutes into the match and 3 carp for about 22lb. Not bad. It was looking as though my ‘Woodlands’ record of 39lb might go this match. I persevered on this line and to my left for the next 10 minutes, no more fish followed. And I was also beating Chappy to boot.

I then went back out on the pellet line, and caught a couple more skimmers, but alas, they are not going to win you the match. Chappy had gone out on the bomb by this time and was starting to get a couple of fish. I followed suit, but had to wait for bites. I had been feeding meat all the time on the long pole line with the intention of getting the fish up in the water and after about 30 minutes on the bomb, decided it was time to have a look. I dropped in on the deep rig and caught a tench about 12oz almost immediately. Dropped in again and had a carp about 2lb. I missed the next 3 indications, it was time to have a look up in the water.

I shipped out on the shallow rig, loaded with meat, the float didn’t move a muscle for the first 5 minutes, then shot under, the pole tip slapped the water and a carp was tearing off to the other side of the lake. I managed to control the fish and common carp of 3lb was soon in my drag net.

Why, Oh Why!!!

Does the middle part of most matches that I fish tend to be quite. Which was a bit like me. The banter had died down to a whisper, as I spoke to myself for losing the odd fish and concentrated on trying to batter Chappy off the next peg.

The wind was starting to pick up and I observed how easily Chappy was holding the pole using a spray bar. I was trying to control the pole, in the wind, by using my elbow and legs only and trying to feed meat up in the water at the same time. I am going to have to invest in one those spray bar thingy’s.

Chappy was starting to put a few fish together up in the water, the odd carp, but mainly chub. One of the chub that he caught was bigger than most of the carp that I had in my keepnet. I went down to the boards to try to ignore him and hoped that he would go away!!

After spending the next couple of hours rotating swims like a windmill, I had a feeling that I was going nowhere – FAST. Chappy had spent the best part of an hour on the bomb and was putting a tidy net of fish together.

I went back out on the bomb and was soon into a rhythm of feeding meat and waiting for the rod to get dragged in. Chappy was still catching 3 fish to my 2.

To make matters worse, the catapult decided to give up the ghost (for the time being anyway). The catapult elastic came off the pegs on the cups and because my hands, and nigh on everything else that I touched, were coated in meat fat, the elastic wouldn’t re-attach. Oh well, back out on the pellet line. I caught a few more skimmers to about 1lb on the pellet line and lost a good fish that headed for Skylark Lake. Chappy was by now, well in front, I had to go back down the side to see if a pig had turned up, but to no avail. If the big fish are there, you can soon bang a weight together as they go well into double figures and you only need 3 fish and you can put over 30lb on the scales.

All out

That was it, 5 hours, I estimated (according to my clicker) that I had about 47lb, although I hadn’t counted the weight of the small skimmers as clickers don’t count in 4oz’s!!!

Partridge 1 weighed in 29lb. The lad next to me weighed in 22lb and now it was judgement time. I put my fish on the scales and I HAD TO HAVE 2 WEIGHS, BLOODY HELL!!!. My first weigh went 37lb odd, and my second weigh went 25lb odd. Over 62lb, I had done it – set a new Woodlands record personal best on the new lakes. Now the question was, how much had the maestro beaten me by. Oh well, we shall not go into that, but a nice shiny £1 coin was nestling on Chappy’s box after his second weigh, but before his 3rd weigh. I have never seen anyone fish so hard to beat me off the next peg, wasn’t sure if it was because Chappy didn’t want to give me a quid (he’d never live it down, EVER) or if he just didn’t want me to beat him (he’d never live that down, NEVER EVER). The lad at the other side of Chappy DNW’d and the lad on peg 9 had about 40lb.

John McGarrell won the match from about Partridge 24 with over 120lb, and Sean Cameron on Partridge 22 was second, again with over 120lb.

Perverted weighed in 89lb, 117lb was next to him and Haircut got a right towelling and weighed in 72lb from the other side of Perverted.

Three quid down, one to come, Panic had a bad match on Curlew and admitted defeat and gracefully handed over a quid, whilst wiping away the tears. Nightie had 20 odd lbs from Kestrel. He should have owed me a quid.

Due to some miracle and my plan of not fishing to my best ability, I had allowed Chappy to come 6th in the match, therefore gaining a brown envelope for a section win by default. I didn’t have to go halves with Perverted this week as he had also managed to snare his section by default as the lad who was next to him got in the main frame.

If I had fished to the best of my ability, just maybe, Chappy may not have caught as many fish as he did and may have lost out on coming 6th, he weighed 98lb 10oz and 91lb was 7th. If Chappy had come 7th or worse, I wouldn’t have won my section by default.

I love it when a plan comes together.